linux Steam for Linux Beta Now Available

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Steam for Linux Beta Now Available

Nov 6, 2012--Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the launch of a limited access beta for its new Steam for Linux client.

The Steam for Linux Beta client supports the free-to-play game Team Fortress 2. Approximately two dozen additional Steam titles are now also available for play on Linux systems. Additionally, the Steam for Linux Beta client includes Big Picture, the mode of Steam designed for use with a TV and controller, also currently in beta.

?This is a huge milestone in the development of PC gaming,? according to Gabe Newell, Valve President and co-founder. ?Steam users have been asking us to support gaming on Linux. We?re happy to bring rich forms of entertainment and our community of users to this open, customer-friendly platform.?

The Steam for Linux Beta client is currently available for installation on Ubuntu 12.04. ?An overwhelming majority of beta applicants have reported they?re running the Ubuntu distro of Linux,? according to Frank Crockett, a member of the Steam for Linux team, ?We intend to support additional popular distros in the future; we?ll prioritize development for these based on user feedback.?

Within its first week, Valve received over 60,000 responses to its request for participants in the Steam for Linux Beta. The first round of beta participants has been selected from this group of respondents.

The Steam for Linux Beta client will become available to a widening group of users over the course of the beta. Subsequent participants will be chosen among survey respondents, and once the team has seen a solid level of stability and performance across a variety of systems, the Steam for Linux client will become available to all users of Steam.

Steam is a leading platform for the delivery and management of PC and Mac games with over 50 million accounts around the world and over 2,000 titles offered.

More details regarding Steam for Linux, including community discussion, beta participants? feedback, official announcements and syndicated news can all be tracked on the new Steam for Linux Community Hub at http://steamcommunity.com/linux.

Source: Steam News

[Noir Angel]

I'd love to give this a try if nothing else to see how their games play on Linux. Shame it's currently a limited beta :(

[guitmz]

Y no 64bits love? damn haha

anyway, links:

http://media.steampowered.com/client/installer/steam.deb

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/steam/

[Noir Angel]

It won't install on 64 bit versions of Linux?

[guitmz]

idk about arch, but i'm on debian x64 and wont install even with dpkg --force-architecture .. some dependencies missing (but they cant be fixed :/ )

[ShMaunder]

I've just updated my beta request because I was never asked any survey questions. Turns out it was a bug on Valve's side which is annoying hence why this provide a link to update it.

I hope I get access on the next round.

[Noir Angel]

idk about arch, but i'm on debian x64 and wont install even with dpkg --force-architecture .. some dependencies missing (but they cant be fixed :/ )

Well that's a pretty silly limitation, and hopefully one they will address.

[ShMaunder]

idk about arch, but i'm on debian x64 and wont install even with dpkg --force-architecture .. some dependencies missing (but they cant be fixed :/ )

I've managed to install and get to the login screen on 64 Ubuntu without problems. I though Multiarch took care of this?

[Reacon]

I've managed to install and get to the login screen on 64 Ubuntu without problems. I though Multiarch took care of this?

This!

And I hope my non-Ubuntu response to the survey gets accepted next wave :(

[Acac1aStrain]

I'm convinced Gabe Newell is only doing this so he can continue bringing home the bacon...he needs a lot of it.

[guitmz]

yeah i'm on debian, not ubuntu.. maybe because of that?

[ShMaunder]

yeah i'm on debian, not ubuntu.. maybe because of that?

But Debian is the maintainer of Multiarch I believe. Can you install it maybe (I don't know anything about it really)?

Anyway, this is so annoying :p -

[The Laughing Man]

I'm convinced Gabe Newell is only doing this so he can continue bringing home the bacon...he eats a lot of it.

fixed. :p

Also how do you know if you actually got into the beta?

[Karl L.]

idk about arch, but i'm on debian x64 and wont install even with dpkg --force-architecture .. some dependencies missing (but they cant be fixed :/ )

I would be interested in exactly what problems dpkg is giving you installing the package. As a heavy Debian Wheezy (AMD64) user, I am planning on installing Steam on it once I get a copy. I have some experience in Debian packaging; maybe I can help if you post the error message.

Without any further information, it sounds like your problem may be related to the fact that you are invoking dpkg directly to install the package. Unlike apt-get or aptitude, dpkg can't resolve dependency issues by installing packages from the repository. Instead of using dpkg -i <package_name.deb> to install the package directly, try gdebi -n <package_name.deb>. Also, if you already forced the package to install with broken dependencies, you can fix those problems as follow:

# apt-get install -f
# apt-get autoremove
# apt-get autoclean
[/CODE]

[guitmz]

guitmz@unix:~$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
[sudo] password for guitmz:
guitmz@unix:~$ sudo dpkg -i steam.deb
dpkg: error processing steam.deb (--install):
cannot access archive: No such file or directory
Errors were encountered while processing:
steam.deb
guitmz@unix:~$ sudo dpkg -i downloads/steam.deb
(Reading database ... 143984 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace steam 1.0.0.14 (using downloads/steam.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement steam ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of steam:
steam depends on multiarch-support (>= 2.15-0ubuntu10.2); however:
  Version of multiarch-support on system is 2.13-35.
steam depends on libjpeg-turbo8; however:
steam depends on libcurl3-gnutls (>= 7.16.2-1); however:
steam depends on libogg0 (>= 1.0rc3); however:
steam depends on libpixman-1-0 (>= 0.24.4-1); however:
steam depends on libsdl1.2debian (>= 1.2.10-1); however:
steam depends on libtheora0 (>= 1.0~beta1); however:
steam depends on libvorbis0a (>= 1.1.2); however:
steam depends on libvorbisenc2 (>= 1.1.2); however:
steam depends on libvorbisfile3 (>= 1.1.2); however:
steam depends on libasound2 (>= 1.0.23); however:
steam depends on libc6 (>= 2.15); however:
steam depends on libcairo2 (>= 1.6.0); however:
steam depends on libcups2 (>= 1.4.0); however:
steam depends on libdbus-1-3 (>= 1.2.14); however:
steam depends on libfontconfig1 (>= 2.8.0); however:
steam depends on libfreetype6 (>= 2.3.9); however:
steam depends on libgcc1
dpkg: error processing steam (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
steam
guitmz@unix:~$
[/CODE]

