Linux, prevent Steam recommending video drivers

[Hairboy]

Loving the fact I can access some Steam games on Ubuntu. But a few little annoyances that I'd love to overcome

1/ Is there any way to stop the Steam, recommending video card drivers?
I tried the experimental one it recommends one time and ended up with all sorts of issues and only a command line to fix them with. So I'm not going there again! I wouldn't mind except that the Steam Popup can take up to about 5 mins to appear.... and if I start a game like FTL which changes resolution and stuff, it ends up crashing everything.

2/ How can I get the Flash Player working for game demos?
I've got the latest Flash Player...clearly that's not right.... but I'm thinking that the version Steam wants is actually a Windows version? Or maybe I just didn't pay enough attention to the error message... ?

[The Grapist]

It seems like a Linux issue, It's highly reccomeneded by even alot of Unix users to stay away from playing games on it, as the drivers, and nessisary developments have not been met, Not to mention it's fairly early in the Development cycle for it to be very stable.

At the end of the day, Dual boot Windows 7 for your Steam/Gaming OS.

[sober soup (ceo of soup corp)]

What kind of answer is that?!! Of course it is a Linux issue, what I and Hairboy are asking is how to get rid of the annoying pop-up that tells us your driver is not the latest (beta) Driver. I Run Ubuntu 12.04LTS amd am bloody annoyed that I cannot find a way to disable that annoying pop-up.I have my four year old in my ear every time I get home and settle down and enjoy some gaming time "Lets play ***", I say We Will, I just have to wait for the last pop-up.. ( igave up startring steam games without waiting for the pop-up after about the fifth game as it usually leaves a box that persists through the game.. Is there any configfile or option that can be edited to get rid of this POP-UP? I don't mid getting down to the command line-editing, I just stop short of editting code ( is the steam Client for Linux open source?)

[smayli]

There will be no popups if you have relatively new drivers. This will add latest stable drivers for your card:
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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
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sudo apt-get install ati-current (if you have amd/ati card)
or
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current (if you have nvidia card)

[GistOfSpirit]

Regarding flash, Mint has its own package specifically for Steam to be able to play flash videos on a 64bit system.
I'm guessing that for some reason Steam can't use the regular 32bit version of Flash if your system is 64bit, or that package wouldn't exist.