Steam

Install for the command-line version of Steam.

Steam can also be installed with Flatpak as from Flathub. The easiest way to install it for the current user is by using the Flathub repository and flatpak command:

flatpak --user remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak --user install flathub com.valvesoftware.Steam
flatpak run com.valvesoftware.Steam

The Flatpak application currently does not support themes. Also you currently cannot run games via /primusrun, see Issue#869 for more details.

Steam installed via Flatpak is not able to access your home directory and overriding this will cause Steam to not run because it is not safe. However, you can freely add directories outside the home directory. If you want to add an external library, run the following command to add it:

flatpak override --user com.valvesoftware.Steam --filesystem=/path/to/directory

If you are having problem getting Asian fonts to show in game, it is because org.freedesktop.Platform does not include it. First try mounting your local font :

flatpak run --filesystem=~/.local/share/fonts --filesystem=~/.config/fontconfig  com.valvesoftware.Steam

If that does not work, consider this hack: make the fonts available by directly copying the font files into org.freedesktop.Platform's directories, e.g.

# replace ? with your version and hash
/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/?/?/files/etc/fonts/conf.avail
/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/?/?/files/etc/fonts/conf.d 
/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/?/?/files/share/fonts

Every Steam application has a unique AppID, which you can find by either looking at its Steam Store page path or visiting SteamDB.

Steam installs games into a directory under . LIBRARY normally is

but you can also have multiple library folders (Steam > Settings > Downloads > Steam Library Folders).

In order for Steam to recognize a game it needs to have an

file in . The appmanifest file uses the 

KeyValues format and its property determines the game directory name.

• only arguments:
• environment variables: FOO=bar BAZ=bar %command% -baz
• completely different command:

It is possible to have Steam start minimized to the system tray, rather than taking focus. Simply add to the list of arguments in the autostart file.

Valve's fsync patches offer performance improvements to massively-threaded applications running via Proton or Wine. Since Linux kernel version 5.16, this has been merged into the vanilla kernel, with no further action necessary other than using a recent Proton build, or a patched Wine build. Earlier kernel versions with fsync support are available via one of the following methods:

• Install kernel that includes the fsync patches since the 5.2 release
• Install linux-pf^AUR or kernel.

Valve developed a compatibility tool for Steam Play based on Wine and additional components named Proton. It allows you to launch many Windows games (see compatibility list).

It is open-source and available on GitHub. Steam will install its own versions of Proton when Steam Play is enabled.

Proton needs to be enabled on Steam client: Steam > Settings > Steam Play. You can enable Steam Play for games that have and have not been whitelisted by Valve in that dialog.

If needed, to force enable Proton or a specific version of Proton for a game, right click on the game, click Properties > General > Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool, and select the desired version. Doing so can also be used to force games that have a Linux port to use the Windows version.

You can also install Proton from AUR with or , but extra setup is required for them to work with Steam. See the Proton GitHub for details on how Steam recognizes Proton installs.

To start Steam in Big Picture Mode from a Display manager, you can either:

• Install
• Alternatively, install , which hides the annoying color flashing on startup of Proton games and adds a fix for games that start in the background
• Manually add a Steam entry (but you lose the steam compositor advantages: mainly you cannot control Big Picture mode with keyboard or gamepad):

create a /usr/share/xsessions/steam-big-picture.desktop file with the following contents:

The Steam interface can be customized using skins. Skins can overwrite interface-specific files in .

To install a skin:

1. Place its directory in .
2. Open Steam > Settings > Interface and select it.
3. Restart Steam.

An extensive list of skins can be found in this Steam forums post.

Nearly all Steam styles are defined in (the file is over 3,500 lines long). For a skin to be recognized it needs its own . When a Steam update changes the official your skin may become outdated, potentially resulting in visual errors.

See for a primer on how to create skins.

The default Steam notification position is bottom right.

You can change the Steam notification position by altering Notifications.PanelPosition in

• for desktop notifications, and
• for in-game notifications

Both files are overwritten by Steam on startup and is only read on startup.

You can create a skin to change the notification position to your liking. For example to change the position to top right:

$ cd ~/.steam/root/skins
$ mkdir -p Top-Right/resource
$ cp -r ~/.steam/root/resource/styles Top-Right/resource
$ sed -i '/Notifications.PanelPosition/ s/"[A-Za-z]*"/"TopRight"/' Top-Right/resource/styles/*

can be overwritten while Steam is running, allowing you to have game-specific notification positions.

And the #Launch options should be something like:

~/.steam/notifpos.sh TopLeft && %command%

Steam has built-in support for remote play.

See this Steam Community guide on how to setup a headless streaming server on Linux.

Normally a Steam controller requires the use of the Steam-overlay. In non-Steam native Linux games however the overlay may not be practical. For that, while the Steam client is running it will maintain a "desktop configuration". With your Steam controller, configure the desktop configuration for it as a generic XBOX controller. As long as the Steam client is running you can then use your Steam controller in other games, such as GOG games, as an XBOX controller. Make sure to select your type of controller to map to in "general controller settings".

If you use Proton (Steam Play) for launching your games, and still keep a Windows installation for some reason (for example, if some game has problems with anti cheat or if you want to make a comparison tests with Windows), you may want to store your games in a common partition instead of keeping two copies of game one per OS. See https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Using-a-NTFS-disk-with-Linux-and-Windows for more information on how to configure that.

To add another folder for library, click on Steam → Settings → Downloads → STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS. Click on Downloads → STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS. Then ADD LIBRARY FOLDER.