Introducing early access to the Steam snap!

Desktop
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71

does snap connections steam list removable-media yet ? (also note that it does not automatically connect for security reasons, you will still need the snap connect ... command from above)

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I was using Ubuntu 21.10, I did an OS upgrade

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:scream: you are right, I forgot to connect it… yes it’s working now.
I’ll going to install some games and test, thanks

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74

Is the work that’s being done to provide up to date Mesa drivers able to be reused by other snaps? I maintain a few emulation snaps that would benefit from up to date drivers to either resolve graphical glitches or improve performance. So for clarity I was wondering if providing up to date Mesa drivers means in a content snap for other snaps to also use, or up to date Mesa on the underlying host system or both?

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looking at the snapcraft.yaml (linked above) the mesa bits are currently all stage-packages …

there might be some work of the ubuntu-frame (Mir) team, that could end up in a re-usable mesa content snap tough :slight_smile:

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76

You’re referring to mesa-core20. That packages the mesa graphics userspace drivers from the archive for use via the graphics-core20 content interface.

The graphics-core20 meets a slightly different need: it allows us to package alternative (non-mesa) graphics stacks and use them with snaps that consume the interface. While this work was motivated by IoT devices with weird graphics stacks it also “just works” :tm: on desktop.

What I think you are suggesting is that another snap based on “Mesa next” could be used the same way to provide the latest Mesa userspace. I think that would work. And if the drivers are available from a PPA it would be simple to do.

That seems a sensible thing to do to support snaps consuming this content interface.

Notes

  1. there are other snaps (e.g. gnome-3-28-1804) used by “desktop helpers” that also pull in bits of Mesa. That might need someone to do some cleanup to make this generally useful.
  2. It might be done as a track of mesa-core20 (if the Mir team could be persuaded to take on the support)
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77

Hello,
me again! :sunglasses:
Trying to install games in a mounted HD I got permissions issues, this is the permissions in the folder:

drwxrwxrwx 3 mario mario 4096 may 8 10:42 SteamSnapSSD

any ideas?

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Hello @mlacunza.
I found an open issue on github and added my feedback there.
Is this the same issue you are experiencing? https://github.com/canonical/steam-snap/issues/9

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79

Yes it’s exactly the same bug.

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And I just add my report there too, just in case

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A question for those testing this. Is manually installing stuff like Proton GE and Luxtorpeda possible? I assume Proton-up can’t be used to install them automatically?

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Just tested this, and it is possible to use Proton GE, or at least Steam does recognise it. It has to be installed to ~/snap/steam/common/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d

I haven’t actually played a game with Proton-GE yet as I can’t access my Steam library on an external drive (known issue), but don’t see why it shouldn’t work.

I took a look at the protonup repo and it looks like you can tell it where to install other proton versions, which in the case of the snap would look like protonup -d "~/snap/steam/common/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/"

Not familiar with Luxtorpeda, but I unpacked the latest Luxtorpeda release from Github into the compatibiltytools.d folder and Steam does present it as an option (again unable to test until I can get my library recognised).

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Thanks for the info. Luxtorpeda is a godsend for playing retro PC games on Linux and makes using Source Ports infinity easier than Windows.

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I saw that the git issue was resolved, updated snapd and steam snap using edge channels. I confirm that I can now use a steam library on my lvm device mounted under /mnt.
@mlacunza I believe you can test again now.

Thanks a lot to Snap team and @kenvandine for pushing this forward so quickly. I now have the very hard task to test some gaming “for the greated good of foss”. :thinking: :sweat_smile:

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85

Hi everyone!

This snap makes me want to try Ubuntu Gaming :heart:

Also I want to help testing, but need some guidance. For debugging and testing:

  1. What commands use to see logs/error?
  2. How know what is a error in the game vs in snap?
  3. Where report each type of error/problem?
  4. How config properly Steam snap? For completely new Ubuntu gaming user
  • How set proton?
  • How set connections for the snap? If needed

I need to know this because I try to play Vampires Survivor and the game won’t launch, if I use proton 7 the game shows a JavaScript error but when I use the beta (linux native build) the game start with a black screen and then close it’s self even if steam report the game is running I’m not able to play. So I don’t even know where to start looking for errors :sweat_smile:

Thanks for this project! :heart:

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86

Glad you’re excited about the project :slight_smile:

  1. Usually any errors should appear if you run Steam via the command line, like with snap run steam.
  2. Generally, all logs in the command line are from Steam itself up until the game is opened and running. After that, most logs will either be from the game itself or sometimes Steam will log things like for Cloud sync and whatnot.
  3. For any bugs/errors/feature requests, please open an issue on the GitHub repository and it’ll be handled from there. Please include snap info steam, info about your problem, and maybe some output from the terminal if there was any in (1.). Some issues have already been opened so perhaps they’d give some insight as well.
  4. Steam itself will work with virtually no setup, just install with snap install steam (its on the beta channel as of writing). Games will try to run when you click “Play”, but you can force Proton by right clicking on the game Properties > Compatability > Check 'Force the use of...' and select a Proton version. ProtonDB is a good resource to check what games are compatible with Proton/Linux. For instance, this has some info about running Vampire Survivors, looks like it has a pretty good rating :slight_smile: . You can also turn on Steam play for all titles by going to Steam > Settings > Steam Play.
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Thanks @ashtonn!

So if I install steam snap the only thing a have to do is enable steam play and that’s it? The everything else would be the usual Linux gaming config of trying proton version?

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I just install Age of Empires 4 and the game can’t run, I click in Play and after 2 seconds nothing happens and play button again… I’ll try tomorrow with other game.

Steam version works fine.

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Essentially, yes. Some games that should work might not immediately since the snap is still in beta, but do post any problems you have on the GitHub repo so we can check them out :).

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I have the same issue at the moment which looks to be related to NVIDIA graphics not being detected, fix is incoming so let’s see if that resolves…

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