Steam Linux client does not run on distributions other then Ubuntu

[sagiben]

Hi,

Can't install Steam Linux client on a different distribution.
Since ubuntu in not the only Linux distribution, I would like to see installation packages for other distributions like Fedora, OpenSUSE and others.

I tried to use alien to convert the deb package to rpm and got some errors while running the client
for example

/etc/os-release: line 2: syntax error near unexpected token (' /etc/os-release: line 2:VERSION = 12.1 (Asparagus)'
/home/sagi/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam: /lib/libc.so.6: version GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by /home/sagi/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam) /etc/os-release: line 2: syntax error near unexpected token('
/etc/os-release: line 2: VERSION = 12.1 (Asparagus)' /etc/os-release: line 2: syntax error near unexpected token('
/etc/os-release: line 2: `VERSION = 12.1 (Asparagus)'

[ahstro]

I'm not 100% sure why there's only an official Ubuntu release, but there are user made packages and workarounds for a few other distributions. If you're an Arch user, there's a package in the AUR; here's a thread on making it work in Debian; and someone said that there was a Fedora package available here: http://spot.fedorapeople.org/steam/steam.repo but I get a 404 error at the moment; OpenSUSE seems to have a package here: https://build.opensuse.org/package/show?project=home%3Aryanbach&package=steam

As you see, there are a lot of options, you just have to look around.

[xammer85]

Hi! I'm using OpenSUSE 12.2 64 bit version and may be this screenshot can help you.

[prusnak]

i've indeed created package for openSUSE (and it works for Fedora as well) using the Open Build Service - https://build.opensuse.org/package/show?package=steam&project=games

openSUSE 12.2 and other recent distros work
openSUSE 12.1 is indeed broken and probably some older distros as well (because the values in /etc/-os-release are not quoted and the script relies on it)

[jduepmeier]

http://www.webupd8.org/2012/12/steam-for-linux-now-available-to-all.html

[prusnak]

@jduepmeier the problem still remains. your article is just a simple (and not clean) way how to get steam running, but does not fix the mentioned bug.

[sagiben]

Yes, I'm using openSUSE 12.1 and can't use steam,

[micb25]

The above mentioned steam RPM for openSUSE 12.2 works fine for me.

[plytro]

Dupe of #13 and #73

[xammer85]

How to update legacy OpenSUSE versions to actual (12.2)
Disable all existed repos
#zypper mr -da

Add new repos
#zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/12.2/repo/oss oss
#zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/12.2/repo/non-oss non-oss
#zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/update/12.2 update
#zypper ar http://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/12.2/ nvidia
Last - is optional for nouveau Nvidia driver. But for steam strongly recomended use proprietary driver

Clean cache
#zypper clean —all

Make rebuild package database
#rpmdb —rebuilddb

Update repos info
#zypper ref

Update distr
#zypper dup

I try it on to work computer, home and my laptop. All is fine.

[sagiben]

xammer85, it doens't matter because I currently can't upgrade to 12.2 !!!
FYI, openSUSE and other distrus are not like ubuntu that you must upgrade every half a year.
In order to support older versions of openSUSE a steam project should be opened in build.opensuse.org
but I guess it should be opened in pmbs.links2linux.org because steam is not opensource.

xammer85, don't know if you aware, but the fact that it works on your pcs running opensuse 12.2 doens't mean that "all is fine"

[MrSchism]

The reason they're only releasing a .deb for now is to work out as many issues with the actual client as possible; introducing other OSes has historically caused additional bugs.

As well, there are more deb/dpkg based distros (and packages) out there, despite .rpm/yum being the linux standard (which ignored any input from Debian, Ubuntu, and Canonical).

[Mailaender]

We don't need this in Pacman repositories as this currently only packages the installer (bash script, .desktop file) which downloads Steam then. Have a look at http://en.opensuse.org/Steam and http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Team_Fortress_2 to get things to work for you. You definitely need to upgrade from 12.1 as this will EOL in spring 2013 and you should not manually try to upgrade glibc etc. as this will break your system. In fact you need 12.3/Factory for current stable Mesa 9.0.1 which Source engine games require, but this can pretty safely be upgraded using X11:XOrg repositories (see SDB wiki entry).

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Seems like latest updates already address this issue by Steam Runtime.

[XRevan86]

Why Steam do parse PRETTY_NAME in /etc/os-release? There might be everything — it is pretty name.

[gdrewb-valve]

Closing this issue as Steam does run on multiple distros. Specific problems in Steam should (and often do already) have specific issues opened for them.