Steam

Related articles
Steam/Troubleshooting
Steam/Game-specific troubleshooting
Gaming
Gamepad
List of games
Gamescope
Steam
is a popular game distribution platform by Valve.
Note
Steam for Linux only supports the latest Ubuntu or Ubuntu LTS.
[1]
[2]
Thus, do not turn to Valve for support for issues with Steam on Arch Linux.
Installation
Enable the
multilib
repository and
install
the
steam
package (recommended) or alternatively the
steam-native-runtime
AUR
package for running Steam with native system libraries. See
/Troubleshooting#Steam runtime
.
Note
If you are installing for the first time, you may be prompted for the 32-bit
Vulkan
driver package. By default
pacman
alphabetically chooses
lib32-nvidia-utils
, which can introduce issues like being unable to use Vulkan at all when you install it by accident for different GPU vendor.
In order to run Steam:
You must install the 32-bit version of the
OpenGL graphics driver
appropriate for your system.
If not already done
during installation
, you must
generate the en_US.UTF-8 locale
to prevent invalid pointer errors.
If you need to add library folders or add non-Steam games to your Steam library, install
XDG Desktop Portal
with a backend providing a file chooser.
If using
systemd-resolved
for DNS, follow
the steps
to fix
/etc/resolv.conf
in order for Steam to be able to resolve hostnames.
If using the Big Picture Mode (Steam Deck UI),
NetworkManager
may be required for the network-related panels to work correctly.
vm.max_map_count
must be increased in order to run some games without crashing, see
Gaming#Increase vm.max_map_count
.
SteamCMD
Install
steamcmd
AUR
for
the command-line version of Steam
.
Directory structure
The default Steam install location is
~/.local/share/Steam
. If Steam cannot find it, it will prompt you to reinstall it or select the new location. This article uses the
~/.steam/root
symlink to refer to the install location.
Library folders
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
/steamapps/common/
.
LIBRARY
normally is
~/.steam/root
but you can also have multiple library folders (
Steam > Settings > Storage > (+) Add Drive
).
In order for Steam to recognize a game it needs to have an
appmanifest_
AppId
.acf
file in
LIBRARY
/steamapps/
. The appmanifest file uses the
KeyValues
format and its
installdir
property
determines the game directory name.
Note
In order to add additional drives to a Steam installation made through flathub, the user must first give the Steam Client authorization to access the mount-point of the additional drive manually through a tool such as
flatseal
.
Usage
steam [ -options ] [ steam:// URL ]
For the available command-line options see the
Command Line Options article on the Valve Developer Wiki
.
Steam also accepts an optional Steam URL, see the
Steam browser procotol
.
Launch options
When you launch a Steam game, Steam executes its
launch command
with
/bin/sh
.
To let you alter the launch command Steam provides
launch options
,
which can be set for a game by right-clicking on it in your library, selecting Properties and clicking on
Set Launch Options
.
By default Steam simply appends your option string to the launch command. To set environment variables or
pass the launch command as an argument to another command you can use the
%command%
substitute.
Examples
only arguments:
-foo
environment variables:
FOO=bar BAZ=bar %command% -baz
completely different command:
othercommand # %command%
Tips and tricks
Start minimized
It is possible to have Steam start minimized to the system tray, rather than taking focus. Add
-silent
to the list of command line arguments; see
Desktop entries#Modify desktop files
for doing this by default.
Small mode
Steam supports an alternative, minimal UI with just your game list - the store, community and cover collection views are hidden. You can switch to it with
View
>
Small Mode
. To go back to the standard UI, select
View
>
Large Mode
.
You can also launch Steam with this argument:
+open steam://open/minigameslist
Proton Steam Play
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 Experimental" is enabled by default on the Steam client:
Steam > Settings > Compatibility
. You can enable Steam Play for games that have and have not been whitelisted by Valve in that dialog.
