The Steam Controllers have started to ship to gamers across the world, and some people are already using them to play games. Unfortunately, the Steam Controllers don't work by default with Ubuntu, but there is a workaround in place.
The fact that Steam Controllers don't work in Ubuntu is not new information. In fact, a couple of bugs on Launchpad were opened a while back, and it looks like the Ubuntu devs didn't take care of them. It's not clear why they didn't fix the issue, but the fact of the matter is that they don't work with Ubuntu OSes. A workaround is available; it's not ideal, but it should only be a temporary solution.
A question and an answer were posted on askubuntu.com to prevent the eventual problems that the community would encounter. As I said before, it's not the easiest or most elegant solution, but at least it's possible, and it won't create too many issues, with the exception of the fact that you might need to download a lot more packages than you would want.
Here's what you need to do
Developer Jorge Castro wrote this on askubuntu.com, "This is a workaround answer, the controller will be supported in an update to the Steam package, which is in progress."
Users will need to create a udev file:
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="28de", MODE="0666"
# Oculus HID Sensor naming and permissioning
KERNEL=="hidraw*", SUBSYSTEM=="hidraw", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2833", MODE="0666"