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Valve put up a new Steam Linux Runtime 4.0 with a move towards 64-bit (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
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To ensure games run well on Linux either via Native Linux builds or Windows games with Proton, part of the magic is in the Steam Linux Runtime. A new version of it, the Steam Linux Runtime 4.0 was recently put up with some pretty big changes.

What's the point of it? It ensures Steam and games run through Steam on Linux work properly across all the many different Linux distributions. Another secret Valve sauce for Linux. Well, not secret at all but you get my meaning I'm sure.

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[–] 94 points 11 months ago (27 children)

That's a good sign, that Valve is moving at least the runtimes to 64bit only. Maybe that means the client is under similar scrutiny internally. Recently when Fedora was discussing dropping more 32bit libraries Steam came up as a big issue.

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  • [–] 26 points 11 months ago (21 children)

    Yeah, 32bit is why I removed Steam from my Debian desktop daily driver again. I got conflicting 32bit and 64bit versions of some libraries that broke my system. I'm going to try a gaming focussed distro like Bazzite next time.

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  • [–] 13 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    ???

    Debian separates out stuff with :[arch] suffixes, and is really flexible in the sense that it even lets you install stuff from completely different architectures for, for example, use with qemu userspace. An i386 package is going to only request i386 dependencies, unless it explicitly specifies an architecture, and vice versa. Arch Linux uses the "lib32-" prefix and I don't really remember how it worked on Fedora but I would imagine something similar. All "gaming focused distros" are merely just their mainstream counterparts with an extra repo for a few packages, it's not going to change fundamentals.

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  • [–] 10 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    Give Steam Flatpak a try on Debian instead.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (3 children)

    I've been using LMDE for the past couple years and I do all my non-switch gaming on it.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    i recommend LXQT over LXDE cause its like the spiritual succesor,i think lighter and it has Wayland
    but you can use whatever you like

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  • [–] 28 points 11 months ago (12 children)

    I just run Steam as a flatpak. Works fine.

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  • [–] 23 points 11 months ago (8 children)

    Not sure why the downvotes. Flatpak is a great thing.

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  • [–] -4 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    Unless you muck around in bottles a lot of things break.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    What does "muck around in bottles" mean?

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Flatpacks have permission issues due to the way they are structurally designed. Applications like Flatseal and Bottles allow you to remove those limitations, but it's a lot easier to just install the client outside of Flatpack.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    I've only had to use Flatseal a couple times to fix wonky permissions for Flatpaks, and I'm not even sure what Bottles has to do with them since Wine has nothing to do with Flatpak to the best of my knowledge

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    It doesn't work fine out of the box. I tried it on Opensuse MicroOS a year and a bit ago and had to search 3-5 pretty undocumented solutions to big problems before being able to play the same games that non-flatpak could.

    Out of the box, proton didn't work at all.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    Didn't they already announce they're going to drop 32 bit?

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    • [–] 46 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    please god let the client have a 64 bit wayland edition coming

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    • [–] 18 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Proton-GE has had the Wow64 feature for a while now that can play older 32-bit titles under 64-bit, so it shouldn't be long before a truly 64-bit steam experience is available.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    As of Proton-GE 9-22 I still cannot run Diablo II without all the 32 bit dependencies. I hear from people that Wow64 works, but I have never managed to get it to work pure 64-bit.

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    • [–] 10 points 11 months ago (43 children)

    Funny this shows up when all of a sudden Steam won't launch anymore on my Arch install. It's installed via flatpak.

    How do I even check which version of the Steam runtime I am running? The flatpak version of Steam is just 1.0.something.other.

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  • [–] 36 points 11 months ago (19 children)

    The runtime is not Steam itself. That's more or less independent from the runtime. The runtimes are a collection of libraries that developers can develop against without having to include them themselves.

    Kind of similar to the Visual C++ Runtime on Windows.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (11 children)

    I know what a runtime is, but I'd like to check which version of it I'm running. 🙂 Wouldn't be very difficult but I'm this instance I don't know how.

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  • [–] 12 points 11 months ago (10 children)

    The runtime is for launching games, not Steam itself. You can check the runtime selection in Compatibility tab of Steam and of each game. If your Steam Flatpak install doesn't work, the issue is likely somewhere else.

    I'd suggest trying to launch the flatpak from the terminal and seeing if there's any strange logging.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago*

    I'd suggest trying to launch the flatpak from the terminal and seeing if there's any strange logging.

    Already did that but I couldn't see anything that I could recognize as abnormal. The "Connecting" window shows up, actually. But it just stops loading for a second and then it just says "Reaping pid" in the console and it closes the process.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (8 children)

    The runtime is for launching games, not Steam itself. You can check the runtime selection in Compatibility tab of Steam and of each game. If your Steam Flatpak install doesn't work, the issue is likely somewhere else.

