this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2024
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When will Steam stop using i386 packages? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Almost every distro I've used so far ends up having problems installing Steam due to mismatching i386 packages. I've heard that they're being removed upstream. Anyone happen to know a timeline?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Part of the problem is, sure, that installing an entire arch for a package touches up a lot of stuff... What I did was I set up a debootstrap schroot and added i386 arch to that so that neither they nor Steam touch my main system. Not only did I never have problems with Steam again, but I actually resumed pretty much from what I was when I got a new machine, simply by copying the schroot files over. Didn't even have to install anything (but the schroot serve on my new system itself).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This sounds like a good solution. Can you share how you did it?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I basically took the general idea from this Ubuntu doc and made som changes. After installing debootstrap, I followed these general steps:

  • set up an user for Steam, with adduser steam.
  • created a directory to host the "virtual machine" at /var/lib/chroot/steam64.
  • used the page linked above to create a schroot profile directory with the chroot data I want.
  • used the page linked above to create a schroot profile entry for the chroot, adding steam as one of its allowed users.
  • set up an Ubuntu 18.04 schroot with the following command: debootstrap --variant=buildd bionic /var/lib/chroot/steam64 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
  • on the host, allowed cross-"host" applications to lauch windows with xhost +local:.
  • once completed, entered the schroot as root and added the needed i386 arch and packages for Steam and for bubblewrap / Chrome containerization.
  • still in the schroot as root, installed enough packages for a basic graphical environment (basically: a text editor, xnest and xterm; between their dependencies, they'll take care of most of everything).
  • exited the schroot.
  • entered the schroot as steam and fired up the Steam launcher manually.

It's not perfect, there are a few issues (in particular with audio) but once I had the installed schroot ready, I never had to worry about its 32-bit packages ever again. And that was back in.... like, 2019 or something. Six months ago I copied to old schroot to my new machine and resumed playing, with no more cost than having to set up the schroot packages and the steam user (with the same old UID) on the new machine.

Here's a sample of the schroot profile file I'm using. The "steam64.local" is the profile directory, which is basically a copy of schroot/buildd (or of schroot/minbase) with some configurations in fstab and copyfiles to account for eg.: isolating /var/run and dbus, and giving the schroot access to the home directory for the steam user.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Have you tried our saviour nixos? Its pretty hot, was very very easy to install and configure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Tried Nix once, I liked it but overall found it too complicated to setup and manage for the [counts fingers] three programs I was using it for. Might be worth the while if I need a larger library of programs from Outside, but so far Debian and AppImages have not failed me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

overall found it too complicated

If your used to shell it's really set and forget and a simple install would be very easy to configure. Best part being if you need to reinstall (highly unlikely for nixos being how easy it is to change OS config back) but it saves you an enormous amount of time on your subsequent installs/reinstalls. Anyway, getting preachy.

Its not just a much larger repo but also much more fresh, additionally can be used on any distro really

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh no by all means do preach. I was just about doing the same about schroot. :p

And, like I said, it's not that I don't like it. It was just too much for the rather small usecase I had back at the time. I'm pretty sure if at some point I move to a distro less featured than Debian Sid I'm gonna have to pay more attention to Flatpak and Nix again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Debian branch will always have a special place for me as well.

Vimjoyer on youtube has some great resources for getting started in nix if you feel like dipping your toe.