no luck :(

and also already tried apt-get install -f and autoclean and autoremove and gdebi wont let me install, wrong arch it says:

[CODE]
guitmz@unix:~/downloads$ gdebi -n steam.deb
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Building data structures... Done
Building data structures... Done
This package is uninstallable
Dependency is not satisfiable: multiarch-support (>= 2.15-0ubuntu10.2)
[/CODE]

it seems that debian users still does not have the needed version of multiarch and of some dependencies.. btw, im on wheezy as well

[Noir Angel]

I do recall hearing that they were initially targeting it primarily at Ubuntu users.

[ShMaunder]

If you get a window about installing X SWAT PPA, then it deactivates the exclusive model on the "Unauthorised" window.

I'm now free roaming around the Steam Client however, they don't provide any games unless you have been granted access. Chat works well though.

[guitmz]

yeah but i didnt though that wont work with x64 multiarch 2.13...

maybe someone with a x86 debian version can install it (as it seems to be multiarch issue - maybe those dependencies can be installed on x86) but i cant test here hehe

[f0rk_b0mb]

I'll try it on my Kubuntu 12.10 x64 after I'm done downloading Crysis 3 Alpha. :)

[Praetor]

oh glorious day! :woot:

[Karl L.]

yeah but i didnt though that wont work with x64 multiarch 2.13...

maybe someone with a x86 debian version can install it (as it seems to be multiarch issue - maybe those dependencies can be installed on x86) but i cant test here hehe

According to the gdebi output you posted previously, multiarch is the only issue preventing installation. I though that it was a Debian project, so it doesn't make any sense that Ubuntu ships a later version than is available in unstable or experimental. I may have a solution for you though. I'm trying to work out the kinks at the moment so I can post a coherent procedure.

[guitmz]

ok, sounds good..

but well, i have no idea if the ubuntu package is a custom one (it doesnt seems to be, im probably talking sh*t)

[Karl L.]

Sorry that I was gone so long, but it took a while to test everything and create a good, reliable guide for installing the current Steam for Linux beta on Debian 7.

Backporting multiarch

The reason that Ubuntu 12.04 has a later version of multiarch than Debian 7 is because multiarch is directly tied to the version of libc installed on the system. Debian 7 will ship with libc 2.13 while Ubuntu 12.04 shipped with libc 2.15. While it is extremely unlikely that Steam relies on anything in libc 2.15 that is not also in 2.13, since Steam is closed-source no one outside of Valve can recompile it from source against libc 2.13. Therefore our only alternative to get Steam running on Debian 7 is to upgrade Debian's libc to 2.15. Follow the instructions below to compile Ubuntu 12.04's libc for Debian 7.

# Install build dependencies for multiarch-support.
sudo apt-get install build-essential devscripts
sudo apt-get build-dep multiarch-support

# Create a build directory for the package.
mkdir ~/multiarch-backport
pushd ~/multiarch-backport

# Download the multiarch-support source package from the Ubuntu 12.04 repository.
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/e/eglibc/eglibc_2.15-0ubuntu10.2.dsc
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/e/eglibc/eglibc_2.15.orig.tar.gz
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/e/eglibc/eglibc_2.15-0ubuntu10.2.diff.gz

# Extract and build the Debianized source. (This may take a while... be patient.)
dpkg-source -x eglibc_2.15-0ubuntu10.2.dsc
cd eglibc-2.15
dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc
cd ..
rm -rf eglibc-2.15

# Install the packages you compiled.
sudo dpkg --force-overwrite -i libc6_2.15-*.deb libc6-dev_2.15-*.deb libc6-i386_2.15-*.deb libc6-dev-i386_2.15-*.deb libc-bin_2.15-*.deb libc-dev-bin_2.15-*.deb multiarch-support_2.15-*.deb nscd_2.15-*.deb

# Move out of the build directory and (optionally) delete it if you don't want to keep the packages.
popd
rm -rf ~/multiarch-backport
[/CODE]

[b]Installing Steam[/b]

Once you have your version of multiarch upgraded to 2.15, installing Steam is relatively easy. All other dependencies can be satisfied directly from the official Debian repository. However, you cannot install the Steam package directly using dpkg unless you already have all dependencies installed from the repository, which is unlikely. Instead, use the following procedure (assuming that the Steam package is located in the current directory and named [i]steam.deb[/i]).

[CODE]
sudo apt-get install gdebi
sudo gdebi -n steam.deb
[/CODE]

[guitmz]

Yes, that was great! Worked :)

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

I installed Steam on my Ubuntu 12.10 x64 fine. I used the DEB file. Only, it doesn't let me log in as it is a closed beta, and I don't have access to it.