    Hold up, are you talking about the compatibility layer, "Proton"? I'm not sure that's what we're talking about here. Proton is up to version 9 and 10, not 4.0.

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  • [–] 9 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    You can select Steam Runtime Versions in the Compatibility tab too, separate from Proton versions

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (6 children)

    Oh okay, I guess that's in the main Steam settings, not per game as the other person suggested.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago* (2 children)

    You can select it per game as well, steam runtime 3.0 and now presumably steam runtime 4.0 should show up in the same drop down menu next to proton 1.0, proton 10.0 in the compatibility options

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    No, it is a per game setting. When your game is a native Linux game it will use one of the Steam runtimes. If you had a Linux native game and selected Proton instead of a Steam Linux runtime Steam would download the Windows version of the game.

    With Linux native games you usually don't have to touch this setting.

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    Right but you can't change the native runtime per game. You can only change the compatibility layer (Proton) globally and per game. The runtime is static obviously, and either used or not used. I'm guessing Proton bypasses the native runtime by having the game interacting with it? Or maybe it is a translation layer? Both? Anyway, doesn't matter. 🙂 What wasn't the problem.

    But I'd still be interested in how to check which version I have, just to know.

    Edit: hold on, does the runtime show up in the same list as Proton versions? That would explain what you all are talking about. And only for native Linux games. That's why I haven't seen it before I guess.

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago

    The runtime is a container with libraries. Proton always runs inside the container by design. The runtime ensures the software environment is predictable, Proton ensures Windows binaries can run (by handling Windows API calls)

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago* (6 children)

    So you can use those to develop on a platform and be sure that it work on the other too? Is this runtime steam-indipendent?

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Yes. Exactly.

    Older stuff here: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime

    Newer stuff here: https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt

    The dev guide within that gitlab repo confirms that it can be used sans Steam: https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steam-runtime-tools/-/blob/main/docs/slr-for-game-developers.md

    This applies to the new runtime as well: https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steamrt4/platform

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  • [+] -2 points 11 months ago (3 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    No, it's for running games on Linux. Steam will probably use the libs as well for its own functionality. But the main use is for game developers to target specific libraries so that they are independent of the user's distribution.

    And they can indeed be used outside of Steam as well. I sometimes use it to link in specific libraries for other games. @Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it

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  • [+] 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    i usually avoid flatpaks, especially with steam. but every now and then my non-flatpak steam borks too and won't launch on mint. 9 times out of 10 simple reboot helps, but sometimes it requires a reinstall...

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 child)

    Usually it's because Steam is still running in the background, so a simple pkill steam should close all the processes and allow it to launch. No need to reboot.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Usually when steam refuses to launch, it's because there's some Steam process that's borked but still running. Most of the time, a simple pkill steam fixes it (yes, that includes for flstpak`).

    As mentioned down thread, the runtime isn't your problem. The runtime is what's needed for native Linux games and I think is also used by proton (not used by Steam itself), so it's kind of like proton for native games. Steam doesn't use the runtime at all to launch.

    If killing Steam doesn't work, try rebooting. If that doesn't work, try updating the flatpak. If that doesn't work, I suppose reinstall Steam.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I think it might have been a denial of service type thing as explained in other replies. I didn't reboot or anything and it just worked fine now. All good. 👍 Thanks for all the help though.

    Almost every reply is also explaining what the runtime is. 😆 I know what it's for, guys, thanks! ❤️🙏👍

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Glad you got it fixed. 🙂

    Almost every reply is also explaining what the runtime is.

    I boosted it up a bit for other people who come along w/ a similar concern. You seemed mistaken at first until a few threads deep, so there's likely someone else who is just as, if not more, confused.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago* (5 children)

    You're not alone. I had the same thing on two machines yesterday. (Not flatpack)

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  • [+] 1 point 11 months ago (4 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Why would you use flatpack for stuff natively available on pacman? Search no further, flatpack is a good way to introduce problems where there are none

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam#Flatpak

    🤷‍♂️ Seemed like a good way to install it. I had used the native package before but I think I tried flatpak because of some issue or another with the native version.

    It's been working great for years now so, no issues until now.

    I usually install big corporate software with flatpak if I can help it, to keep them as isolated as possible. Slack, Discord, Steam, etc. Stuff like that. 👍

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (1 child)

    From that article:

    Installing Steam from Flathub/Flatpak will fix many of the issues faced on the client but will require alternative, less documented forms of troubleshooting on the long run.

    You hit the "long run" after years 😉

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    • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    does it say which team fortress 2 class it's named after?

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    • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Any news about an aarch64 version?

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