Steam

Valve has released a native (currently x86-only) Linux client for their Steam platform available to all steam users.

Notice
The .deb released by Valve is actually only an installer that pulls the actual steam version from their servers and places it as well as the games into ~/Steam/. So, the official package manager cannot be involved in managing games and steam updates.

Games

 * Official Valve Linux Games List
 * CDR List (includes future (beta) releases for Linux)

Prerequisites
Things you need in order to run steam or even the steam-installer.

Dependencies
If you don't plan on using the ebuild then you can create a set to conveniently manage and update the steam dependencies without changing your world file. Otherwise skip this section. After you have created the file /etc/portage/sets/steam as shown below, run:

32-bit chroot on amd64
The emul-linux-x86-* packages are binaries, and are not kept very well up-to-date. For this reason, you will probably experience better performance and compatibility with games on 64 bit linux if you run in a 32 bit chroot.

Then create a wrapper script to chroot in, su to steam user, then run steam.

Kernel
You need tmpfs activated in your kernel and mounted.

Installation
Download the .deb archive found here, extract and put the following files into the same directory: Make steam executable and run it. There are also a few icons in the .deb archive.
 * bootstraplinux_ubuntu12_32.tar.xz (from the .deb archive)
 * steam.desktop (from the .deb archive)
 * steam (get the script here or here) [last update: 2013-03-24]

Client Troubleshooting
A few tricks to get things working.

Video drivers

 * nvidia-drivers: You will need to unmask latest.
 * If S3TC support is missing, install.
 * Starting some games (TF, CS:S) on legacy ATI drivers will give this error: "Required OpenGL extension "GL_EXT_texture_sRGB_decode" is not supported. Please update your OpenGL driver." Workaround is here.

Fonts
Some people seem to have problems with missing fonts. A user reported it being solved by emerging.

Sometimes Xorg does not recognize the new fonts installed. To fix this temp. run:

You may also need if fonts don't appear to be rendering correctly.

The game Stealth Bastard Deluxe will segfault if is not installed.

Mouse cursor
If your WM/DE does not set a mouse pointer theme, then Steam will overwrite the default X11 cursor theme, often resulting in a reversed pointer from left to right.

To fix this, just install and enable a compatible cursor theme via your WM/DE (e.g. ).

You can also enable the installed theme manually with the following method:

If the mouse cursor gets stuck pointing in the wrong direction after exiting steam you can work around that via:

Flashplayer on amd64
Get the 32bit flashplayer from adobe and extract libflashplayer.so to your current working dir. Now run:

Alternatively emerge with 32bit USE flag and run:

Memory corruption on startup
You might get an error like this:

Try to emerge and it should work.

Hardened Gentoo
It looks like the steam binary has rwx bits in it. You will need to mark the binary with the following to get it working on a hardened system.

Binaries of most games also should be paxmarked, for ex.:

After latest update (around Jul 2013) steam also need paxmarked sh or it fail to run games from steam client (see https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/254 for details):

However, this causes bash to not run.

Steam runtime
By default, Valve bundles own libraries with the steam package and uses them instead of installed system libraries. This behavior can be changed by setting the environment variable STEAM_RUNTIME=0 or starting steam with

Enabling the steam runtime can fix problems with missing libraries. Use STEAM_RUNTIME=1 if you see error messages like Error: You are missing the following 32-bit libraries, and Steam may not run: libSDL2-2.0.so.0

Reset Steam client
If you want to wipe out your current steam installation and reinstall steam without losing games data, you can use the --reset command line option:

Games Troubleshooting
If you have issues on 64 bit, it's because emul-linux-x86-* are typically very out of date.

You can try using a 32-bit chroot.

Team Fortress 2
If you only get a black screen for 1-2 seconds, try adding "-nojoy" to Game->Properties->"Set Launch Options".

Dota 2
If you notice lots of black textures, it's because the mesa driver is out of date, until version 9.1.6 or higher is released as part of emul-linux-x86-opengl, you will have to resort to using a 32 bit chroot.

Further help
Before you ask anywhere else, refer to the gentoo forum thread. Post your solutions and update this wiki page if someone confirms. Please don't remove content without Discussion unless it's wrong content.

External resources

 * Valve Linux blog
 * Steam for Linux community
 * Bugtracker
 * Steam entry in ArchLinux wiki
 * Common Steam Problems & Fixes (team fusion)