The Steam client for Linux is finally out of Beta! This is being celebrated by offering large discounts on all 54 Linux games which are currently available on the Steam platform. So if you wanted to play the Original Half-Life natively on Slackware, you only have to shell out a measly few bucks. If there is enough interest I will open up my Half-Life Dedicated Server “Eindhoven Aliens” from time to time when I am online and willing to get slaughtered. Which reminds me that I still have to write my blog article on how I setup that HLDS – it was not trivial.
I updated my steamclient package to version 1.0.0.27. Join the Slackware group on Steam Community if you use it.
Cheers, Eric
Praise Bob! You’re fast. 😀
It’s awesome. Thanks, Eric
Does it still require that i have pulse audio installed?
The dependencies for the steamclient have not changed.
Eric
Am I the only one having trouble with sound in a some of the games? I’ve got complete silence in Serious Sam 3 and Anomaly: Warzone Earth. Slackware 14.0 (32 bit). Actually Anomaly isn’t working at all, it just locks during startup.
For a while sound worked when using STEAM_RUNTIME=0, but that is no longer the case.
hmm, i can’t run Trine 2, somebody knows something about it?
I have the same issue with Trine 2. I can get to the initial dialog window where you can configure windows size, anti-aliasing etc… but the actual game does not load. Not even an error.
I tried running the game directly using trine2.sh in its installation directory but the same happens – no game, no error. Even strace does not give me a clue.
Eric
Amigib, I found the root cause for the Trine 2 issue.
Trine 2 will not start because of a missing “libglapi.so” library.
I have rebuilt Slackware’s “mesa” package with an additional configuration parameter and now libglapi.so is part of mesa.
Download the modified mesa package (either the 32-bit version for 32-bit Slackware or the compat32 version for a multilib Slackware64): http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/steamclient/deps/ . Use “upgradepkg” to upgrade the mesa version that you currently have installed.
If you are using a proprietary graphics driver, like Nvidia or Ati, then you must re-install that after the mesa upgrade!
Trine 2 works beautifully now, on my multilib Slackware64-current. Worth the purchase.
I have also removed all other dependency packages (mesa excepted) from http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/steamclient/deps/ since those are now covered by the “steam-runtime” which is part of the steamclient package.
Eric
HI i need your help i tryed install slackware
with usb from windows on my notebook i try to guide me for your tutorial but i could not , please help me and if you can send me a mail pleaseeee im from peru and i want slackware 14 on mi notebook , o anybody , help me !!! im worry
Thanks Eric for package, i couldn’t track error but now works great
Just installed Steam a few days ago. Everything working perfectly at present. Downloading Half Life right now…ah the memories. Many thanks for your excellent work Eric!
Just converted my son from Windows to Slackware because he wanted to earn the TUX mascot in Team Fortress 2 – which you can only earn by playing it on a Linux computer.
Ubuntu 12.10 had been installed at first (he wanted something “easy as Windows”) but when Ubuntu failed to set the display resolution to the monitor’s HD resolution (after two days of trying! search google for “ubuntu thinks dvi monitor is a laptop” to see that people are having this issue for years now in Ubuntu, and Debian)… he then asked me to install Slackware instead.
And he likes KDE! And earned his TUX of course, but he does not want to go back now.
Zbreaker, join the growing Slackware group on Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/slackware and perhaps some of us can join a TF2 server as a group… it is as fun as Half-Life.
Eric
Are there any 64bit version of your new mesa package?
I can only see i486 and compat32, no x86_64.
“I have also removed all other dependency packages (mesa excepted) from http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/steamclient/deps/ since those are now covered by the “steam-runtime” which is part of the steamclient package.”
What packages were removed?
Does this affect something that i don’t need to install anymore that was needed according to http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/valves-steam-client-for-linux/
Hi Steve
Removed were the 32-bit packages for OpenAL, json-c, pulseaudio and speex, and for multilib computers additional removals (apart from converted versions of the aforementioned four) were flac-compat32, libogg-compat32, libvorbis-compat32 and oxygen-gtk2-compat32.
All these dependencies (with the exception of oxygen-gtk2-compat32 of which I think it was never needed) are now covered by the libraries included in the steamclient package (the so-called “steam-runtime” as Valve calls that).
If you installed any of these packages, they don’t hurt your computer so you do not have to remove them. Especially OpenAL and speex jave a high probability to be used by other programs.
The reason why there is no 64-bit mesa package in the “deps” directory is simple: Steam and its games are all 32-bit programs. You need the 32-bit mesa libraries if you want to play a game like Trine 2, but it will not make any difference at all if you would change the 64-bit mesa libraries.
Just remember that *if* you decide to update mesa, you *must * also re-install any proprietary (Nvidia or Ati) graphics drivers if you are using those.
Eric
I needed the mesa package for many games.
But about the other dependencies I’m not so sure i needed at all.
I have removed pulseaudio, speex, json-c and OpenAL and everything still works.
“ldd .local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam” looks as it should and none of those dependencies are listed there.
So i guess there not needed, I’m happy that i can use steam without pulseaudio.
Maybe there only needed for the first start when things are set up or maybe not at all.
So i guess that i only needed multilib and mesa multilib since i removed everything else thats not in a full slackware64 install.
Hi Steve
You only need a full set of multilib packages indeed.
Today, Pat Volkerding updated X.Org in Slackware-current and added a new version of mesa as well. That new package has been compiled with “–enable-shared-glapi” so that it now contains the libglapi.so library. This means that the Trine 2 game will work out of the box on -current/multilib.
I have refreshed my set of multilib packages at http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/multilib/current/slackware64-compat32/ so that the new mesa-compat32 package is available there.
I also updated the compat32-tools package: the massconvert32.sh script will now create a “glu-compat32” package as well (glu used to be part of mesa but has been split out of that package).
Eric
Thank you Eric for your answer and good work.
Maybe the install could be updated in your next steam post so the install will be clear for users, since some dependencies isn’t needed anymore.
For me the biggest no no was pulse audio, but now it’s not needed anymore.
Thank you for all the hard work you put into providing the Slackware community with Steam.
Hi Bob,
Thanks!
The Slackware group in the Steam community (http://steamcommunity.com/groups/slackware) is growing every day 🙂 More proof that people appreciate the availability of the Steam gaming platform on Slackware.
Tip for everybody: subscribe to http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/ChangeLog.rss so that you get all the information you need when I release a new steamclient package. I do not wite a new blog post everytime I update the package.
Eric
Thanks so much guys. I have a GeForce 7600 so I had to utilize the trick posted on the Steam forums but now I’m up and running. So much faster than Wine! I deleted .wine from my home directory for the first time in 13 years!
An updated steam package today, 1.0.0.36, fixes the systray icon which was blank (icon could not be found) since a recent steam self-update.
See http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/steamclient/pkg/14.0/
Eric