Steam brings the world of gaming to Linux with great simplicity and choice. Marko Geber/Getty Images
Games are a huge part of the computer industry. In fact, many would say that the gaming industry helps to inspire innovation on the desktop.
For the longest time, Linux had very little to offer gamers. Sure, there were a few cutesie games (such as one of my favorites Frozen Bubble) but not much more. Then came Wine, which allowed users to play a fairly good number of Windows games on Linux. I remember the first time I was able to get Diablo running on Linux with Wine. I felt as if I’d accomplished something special.
Now…there’s Steam.
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Steam brings the world of gaming to Linux with great simplicity and choice. All you have to do is sign up, install the Steam app, and start purchasing games or playing free games. You’ll find tens of thousands of games to choose from, including new and popular titles such as Battle Bit Remastered, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, Starfield, Street Fighter 6, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Stray, and so many others.
Fortunately, installing Steam on Debian and Ubuntu-based distributions is incredibly simple. Let me show you how it’s done.
Installing Steam
What you’ll need: The only things you’ll need for this are a running instance of a Debian or Ubuntu-based Linux distribution and a user with sudo privileges. Once you get beyond the installation, you’ll also need a Steam account, so you can download/purchase games. Do note that you can also install Steam via Snap (with the command sudo snap install steam). However, I’ve found the Snap version of Steam to be a bit unpredictable. For example, the only way to get it to properly run is from the command line using the -vgui option (as in, steam -vgui). So if you prefer to install the traditional method, here’s how.
The first thing to do is log in to your Linux desktop and open a terminal window.
Next, add the Multiverse repository, which is a repository that includes non-free software titles. To do this, issue the command:
sudo add-apt-repository multiverse
First you’ll be prompted for your sudo password. Once you’ve successfully authenticated, you’ll then be prompted to hit Enter on your keyboard.
Once the Multiverse repository has been added, update apt (the Advanced Packaging Tool for installing software) with the command:
sudo apt-get update -y
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With apt updated, you can now install Steam with the command:
sudo apt-get install steam -y
After the installation completes, open Steam from your desktop menu. On its first run, Steam will download and apply a full update, so allow that to complete. Once it does, the Steam account sign-in window will open, where you can either log in with your account credentials or create a new account.
You can either log in with your credentials or with the QR code. Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
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After successfully logging in, you can start playing all the games you want, right on the Linux operating system.
Steam is ready to help you dive into the world of gaming on Linux. Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Whoever said Linux would never be a valid gaming environment back in the day couldn’t predict Steam would arrive to herald a new dawn with the open-source operating system. Give Steam a try and see if it doesn’t open a world of fun for you on Linux.
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