How to properly install the Flatpak version of Steam

The results of the survey Steam corresponding to October 2021 have thrown a curious fact, and it is the presence of the version Flatpak as one of the most widely used distributions. Seeing that the package format promoted by Red Hat is gradually gaining more followers, we are going to teach how to prepare Steam Flatpak for different distributions.

Although Flatpak is gradually filing its integration deficiencies, the Steam client in this format has two drawbacks to take into account:

• First, it does not supply udev rules for controllers, so the user may find that their controller, be it the defunct Steam Controller, one for PlayStation, one for Xbox, or the Pro Controller for Switch, does not integrate with the app.
• Second, Steam Flatpak has long dragged a problem or bug that makes the versions of Proton supplied by the client not work, which forces the user to have to resort to the community builds of Proton published in Flatpak format.

The advantage of using the Flatpak version of Steam

Using Steam in Flatpak format has its drawbacks, but also an important advantage, which is that said compilation of the application uses a recent version of Mesa in the same format for the execution of video games.

The Flatpak version of Mesa does not replace the one present in the system in “traditional” format (Deb, RPM, Arch Linux tar.xz…), but complements it and kicks in only when a Flatpak application requires it. This means that the integrity and functionality of the system are not compromised by maintaining the versions of the libraries officially supplied by and for the distribution.

Mesa’s way of working in the Flatpak format makes it attractive for use in systems that provide a watertight suite of software because they put stability first, such as Debian Stable and openSUSE Leap.

Installing the Steam Driver Integration

The Steam client in Flatpak format does not offer integration for controllers, or more technically, it does not supply the udev rules necessary to integrate a PlayStation controller, Xbox, Switch Pro Controller, or Steam Controller in the app. The reason is because the application “You do not have permissions to install udev rules in the appropriate locations and the udev rules sent by Steam may also be insufficient without the distribution customizations”.

The integration of the drivers with Steam has to be installed in a “traditional” way, through an RPM or Deb package.. Luckily, the name of this package is ‘steam-devices’ and it is standardized, so finding it is usually easy and is available, directly or indirectly, for most popular distributions (if not available, it means that the udev rules are supplied by the Steam client in “traditional” format).

Debian

To install ‘steam-devices’ on Debian you have to run the following command after enabling the repositories non-free:

sudo apt install steam-devices

Ubuntu

On Ubuntu The rules may not be up to date, apart from the fact that they depend on the Steam application itself with all its paraphernalia. To install only udev rules, add an option to the command:

sudo apt-get install steam-devices --no-install-recommends

Fedora

On Fedora it depends on whether you are using the Workstation edition (or any “traditional” desktop spin) or Silverblue (which encompasses Kinoite). Because this distribution itself provides a very recent version of Mesa without the need to resort to third-party repositories, the use of the Steam Flatpak package is only justified in the Silverblue and Kinoite editions, which are immutable systems that invite the user to swallow most of the mods via Flatpak packages.

Another detail to take into account is that RPM Fusion, the well-known third-party repository for Fedora, has recently separated the udev rules from the RPM version of the application proposed by this server. My intention was to contribute a grain of sand to help users interested in using Fedora Silverblue / Kinoite as a common desktop.

To install the udev rules for Steam controllers, you must first enable the third-party repository that allows you to install the application (which is a partial activation of RPM Fusion) or configure the entire set of RPM Fusion.

Third-party repository offered by Fedora to install Steam

The configuration of RPM Fusion en Fedora Workstation and the “traditional” spins oriented to the desktop will be done as follows:

sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

The command for installation of ‘steam-devices’ in Fedora Workstation it is as follows:

sudo dnf install steam-devices

Meanwhile in Silverblue/Kinoite you have to resort to rpm-ostree. First you have to configure the repositories of RPM Fusion and reboot the system:

sudo rpm-ostree install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

Then I know install the rules and it restarts again to apply the changes introduced in the system image (on another occasion we will extend with Silverblue / Kinoite):

sudo rpm-ostree install steam-devices

openSUSE

Finally we have openSUSE Leap, another system for which to use Steam Flatpak is somewhat attractive. However, and like Ubuntu, selecting the ‘steam-devices’ package installs the Steam client along with all its dependencies, so the user ends up with two versions of the application installed.

sudo zypper install steam-devices

Install the Steam client in Flatpak format

If you have a version of GNOME Software or Discover well implemented, the user just has to download the installer from Flathub and then open it with the software store you are using. For this, the user has to make sure that they have installed the Flathub support and the corresponding integration for the store, which for Discover is ‘plasma-discover-backend-flatpak’ and for GNOME Software it is ‘gnome-software-plugin-flatpak’ ( at least on Debian). In Fedora with GNOME this support is pre-installed.

Alternatively, you can use the command line, first configuring the Flathub repository and then installing the application.

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

flatpak install flathub com.valvesoftware.Steam

Install Proton in Flatpak format

If you want to play Windows games from Linux, it is highly recommended to use Proton, the reimplementation of Wine developed by Valve to facilitate the execution of video games compiled for the Microsoft system.

However, the Proton builds provided by Valve through the Steam client, or at least the most recent releases, do not work with the Flatpak version of the application at hand, so you have to turn to the Proton community builds at Flatpak format that are available.

If the Flathub repository has been installed and the integration with Discover works, the user only has to search for Proton in the aforementioned store and install the packages that appear to you, which are the latest stable version of Valve’s Proton (rebuilt), Valve’s Experimental Proton (rebuilt) and GloriousEggroll, the well-known Proton community fork that tends to go better with recent AAA games.

Installing Proton Flatpak with Discover in KDE Plasma

On GNOME Software Flatpak versions of Proton can be found on the Steam page of the application (it is important to make sure that you have selected the client from Flathub).

Installing Proton Flatpak with GNOME Software

In extreme case, Proton support can be obtained with the following command:

flatpak install flathub com.valvesoftware.Steam.CompatibilityTool.Proton com.valvesoftware.Steam.CompatibilityTool.Proton-Exp com.valvesoftware.Steam.CompatibilityTool.Proton-GE

conclusion

With this we already have everything we need to use the Flatpak version of the Steam client, covering both the support for controllers and the use of Proton to be able to run the games for Windows.

Even though Flatpak still lacks integration, its improvement is being constant and it is becoming more and more capable. In fact, this server already uses multimedia applications in that format, both for audio with Lollypop and for video with SMPlayer.

Apart from breaking the limitations of “traditional” shared libraries when it comes to porting graphical applications, where the use of Flatpak makes the most sense is in Fedora Siverblue / Kinoite, although this will depend on the acceptance of immutable systems among users of Linux.