I just put together my first dedicated Linux machine. Running Pop!_OS, and I’ve got a problem with Steam. I’ve tried installing it from the Pop Shop (i love that name), both the .deb and flatpak versions as well as sudo apt install steam. In both cases, when I open the app it will just blink at me. Like the window is trying to maximize but then minimizes before it can get that far. I made sure that all my drivers look good and was just playing Starfield, so I know it’s at least somewhat functional. What’s weird is that it launched once for me. Long enough to get signed in. But after a reboot, it will not open unless I type steam --reset from terminal. Then it opens just fine and acts like nothing happened. Of course if I close that terminal window, Steam closes. And if I don’t do a reset, it will go right back to flashing at me again.
I’ve also noticed that games show “Cloud Status: Unable to sync” in the app. The following games are installed currently:
- The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition
- Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun
- Starfield Premium edition All of these games show the cloud sync error. But when I checked the first two, the game save I had from my steam deck worked fine. But it still shows the error.
I tried opting into Beta to see if that might have some bleeding edge fix, nope. I’m still new to Linux and I’ll admit I’m not even sure where to look for Steam errors specifically to give more details.
Hardware (in case it helps):
- AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
- 32GB G.Skill Flare
- Gigabyte B650i Aurous ITX
- WD Black 1TB boot drive
- Samsung Evo Plus 2TB storage
- Cooler Master 850w gold SFX PSU
- XFX 6700XT 12GB
Any ideas on what I can try? Or where I can find logs to better understand? I asked in the Linux Gaming sub…lemmy? at least about the cloud sync, but got no traction.
Well, I was cautiously optimistic. I removed the .deb version and installed the flatpak version. I was able to launch it and sign in. I was about to try installing a game when I remembered I hadn’t turned on Proton and all that mess, which requires steam to restart. Now instead of just flashing at me I get the Steam “waiting for network” screen, then the icon appears in the task bar (idk if that’s what it’s called in Linux, but in Pop, this is the top right corner where volume, network, etc is). But the favorited icon in the dock doesn’t show the little dot under it like normal open apps would show. If I click on the task bar item, I get the menu, but it’s all unresponsive other than Exit.
I forgot to mention in my original post but this issue persisted through a reimage of the boot drive. That’s not why I reimaged, but pretty alarming that it would stick around through a full reinstall of the OS.
Are you sure that Steam is uninstalled completely from your filesystem. Steam creates a “.steam” user directory and leftover data in the directory may be conflicting with the flatpak. Delete it if it exists and then try restarting your computer. The flatpak version of steam sandboxes the .steam directory.
As always, Steam is proprietary software and doesn’t bother to follow freedesktop standards. The support I can give can only go so far. GOG is always a better solution as it can be used with a libre client like Heroic Games Launcher or Lutris without DRM or invasive anti features. You do not need Steam to leverage Valve’s contributions with Proton and Vulkan.
I suppose I can’t answer that with any confidence. I will look closer at it and try again. Good to know about the other game launchers.