Proton supports
Easy AntiCheat
integration if the developer activates it, however EAC may require a particular
patched version
of glibc: if a game is been reported to be working but is not in your machine, try using Steam Flatpak because it comes with glibc patched. Additionally,
setting the procfs mount option "hidepid" to a hardened value
may cause Easy Anti-Cheat to fail with the message "Launch Error: 261".
Force Proton usage
If needed, to force enable Proton or a specific version of Proton for a game, right click on the game, click
Properties > Compatibility > 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.
Use Proton outside of Steam
To use Proton outside of Steam, the best way to do so is through
umu-launcher
.
Take a look at the
upstream repository
for more information, including its
documentation
.
Tip
Some game launchers have integrated support for
umu-launcher
. Check
Gaming#Getting games
for a list of launchers. As of April 2026, Heroic Games Launcher
[3]
and Lutris
[4]
are two that support it.
Note
umu-launcher
is the backend to use Proton outside of Steam. It is not intended to be user-facing, as it does not have a friendly user interface, and requires terminal usage. It can still be used directly via terminal, if desired, and will provide the same results as using it via a graphical user interface.
Compatibility layers other than Proton
There are compatibility tools other than Proton/Wine.
Luxtorpeda
— Run games using native Linux engines.
https://luxtorpeda-dev.github.io/
||
luxtorpeda-git
AUR
Boxtron
— Run DOS games using native Linux DOSBox
https://github.com/dreamer/boxtron
||
boxtron
AUR
You can also use
protonup-qt
AUR
to manage them:
Close Steam
Install
protonup-qt
AUR
Open protonup-qt and install desired tools
Start Steam
In the
game properties
window, select
Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool
and select the desired tool.
Steam Input
When a controller is plugged in while Steam is running, Steam's default behavior is to leave it alone and let games use it as-is. The gamepad's evdev and joystick devices are exposed by the kernel, and games may use them using APIs such as
SDL2
as if Steam were not in the picture.
The
Steam Input
subsystem offers an abstraction layer which allows for more advanced functionality such as rebinding buttons and axes, having game-specific profiles, and doing higher-level button mappings based on in-game actions. The
Steam Input Configurator
(SIC) is the part of the system that implements this functionality. To enable Steam Input for a controller, go to
Steam
>
Settings
>
Controller
>
External Gamepad Settings
. Here you will find toggles to
Enable Steam Input
corresponding to your controller.
Steam Input Configurator
This article or section is a candidate for moving to
Steam Input Configurator
.
Notes:
No reason to keep such a large text here when it could be in its own article (Discuss in
Talk:Steam
)
See
Steam Input Configurator
for configurator usage instructions.
When SIC is enabled for a controller, there are a few different controller devices:
The virtual Steam Controller, used by games that utilize the Steam Input API. All rebindings and Steam-specific features are functional.
This is not to be confused with the
Valve Steam Controller
, the physical controller.
An evdev device representing an emulated Xbox 360 controller, used by games that do not support Steam Input. Basic rebindings are in effect.
[5]
The original controller evdev device, whose inputs are passed through the SIC. Rebindings are not in effect, but games should be defaulting to the 360 controller instead.
The joystick analogues of the above two devices.
The SIC's behavior is context dependent:
When launching a game that supports the Steam Input API, it is using the SIC in native mode. The game receives "actions" rather than raw inputs to handle.
This works for games running in Proton that would be using Steam Input on Windows.
Even though it's theoretically not needed, the emulated 360 controller is still present.
A game may choose to provide both support for the Steam Input, and traditional input API libraries that defer to evdev and joystick under the hood. When the game is launched with Steam and with SIC enabled for the controller, Steam Input takes higher priority.
A game can also choose to
only
support Steam Input. For example, in Among Us, a gamepad will not work unless you have the SIC running.
When launching a game that does not support Steam Input, it is (unknowingly) using the SIC in legacy mode. The game receives its expected low-level raw inputs from what seems to be a 360 controller, but they are actually spoofed by the SIC to emulate the desired behavior of native mode.
This is the case for native games that use evdev or joystick, as well as Windows games running through Proton that use DirectInput or XInput.
