14 DAY TRIAL // Valve has finally released Portal 2 on Steam for Linux, although it's just in the beta stages. The implications of this release are bigger and more important that the apparent launch of a single video game.
The entire Linux community has been wondering what is happening with the development of Portal 2 for the open source platform. Valve doesn't make a habit of informing people about its development progress on certain projects (cough, cough, Half-Life 3), and Portal 2 was smack in the middle of this category.
The official forums, communities, and pretty much any Linux gamer who can hold a mouse, have been anxious about Portal 2 for a couple of reasons.
The first one is that Portal 2 is an awesome game and the community that has been built around it is very similar with the Linux one. Thousands of people are building maps and making amazing puzzles that are played by millions of people every week.
It's only natural that Linux players would want a piece of this action and, with the new Beta made available by Valve, the Portal universe is now opened.
“We have just made Portal 2 available in Beta form on Linux; to access it, you need to opt into the Beta from the Portal 2 properties in your Steam Library. We look forward to your feedback; head to our dedicated tracker to report issues and look at know issues,” reads the announcement from Valve.
They haven't published any details about this release, but the developers are providing a dedicated tracker on Github that should be more than enough to register any problems that users might encounter.
The second reason why the release of Portal 2 is of paramount importance is the fact that its development for Linux is tightly connected with the development for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
CS: GO uses the same engine as Portal 2, with some modifications. The developers even said at one point that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive would only be ported to Linux when Portal 2 is released on the open source platform.
Well, the new Portal 2 for Linux is now out and, despite the fact that it carries a Beta stigma with it, the game is quite stable. Even better, users have access to the Workshop and can download any custom map they choose.
The system requirements for the Linux platform haven't been published yet, but they shouldn't differ too much form the ones for Windows: a 3.0 GHz P4, dual-core processor, a video card with 128 MB of memory and Pixel Shader 2.0b support, and at least 7.6 GB of HDD space.
Enjoy Portal 2 for Linux!