Set up Steam under Debian without an installer

First of all: When setting up Steam, I act as user tester. Any other user can be used instead of tester. However, all path information in this documentation must then also be changed.

First, download the official Steam installer from their web portal. A file steam.deb is then available in the downloads folder.

If you unpack this Debian package you will find the files that are necessary under the directory /CONTENTS (unpacking with the Midnight Commander is very simple by selecting steam.deb and pressing Enter)

/usr/bin/steam
/usr/bin/steamdeps
/usr/lib/steam/bootstraplinux_ubuntu12_32.tar.xz

The last file can be named differently under certain circumstances. Below /usr/lib/steam (within steam.deb!) There should be only one file.

All three files are now e.g. copied to /home/tester/steam/bin (This directory must be created beforehand!) Then the following steps are carried out as user root:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dri:i386
sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-glx:i386

Now change to the directory /home/tester/steam/bin and call the file steam:

cd /home/tester/steam/bin
./steam

If packages are still missing, they are now displayed in a separate window (missing packages are installed as above, the package names displayed by Steam can be adopted 1: 1) Otherwise, the execution of the Steam application begins, which usually starts with the Update of own binaries begins. Ultimately, the usual Steam window appears where games can be started and installed.

Addendum: The way described above does not create any desktop icons and otherwise Steam is NOT integrated into the existing desktop environment via GUI but has to be started manually as stated above.

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Created on February 3, 2022 by Andreas Wittmann