When launching a game that supports neither Steam Input nor other gamepad APIs, SIC can activate a profile that emulates gamepad support as described below.
When Big Picture has focus, the current Big Picture profile is in effect. This is not configurable.
When anything else has focus, the current Desktop profile is in effect, configurable via
Steam
>
Settings
>
Controller
>
Desktop Layout
.
When anything has focus, additional global bindings can be configured via
Steam
>
Settings
>
Controller
>
Guide Button Chord Layout
. This is not available on a Steam Deck.
Games are rated on how comprehensive their gamepad support is. This is dependent on the controller model.
Supports Your Controller, indicating that the game has full controller support. This can be achieved even if the game does not use the Steam Input API; the focus is on accessibility regardless of API.
Mostly Playable With Your Controller, indicating that the game has partial gamepad support. Even if the game is using the Steam Input API, there are instances like Team Fortress 2 where certain parts are still inaccessible to warrant this rating.
Controllers Not Supported, indicating the game does not have native gamepad support.
Unknown Controller Support, indicating that Valve has not yet verified the controller support of a game.
In cases where the game does not have full gamepad support, SIC tries to fill the gaps. For example, in Bloons Tower Defense 5, a game that requires you to point and click, Steam will automatically activate the
Keyboard (WASD) and Mouse
profile, allowing you to use your gamepad to move and click.
Recommended Steam Input usage
To summarize what this all means for usage:
Enabling "Configuration Support" is
recommended
for enhanced gamepad support such as rebinding to one's liking, or automated fixes like Nintendo-style button remapping or keyboard/mouse.
For some games, enabling this is outright
required
if they do not support traditional gamepad APIs.
By default, if you have enabled this, then the controller will not work with non-Steam games because the 360 controller takes precedence over the original controller device, but the default Desktop profile has the buttons disabled. To fix this, you can either:
Have the configuration change action sets. Some official desktop configurations will switch to a gamepad mode when the start button is held. If the configuration for your controller does not have this, you can add it by adding a new action set to the configuration, setting the set to contain gamepad buttons, adding an
Extra Command
to the start button, setting the extra command to
Change Action Set
, and then setting that extra command to activate on long press.
Set your Desktop profile to the template for
Gamepad
. This will pass through the inputs to the 360 controller, making the default device usable for other programs.
Have the other game use the original device if it supports this. Note that the game will not benefit from any Steam Input rebindings.
Disable the whole feature for the controller so Steam does not create the 360 controller at all. Note that Steam games would then not benefit from the enhanced gamepad support.
Close Steam when using the other games.
Disabling Steam Input
If you wish to completely disable Steam Input, launch Steam with the
-nojoy
argument, and also disable Steam Input for each game individually, as there is no global option for doing so.
HiDPI
See
HiDPI#Steam
.
Big Picture Mode from a display manager
To start Steam in Big Picture Mode from a
display manager
with
Gamescope
as its
compositor
:
Install
gamescope
.
Create the following
desktop entry
with the following contents:
/usr/share/wayland-sessions/steam-big-picture.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Steam Big Picture Mode
Comment=Start Steam in Big Picture Mode
Exec=/usr/bin/gamescope -e -- /usr/bin/steam -tenfoot
Type=Application
Note
The
-tenfoot
flag tells Steam to start in Big Picture Mode.
Then instruct your display manager to launch gamescope.
Note
Install
pipewire-pulse
if the audio settings do not show any audio devices.
Warning
polkit
needs to be installed to be able to use the "Suspend System", "Turn Off System" and "Restart System" options of the Power menu.
Warning
The "Switch to desktop" menu entry softlocks the session. To exit to the display manager you need to run
steam -shutdown
. To do this from Steam, you can either:
Add
-steamos3
to the Steam command-line arguments, which makes in the menu entry execute
steamos-session-select
when selected. You can then add a script with this name in your
PATH
to customize the behavior; see
this guide
for an example (note that
~/.local/bin
is not part of Arch's default
PATH
).
Be warned that
-steamos3
might have other unintended effects.
Create a script with this command and add it as a non-Steam game. This creates a "shortcut" to exit back to the display manager.
