Installing applications from the Debian repo in SteamOS

[Shark]

I noticed that a lot of people who are using SteamOS are interested in installing additional applications on it, which is why I decided to make a guide. If you don't understand something or it doesn't work for you, please leave a comment.

Note: This guide is for SteamOS 2.0 and newer. If you're on an older version of SteamOS, replace all instances of the name jessie into wheezy and it should still work.

First you are going to need a complete SteamOS installation, otherwise this guide is probably not going to be of much use.

1. In big picture mode go to Settings -> Interface and enable the desktop.
2. go into the desktop by going to Exit -> Switch to desktop from the start screen of big picture mode.

Now you should see your desktop. Make sure you have at least a keyboard plugged in!

3. Drag your mouse to the top-left corner of the screen, type terminal and hit enter to open a terminal window.

If you don't trust me you can check what the commands in this guide do with the man command, If you want to know what apt-get does for instance, like this:

man apt-get

4. Now we're going to change the password of the desktop user so we can use sudo. Run the following command and pick a password:

passwd

5. Open the sources list for editing with the following command

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

6. Go to the bottom of the file and paste in the following lines(with right-click or ctrl+shift+v):

deb ftp:/mirror.nl.leaseweb.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
deb-src ftp:/mirror.nl.leaseweb.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free

You can also use a different mirror if you want to, this one is in the Netherlands and very fast for me. More mirrors can be found here: http://www.debian.org/mirror/list

7. Close Nano with ctrl+x and pick y to save the file
8. Let's make sure no SteamOS packages get replaced by the updater by creating a preferences file with the following command:

sudo nano /etc/apt/preferences

8. Copy the this to the file and save it like before:

Package: *
Pin: release o=Valve Software LLC
Pin-Priority: 900

Package: *
Pin: release l=Debian
Pin-Priority: 110

9. Now run the following command to index the new repo:

sudo apt-get update

10. You can now install applications from the debian repo, this can be done in 2 ways. You can either use the apt-get command, if you wanted to install xbmc for instance you'd do that like this:

sudo apt-get install -t jessie xbmc

Then for finding applications you could either search for them here[www.debian.org] or use the apt-cache command like this:

apt-cache search -t jessie application | more

You can also use a gui a tool to do this, like add/remove packages which is installed by default, but you won't be able to find things in the Jessie repo unless you set the pin priority to 110. This can bite you later, but it's unlikely. Pin priority -10 is safer.

Edit1: Fixed the apt-pinning, thanks Hitsuji.
Edit2: Added -t option to installing applications.
Edit3: Fixed a mistake I made on gui tools.
Edit4: Removed some outdated info and fixed some spelling errors.
Edit5: Changed pin priority to 110, since a lot of people seem to have problems with it being set at -10.
Edit6: Updated guide to SteamOS Brewmaster, since that is what Steam Machines seem to ship with.
Edit7: Added warning for SteamOS Alchemist users.
Edit8: Removed some outdated info and some grammar fixes
Edit9: Changed SteamOS repo pin to be more specific

[Shark]

Strong Bad eredeti hozzászólása:

Awesome I love linux so much just to install application i have to enter so many commands in terminal. All people who use Steam are expected to be computer engineers.

You are doing something which SteamOS is not designed for and you're expecting it to be doable with a few mouseclicks? If that is what you want you should use Ubuntu instead.

[*****User5671089]

Strong Bad has an uber 486 laptop.

[f0rce]

how do you install flash?

[Grimallq]

Mr. Pooper Scoopers eredeti hozzászólása:

how do you install flash?:dsfight:

sudo apt-get install -t wheezy flashplugin-nonfree

[directhex]

I should point out that pin priorities mean specific things. -10 is within the region which means "never consider these packages for installation". A value of 110 would mean you don't need to specify "-t wheezy" - it would always install from SteamOS if a SteamOS package exists, but pull from Wheezy if it doesn't

[Hrist Valkyrie]

directhex eredeti hozzászólása:

I should point out that pin priorities mean specific things. -10 is within the region which means "never consider these packages for installation". A value of 110 would mean you don't need to specify "-t wheezy" - it would always install from SteamOS if a SteamOS package exists, but pull from Wheezy if it doesn't

Which is STILL bad, because there are certain packages that both have that Steam tweaks before adding them to the Alchemist repo. Pinning at 110 would mess that up.

[Hrist Valkyrie]

Also, Synaptic won't work for installing Wheezy packages while it's pinned negative.

[Shark]

Hrist Valkyrie eredeti hozzászólása:

Also, Synaptic won't work for installing Wheezy packages while it's pinned negative.

Oh good point, thanks. Will change that later.

[Hrist Valkyrie]

Shark eredeti hozzászólása:

Hrist Valkyrie eredeti hozzászólása:

Also, Synaptic won't work for installing Wheezy packages while it's pinned negative.

Oh good point, thanks. Will change that later.

Don't mention it!

[Balderick]

Why use synaptic? There is already a package manager gui installed! Either are still good for finding package names though. Leaving wheezy on negative pinning is still best option me thinks. Either case just observe terminal output when installing from wheezy.

[Hrist Valkyrie]

40-1PvtBalderick eredeti hozzászólása:

Why use synaptic? There is already a package manager gui installed! Either are still good for finding package names though. Leaving wheezy on negative pinning is still best option me thinks. Either case just observe terminal output when installing from wheezy.

This, anyway. The default add/remove packages manager in Gnome can be used to remove packages and also search for the correct names to install packages using the '-t Wheezy' on apt-get.

[Balderick]

+1
Setting a password for root user allows the installation of packages from the add/remove packages app. The root user password is needed for authentication. Keeping the negative pinning foer wheezy does of course mean using the -t wheezy options from terminal but this is advantagious in being able to see what packages will be pulled or removed before the desired package is actually installed thus helping to protect you're steamos install.

[f0rce]

How do you install VirtualBox on SteamOS?

[Balderick]

Using Stephensons Rocket SteamOS installer by directhex is probably the easiest way. http://directhex.github.io/steamos-installer/?r93

[Rayane Medeiros]

Congratulations to Shark and all the community, the work you have done here is fantastic!
But i have some questions:

1) There is a way to install the Nvidia drivers in this way?

2) How exactly do I uninstall a program using this method?

I apologize to everyone for my english, it was done on google translator. And also weight apologize for my ignorance but I am new on linux.