The long-awaited Linux version of Valve's Steam gaming platform has been in gestation for a while, but the company has just announced plans for its first beta. It'll be to a very select audience, mind — while you can apply for the beta right now, Valve says it's "primarily interested in experienced Linux users" and an earlier blog post says that just 1,000 spaces will be available.

If the information in that post holds true, the beta will only support a single game and be available to users of Ubuntu 12.04 and above. Still, we suspect that'll be enough for Linux users eager to test out reports of faster-than-Windows performance for themselves.