[IMPORTANT] How to post a Problem to get the right Answer !

[Sensei Aizen]

Many people in this forum write their problem in it.
They say that they having problem with XYZ.

However they DO NOT say anything about their systems.
Without sufficient information you will not get an answer.
(lack of knowledge)

Please post your information about your system ! :

System Specs:

• CPU: ...
  
• RAM: ...
  
• Graphic: ...

Optional System Specs:

• Network-Cards: ... wlan / ethernet ...
  
• Manufacturer of Notebook: HP, Samsung, Asus, ...

OS Data:

• Distribution-Name: Ubuntu / Fedora / Debian / ...
  
• Version-Number: a number like 1,2,3 etc.
  
• Version-Name: the forename of Version-Number like Nita, Whezzy, Milka, Sarah
  
• Architecture: 32 or 64 bit
  
• Kernel-Version: 3.X

Use some of these commands:

> uname -m  # show architecture
> uname -a
> cat /proc/version 

> apt-get install sysinfo    # install graphical programm to see system info
> sysinfo

[Zyro]

... or press Help -> System Information in the Steam client.

Often it's more important to start Steam and the game you're having problems within a console/terminal (like gnome-terminal). Then you'll see error messages and can post them in your thread.

[Dusk of Oolacile]

I don't think it matters until people start showing up here. These 2 new posts per week can be properly formatted or not, I don't really care. Usually people who miss out important information get no help and they deserve it.

[Kranky K. Krackpot]

WTF about kernel version? You have to try hard to get an error because of kernel version...

Zyro님이 먼저 게시:

... or press Help -> System Information in the Steam client.

Often it's more important to start Steam and the game you're having problems within a console/terminal (like gnome-terminal). Then you'll see error messages and can post them in your thread.

Yup, that's enough, if only Valve devs'd made error messages a bit more informative, not just "Booom, segfault..." Anyway, the general problem as I see is that people take 64 bit distros and try to install 32-bit Steam manually, missing dependancies and messing with video-drivers...
And since there's no Linux topic on main Discussions page, many people just don't know at all that this forum exists.

[Sensei Aizen]

@Kranky

Indeed. Valve should try to offer repositories for popular distributions
and make dependencies aviable to all of them. Then all linux user can install it in an easy way.

In current state steam for linux is not user-friendly to install.

Should not too hard to serve open-source-files.
Users only have to include it to /etc/apt/sources.list.

[Kranky K. Krackpot]

Gentoo, Suse or Fedora don't have /etc/apt/sources.list... The problem is that it's hard to serve files that'll suite everyone.
Anyway, Debian Jessie and Ubuntu 13.10 already have packaged Steam in their official repos. I'm sure all their derivatives will have it as well in coming releases.

[R3450N]

It's easy to overlook what a newbie to Linux would find hard to find. I don't think it's a matter of formatting, but rather just providing help to users who need it. I personally don't think this thread is even appropriate because it can intimidate newbies into thinking that they need to know how to use Linux 'this and that' before asking for help. It really does give a wrong impression; respect the problems some users have and offer assistance unconditionally. Isn't that what a community should strive for? Asking/raising the same issues, I understand why that's annoying; but it's still worth helping out rather than frowning upon them for lack of formatting/info.