Steam Remote Play
Note
Steam In-Home Streaming
has become Steam Remote Play
.
Steam has built-in support for
remote play
.
See
this Steam Community guide
on how to setup a headless streaming server on Linux.
Sharing games with Windows when using Proton
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.
To add another folder for library, click on
Steam > Settings > Downloads > STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS
, then on the
⊕ (Plus)
button.
There are four file systems, that can be read/write by both Windows and Linux.
NTFS
Warning
Valve discourages the usage of NTFS to store a Steam library as it may lead to unexpected errors, specially for cases where a library is shared between multiple OSs.
You WILL run into problems where games do not start. You WILL run into problems where games crash unexpectedly.
See
Using a NTFS disk with Linux and Windows
for more information on how to configure that. To launch games from an NTFS drive, follow the steps from
Steam/Troubleshooting#Steam Library in NTFS partition
.
Using ntfs has disadvantages. It happens often that shaders cache folder becomes corrupted. Messages saying
ntfs3: sdb6 ino=1921f, steamapprun_pipeline_cache Looks like your dir is corrupt.
You cannot fix that from linux. You need to boot to Windows and use chkdsk for that.
exFAT
This filesystem has disadvantage that it is case-insensitive. You will get such message:
SteamLibrary has both 'SteamApps' and 'steamapps' directories. This will cause problems. Please fix manually and only keep 'steamapps'
See
issue #7665
Also it is problematic to create symlinks on exfat, so you cannot use the method of symlinking compatdata as in ntfs method.
Btrfs
Btrfs
has a fairly mature Windows
Driver
.
NTFS can be also converted into Btrfs, see
Btrfs#NTFS to Btrfs conversion
.
This filesystem eliminates most NTFS/exFAT compatibility issues, but
sharing a Steam library between Windows and Linux has limitations
:
Valve
officially discourages
sharing Steam libraries between OSes. Even with correct WinBtrfs UID/GID mappings, Windows processes create lock-files and staging folders owned by
nobody:100
, causing "Disk write failure" or "content file locked" errors in Linux.
After Windows usage you must run:
# chown -R $USER:$USER /path/to/steam_library/steamapps
$ find /path/to/steam_library/steamapps -name "*.lock" -delete
$ rm -rf /path/to/steam_library/steamapps/{downloading,temp}/*
Only then start Steam on Linux. For reliable operation, keep separate libraries per OS.
UDF
This filesystem can be used without issue, but to ensure compatibility, it must be formatted to the correct UDF revision. Linux lacks write support for revisions 2.50 and higher. Therefore, revision 2.01 is required for proper functionality.
The UDF block size must match the logical sector size of the partition. This value can be obtained using
blockdev(8)
:
# blockdev --getss /dev/
the_partition_to_be_formatted
The partition is then formatted to UDF using
mkfs.udf(8)
provided by
udftools
. For both HDDs and SSDs, the appropriate media type is
hd
.
# mkfs.udf --utf8 --label=
label
--blocksize=
block-size
--media-type=hd --udfrev=0x0201 /dev/
the_partition_to_be_formatted
Where:
the_partition_to_be_formatted
is the name of the target partition (e.g.
sdb4
,
nvme2n5p3
etc.).
label
is the desired volume label.
block-size
is the output of the
blockdev
command.
Alternatively, graphical tools like
gparted
can be used to handle formatting. They correctly manage UDF revision selection to ensure compatibility.
Faster shader pre-compilation
In certain circumstances shader pre-compilation may only use one core, however this can be overridden by the user, example to use 8 cores:
~/.steam/steam/steam_dev.cfg
unShaderBackgroundProcessingThreads 8
Disable HTTP2 for faster downloads
Some systems and configurations seem to have issues with HTTP2. Disabling HTTP2 will probably yield faster downloads on those configurations.
