Steam for Linux is finally out of the internal beta and out into the world. Valve has just announced that they’ve open the public beta to a limited number of people. Even if it’s a little later than we had anticipated, Valve is finally making its moves, reaching out to the community for the external beta. When Valve announced Steam for Linux, a little over a month ago, they’ve also said that before the client is made public, there would also be a closed internal beta. That stage is over and the Linux community must do its part. Don’t get your hopes up, there are some hurdles to pass through, but it is normal for access to any beta, for any kind of software or game. Interested users will have to complete a survey so that Valve better understands the needs of the Linux gamers. “We're looking for Linux gamers to install and test our new Steam for Linux client. We are primarily interested in experienced Linux users,” states the announcement. Users will have to specify for how many years they’ve been using Linux, what distribution they are using (choice are Ubuntu, MInt, Debian, or Fedora), what kind of desktop manager, if they are playing games through Wine, and what their preferred game types are. Valve is also interested in the users’ hardware. “For this beta program, we are interested in testing on a wide range of hardware configurations - ranging from a single laptop to a multi-monitor tower setup with the latest graphics card,” states the survey. The survey ends with a simple announcement. “We will take a few days to process the results and make our selections. Selected people will be notified via their Steam account and the beta will begin shortly afterwards.”