Multiple instances of Steam?

[Adrian]

Hello everybody, is there a way to open multiple instances of Steam in Linux (Ubuntu)?
Something like Sandboxie or the like.

[dirrtymartini]

Ok, I have to ask...why would someone want to do such a thing? Multiple instances aren't allowed in Windows and I'm pretty sure they aren't allowed in Linux. I've seen Steam complain when multiple processes are started.

[Adrian]

Totally legal.
I use Sandboxie in Windows to open multiple TF2 (got 50+ accounts ATM).

[dirrtymartini]

Lannjk původně napsal:

Totally legal.
I use Sandboxie in Windows to open multiple TF2 (got 50+ accounts ATM).

But you have 50+ steam accounts? I might have to go correct my first post then. ;)

[Adrian]

Yup.
I'm trying to find a way to open many accounts at the same time like in Windows, but can't seem to find a way to do so

[dirrtymartini]

Lannjk původně napsal:

Yup.
I'm trying to find a way to open many accounts at the same time like in Windows, but can't seem to find a way to do so

Thanks for explaining it. Hope you find a solution. (fifty virtual machines? LOL)

[Adrian]

Not at the same time, and they're not virtual machines.
I open 10 accounts for 12 hours each. Each account uses ~600 mb of ram.

[matt]

Lannjk původně napsal:

Not at the same time, and they're not virtual machines.
I open 10 accounts for 12 hours each. Each account uses ~600 mb of ram.

Why do you have 50 accounts? O_o
10 accounts for 12 hours each, do you mean that you are using bots for playing TF2 on multiple accounts at once? :)

[dirrtymartini]

Lannjk původně napsal:

Not at the same time, and they're not virtual machines.
I open 10 accounts for 12 hours each. Each account uses ~600 mb of ram.

I was joking about the VMs...hence that big LOL at the end. :P

[Adrian]

No, no bots. I open each account and log it to an individual LAN server so that it can idle for the drops. After the 12 hours, items stop dropping so I just shut it down and open another account. That goes on every week until I get the drops for each account.

[Spindle.Cell]

What you are dealing with, ladies and gentlemen, is a pro idler. I would also like to be able to log into multiple steam at once. My reasoning is a bit more humble though. I just want to run my steam (win) through wine and steam for Linux so that I don't have to keep exiting and restarting just to play Dota 2 or CS:GO.

[Thin Lizzy Stan]

i would really like this, i have a triple-seat computer, and its a really bad drawback to find that steam does not like itself being cloned, even when me and my brother/parents/friends have seperate accounts to use.

[Spongeroberto Squarepantalones]

Have you tried it with multiple linux users?

[› Black Leather Couch]

Yes its quite possible. I even blogged about it in my non-read blog. (things I forgot yesterday if you want to read more in depth, just google it)

Anyways, you can run multiple instances of steam easily, and TF2. You need to use arkose (sandbox) with -w and video cards enabled. Once you have an instance of TF2 running, delete the ~/.steam/steam.pid file, and relaunch Steam, should work just fine. Just remember, once you do this the older instances of steam will not be able to launch games since it checks steam.pid for the DRM check. Thats the short answer =)

[Adrian]

Could you provide a link to the blog? As said before, it can be done with various users, but this way seems much easier to be scripted

[› Black Leather Couch]

Its not automated yet, but I've made the first steps in getting multiple native copies working, its a start, but a big one. I haven't worked on it due to my newest endeavour, I'll get back to work on it soon enough.

I've also considered scripting it via wine, custom prefixes and dynamic linking of steamapps, I've heard from two others they already do it, I just haven't looked into it.

http://thingsiforgotyesterday.blogspot.com/2013/02/linux-tf2-idling-minor-scratch-that.html

Either way, this works for now.