You can either use the console command
@nClientDownloadEnableHTTP2PlatformLinux 0
or set it in
steam_dev.cfg
like so:
~/.steam/steam/steam_dev.cfg
@nClientDownloadEnableHTTP2PlatformLinux 0
Run games using discrete GPU
On
hybrid graphics
laptops, Steam runs games using the integrated GPU by default. See
PRIME#PRIME GPU offloading
to switch to the more powerful discrete GPU for specific games.
Flatpak
This article or section is a candidate for merging with
Flatpak/Application-specific troubleshooting
.
Notes:
Flatpak is not supported. (Discuss in
ArchWiki talk:Requests#Contain Flatpak application troubleshooting to a subpage
)
Warning
The Flatpak version of Steam is not verified and not vetted by Valve Corporation. The Arch Linux developers also have no say in it, and do not give technical support to it. Use it at your own risk. To use Steam on Arch, the recommended way is via the
steam
package.
Note
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.
Steam can also be installed with
Flatpak
as
com.valvesoftware.Steam
from
Flathub
. The easiest way to install it for the current user is by using the Flathub repository:
$ 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
optirun
/
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
Launching Steam with Flatpak might warn you about installing the
steam-devices
package. This package currently does not exist but
game-devices-udev
AUR
can be installed instead, see
Gamepad#Device permissions
.
Asian Font Problems with Flatpak
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.
/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/
version
/
hash
/files/etc/fonts/conf.avail
/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/
version
/
hash
/files/etc/fonts/conf.d 
/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/
version
/
hash
/files/share/fonts
Steam Flatpak start (run) issues
After launch, Steam will try to download files and you will see a progress bar. If it crashes, you may try to give additional permissions to the flatpak package:
$ flatpak permission-set background background com.valvesoftware.Steam yes
$ flatpak run com.valvesoftware.Steam
For an alternative way to control permissions, install
flatseal
.
SteamCMD in flatpak
SteamCMD
can also be used within the flatpak.
$ flatpak run --command=steamcmd com.valvesoftware.Steam
Steam settings to reduce video card memory usage
This is useful for video cards with a small amount of video memory.
Make a copy of the Steam shortcut:
$ cp /usr/share/applications/steam.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/steam_minimal.desktop
and change the
Exec=
and
Name=
sections in the shortcut copy:
~/.local/share/applications/steam_minimal.desktop
Name=Steam Minimal (Runtime)
Exec=/usr/bin/steam -cef-disable-gpu-compositing -cef-disable-gpu steam://open/minigameslist %U
As a result, when launching the Steam Minimal (Runtime) shortcut you will get an ascetic interface, which is still functional enough to install and run games, and when launching the standard Steam (Runtime) shortcut you will get a full-fledged client.
Limit permission to create arbitrary keyboard input to a specific user group
By default, the Steam package will place an udev rule, which basically allows any logged in user to create arbitrary (globally available) input devices which includes virtual keyboards. This
may allow things like sandbox escape
.
The following pacman hook can be used to modify the global uinput permission to be only granted to a specific user group.
Note
This only gives you any benefit if you use a dedicated user account just for gaming. When logged into this user, all possible security issues with having user accessible uinput still apply!
/etc/pacman.d/hooks/20-steam-input.hook
[Trigger]
Operation = Install
Operation = Upgrade
Type = Package
Target = steam

[Action]
Description = Patching out uaccess for uinput in 60-steam-input.rules
When = PostTransaction
Exec = /usr/bin/sed -i '/^KERNEL=="uinput"/s/TAG+="uaccess"/GROUP="steam"/g' /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/60-steam-input.rules
When creating the group, be sure to create a system group:
# groupadd --system steam
Then add the users, you want to be able to use "Steam Input", to this group.
Troubleshooting
See
Steam/Troubleshooting
.
See also
Gentoo:Steam
The Big List of DRM-Free Games on Steam
at PCGamingWiki
Steam Linux store
Proton
Compatibility tool for Steam Play based on Wine and additional components.
ProtonDB
crowdsourced Linux compatibility reports.
are we anti cheat yet
A comprehensive and crowd-sourced list of games using anti-cheats and their compatibility with GNU/Linux or Wine/Proton.