Steam for Linux

Steam for Linux

Hreidmar 18. nov. 2012 kl. 14.57
Steam for linux .. dependencies.
I saw that when running in Ubuntu Steam will open a command line and install dependencies using apt-get. This happens if you're running 64bit linux. I mostly use fedora, cent, or arch. How could this be handled in these with the least ammount of babysitting over creating different commands for different distros? Could the games instead come with the libraries withn the install folder and look there? That seems to be the easiest way.. if a bit redundent.
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Uplink 18. nov. 2012 kl. 18.45 
Better to use the latest patched versions of libraries from the distro. This could be handled by including commands for the 2-3 most common package managers (apt-get, yum) and assuming that if you don't have one of those you probably know enough to do it yourself. Their current approach of aptitude based only of the closed beta is taking them in the correct direction for this.
Hreidmar 18. nov. 2012 kl. 20.02 
I would think at least for those who didn't have the package managers listed here they could at the very least include a list of prerequisit libraries in some info popup of sorts.
Illy 18. nov. 2012 kl. 23.26 
Opprinnelig skrevet av Zer0:
I would think at least for those who didn't have the package managers listed here they could at the very least include a list of prerequisit libraries in some info popup of sorts.
That would be the fallback command if none of the package managers they're looking for can be found: Print out the dependency list so you can fix it yourself.

At least that seems like a sensible place to put it.

What would be really nice is if they design that script in a way that makes it easy for users to write their own distro-specific installers. Then we can sort the ones Valve don't feel are worth the time/effort ourselves.
mdkcore 19. nov. 2012 kl. 6.14 
The steam library dependencies is different from the games dependency. As I've seen, most of games delivery its own dependencies

You can also check for steam's dependencies running this command on STEAM_DIR/ubuntu_32:

for file in *; do ldd ./$file | grep found; done
Wuffyhumps 19. nov. 2012 kl. 14.31 
Yes, you could easily make the mini-installer loadable using widely-adopted solid Linux standardized libraries, and then it can check and download everything that is missing. It should have been made to be distro-agnostic from the beginning but hopefully that will come in the future.

Hopefully Valve and Canonical aren't being bed buddies to exclude other distros...
Sist redigert av Wuffyhumps; 19. nov. 2012 kl. 14.32
Illy 19. nov. 2012 kl. 23.17 
I suspect they're using Ubuntu either for the same reasons Google is, or because Google is.

Distro-agnostic isn't possible if they want to use the system's libraries, because Debian, Fedora and Gentoo all do dependency resolution differently. Then again, if the dependency installer script is only 15 lines, I'm sure we can sort it on other distros simply enough.
Wuffyhumps 4. des. 2012 kl. 14.13 
Opprinnelig skrevet av Illy:
I suspect they're using Ubuntu either for the same reasons Google is, or because Google is.

Distro-agnostic isn't possible if they want to use the system's libraries, because Debian, Fedora and Gentoo all do dependency resolution differently. Then again, if the dependency installer script is only 15 lines, I'm sure we can sort it on other distros simply enough.
You can do a check for existing libraries and if you can't find them, you download them to the installation's location and use them there.
Cadence 8. des. 2012 kl. 0.31 
Though it's Arch Linux specific, someone has put together a PKGBUILD for Steam, which downloads any dependencies through pacman and then builds Steam through source. I'm willing to bet a script could be set up to do the same for any distro easily enough.

However, this isn't a permanent solution. The best probability would be for steam to become merged into the various repositories as it has been with Ubuntu, and let the repos manage the rest themselves.
Wuffyhumps 9. des. 2012 kl. 6.28 
Opprinnelig skrevet av Nito:
Though it's Arch Linux specific, someone has put together a PKGBUILD for Steam, which downloads any dependencies through pacman and then builds Steam through source. I'm willing to bet a script could be set up to do the same for any distro easily enough.

However, this isn't a permanent solution. The best probability would be for steam to become merged into the various repositories as it has been with Ubuntu, and let the repos manage the rest themselves.
No, that would require work meaning the bigger distros would benefit and the smaller ones would suffer, leaving some Steam users out in the cold just because of their distro choice.

The real solution is to have Steam be distro-agnostic. As long as a distro is standardized with Xorg, LSB, freedesktop.org, and other standards then that should be all that is needed and Steam should download any other libraries needed.

If distros want to provide some of those extra libraries themselves or doesn't want to ship with lots of missing libraries, they should:

1. Create an ACTUAL PACKAGE QUERY STANDARD for programs to query the package manager to pull some libraries with. I thought that the PackageKit project was this solution but I could be wrong and I'm not sure how far along they are with it.

2. #1 as well as make themselves compatible with a universal standardized package format so programs could call specific programs even more easily.
Sist redigert av Wuffyhumps; 9. des. 2012 kl. 6.33
Cadence 12. des. 2012 kl. 22.22 
Opprinnelig skrevet av Swiftpaw:
No, that would require work meaning the bigger distros would benefit and the smaller ones would suffer, leaving some Steam users out in the cold just because of their distro choice.

The real solution is to have Steam be distro-agnostic. As long as a distro is standardized with Xorg, LSB, freedesktop.org, and other standards then that should be all that is needed and Steam should download any other libraries needed.

That could definitely work, but it would take some doing as far as I'm aware. I suppose if they checked for the more common package managers, (apt-get, yum, and pacman are the first to come to mine) and if none were found, and libraries were out of date or missing, it could grab them from the steam servers.

Personally, I prefer keeping most of my software confined to my package manager, as it makes updating and/or detecting conflicts much easier, but I can see the need for a more standardized "failsafe" for the sake of all non-standard distros.

Please feel free to correct me if I'm spouting nonsense or misunderstood you. Truth be told, I'm much more accustomed to Windows (mainly because of the distinct lack of games on Linux. I'm glad that's finally changing~)
BlackestDawn 13. des. 2012 kl. 4.40 
Are we talking about the dependencies for the Steam client itself?
If so then there isn't that much of a problem in my mind since the "package" is more of an installer so a standard .tgz package would most likely be best if they put out only one. That can be repackaged by the individual distros.

If we are talking about the dependencies for the games them self then no, most of that should be bundled with the games to minimize compatibility problems. Biggest problems is that different games may require different versions which may be incompatible with each other, and that different distros have different versions marked as latest stable.
Having Steam handle all of that for the games would create an environment which would be effectively the same as if they were bundled from the start, and it would put an unnecessary burden on Valve.
Cadence 13. des. 2012 kl. 6.52 
Ah, I was talking about the steam client itself. I absolutely agree when it comes to the games themselves, as that is pretty much what they do for windows.
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