It's now open to everyone. Let the golden age of gaming on Linux begin! (Maybe. Mostly I'm just stoked that I'll no longer see awful articles like this one in Greader - 'some shitty rip-off of an ancient console game has been released! Yay!')
I got this to work on Debian 64 (wheezy, using xfce as my desktop environment). I'm told the Ubuntu version is much simpler to install, but I didn't want to change distros and I had fun making it work. There's a good guide here on how to do it. This thread was also useful if you're using the proprietary nvidia drivers (you need to tell linux where the 32-bit OpenGL library is). I tested the HL1 beta, FTL, Dungeons of Dredmor, Team Fortress 2 and Amnesia and they were all working. The steam UI can lag a bit, but the games themselves seemed to work fine. This is really exciting, I hope more developers start making Linux builds. On a related note, I realized you can play System Shock on Linux using dosbox.
Here's the current lineup for games that support Linux. 44 games. Now the SteamPlay banner is one happy family.
There are actually a couple more - both 'Half Life' and (I think) 'Counter Strike' have had Linux versions quietly released in the past week.
'Fraid so. Each of the different distros has its own logo but the penguin (Tux) is the logo for the kernel which makes it the most suitable symbol for representing the super-set of Linux distros. I actually like Valve's grey-scale version of it but otherwise I'd love if the foundation that maintains the Linux kernel would re-brand. Not least because it would reduce the amount of crappy games starring Tux that I referred to in the OP.
Hmmm. I have a feeling that the problems I'm having with Steam in Windows at the moment might have something to do with the fact that I symlinked my Linux Steam folder to my Windows one. So, don't do that.
I always cracked up about the OSS zealots: Linux has games! Like TuxRacer! No, idiot, I'm a gaming zealot, and THAT DOES NOT COUNT.
And 'Counterstrike: Source' (amongst others) is now available. I think we're nearly up to 2005 at this point.
Just installed it on my laptop. So far, so good. ...Crusader Kings 2 is on there ? Ok, from my point of view Steam on Linux is a success.
Just as a general update: that list of Linux supported games is now up from 44 to 114. The only notable missing Valve titles are Portal 2 and Dota 2 I think.
