[mostly solved] unable to install steam

happyoutkast · August 15, 2023, 5:33am

Hello-
I just installed parrot OS home edition 5.3 tonight. I had this installed before, but decided to reinstall in order to (try) and fix some problems, such as being unable to install wine. I think I may have fixed the wine problem (untested yet), but now I still cannot install steam.

Whenever I run steam

I get the following output:

Steam needs to install these additional packages:
libc6:amd64 libc6:i386 libegl1:amd64 libegl1:i386 libgbm1:amd64 libgbm1:i386 libgl1-mesa-dri:amd64 libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 libgl1:amd64 libgl1:i386 steam-libs-amd64:amd64 steam-libs-i386:i386

Press return to proceed with the installation:  
.........
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
libc6 is already the newest version (2.31-13+deb11u6).
libegl1 is already the newest version (1.3.2-1).
libegl1 set to manually installed.
libgbm1 is already the newest version (20.3.5-1).
libgbm1 set to manually installed.
libgl1 is already the newest version (1.3.2-1).
libgl1 set to manually installed.
libgl1-mesa-dri is already the newest version (20.3.5-1).
libgl1-mesa-dri set to manually installed.
libc6:i386 is already the newest version (2.31-13+deb11u6).
libc6:i386 set to manually installed.
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 : Depends: libelf1:i386 (>= 0.142) but it is not going to be installed
                        Depends: libvulkan1:i386 (>= 1.2.131.2) but it is not going to be installed
 steam-libs-i386:i386 : Depends: libudev1:i386 but it is not going to be installed or
                                 libudev0:i386 but it is not installable
                        Recommends: libasound2-plugins:i386 but it is not installable
                        Recommends: libnm0:i386 but it is not going to be installed
                        Recommends: libva2:i386 but it is not going to be installed
                        Recommends: libva-drm2:i386 but it is not going to be installed
                        Recommends: libva-glx2:i386 but it is not installable
                        Recommends: libva-x11-2:i386 but it is not going to be installed
                        Recommends: mesa-vulkan-drivers:i386 but it is not installable
                        Recommends: va-driver-all:i386 but it is not going to be installed or
                                    va-driver:i386
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Press return to continue:

trying to install steam via apt (as opposed to the downloaded .deb package) yields this:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 : Depends: libelf1:i386 (>= 0.142) but it is not going to be installed
                        Depends: libvulkan1:i386 (>= 1.2.131.2) but it is not going to be installed
 steam:i386 : Depends: libudev1:i386 but it is not going to be installed
              Recommends: libasound2-plugins:i386 but it is not installable
              Recommends: mesa-vulkan-drivers:i386 but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Now, I don’t know what packages are broken, and nothing seems to tell me. I tried to “fix broken packages” in synaptic, but that didn’t seem to help. I still get the same result. Nor does it tell me what packages are held so I could try to investigate that. This is a fresh out-of-the-box brand new installation, and I shouldn’t be getting these sort of problems. By contrast, my old laptop that has had parrot on it since April 2019 parrot 4.4 days, installed and runs steam fine. However that laptop is also 10 years old and doesn’t run some games like my new one here. The only difference is that the old system is running parrot security and the new one is running parrot home.

I even tried to add the i386 architecture via dpkg to resolve this, still no luck.

Now, I know there are “purpose built gaming distros” out there, and if I wanted to run one, that’s what I would have installed. I like parrot, it’s fast, it has a really nice look to it, and I’m comfortable with it, and unlike any other distro on the planet, it has anonsurf. If I could get the stuff I like about parrot elsewhere, I would try it. The home edition bills itself as a multi-use distribution, which includes gaming. This shouldn’t be a problem. I know this rant may be a bit much, but I want to preemptively address the lame “just install another distro” unhelpful comments that are possible to come my way.

I appreciate any real assistance that could be offered.

Parrot version in use (if you are not aware of it, open terminal and type cat /etc/os-release | grep VERSION):
PRETTY_NAME=“Parrot OS 5.3 (Electro Ara)”
NAME=“Parrot OS”
VERSION_ID=“5.3”
VERSION=“5.3 (Electro Ara)”
VERSION_CODENAME=ara
ID=parrot
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL=“https://www.parrotsec.org/”
SUPPORT_URL=“https://community.parrotsec.org/”
BUG_REPORT_URL=“https://community.parrotsec.org/”
Logs/Terminal output (use pastebin or similar services):
(will post as requested)

Masmer · August 15, 2023, 5:47am

Hi @happyoutkast

Sorry to hear you’re having issues. And thank you for typing up a proper, detailed troubleshooting query.

I have Steam installed via Flatpak. It just works without having to mess with dependencies, W.I.N.E., and the like. Let me know if you need assistance setting up Flatpak, or installing Steam with it.

happyoutkast · August 15, 2023, 5:52am

hello @Masmer I appreciate your response.

I was going to try and install it via snap but get the error

snap "steam" is already installed, see 'snap help refresh'

I get the same error with spotify as well. Snap confinement is another huge issue since most of my steam library resides under /opt and those…people… actually hardcoded the paths allowable rather than use a .conf file like a sensible person.

Now I have no experience using flatpak. I’m hoping that it doesn’t present the issues that snap has, I would be interested in learning how to use it, and if it has the same confinement issues that snap has. The only solution I know of to that is to bind mount /opt to a folder in my home directory, a messy, but functional approach.

Again, thank you for your assistance.

happyoutkast · August 15, 2023, 6:37am

@Masmer
I got steam working under flatpak, problem is I don’t have any games working. I have all my games installed in /opt/steamapps. While I was able to add this folder successfully, steam doesn’t recognize any games installed there. When I try to install them, it does the validation thing, then gives me a “disk write error”. I double checked all the permissions, and it says I have write access to the folder, subfolder, and files. Any idea on how to fix this, or can you point me in the direction of where I can fix this?

happyoutkast · August 15, 2023, 6:56am

heh, fixed it. took some digging on google (a lot of digging) but yeah I found the command to add /opt to the flatpak sandboxing. Far superior to snap, since snap doesn’t even have an option to do this, at all. It’s really, really not smart.

in case anyone is wondering, the command is:

flatpak override --user --filesystem=<mountpoint> com.valvesoftware.Steam

dmknght · August 21, 2023, 12:28pm

Try sudo apt install steam:i386 -t parrot-backports
BTW we are going to update Parrot with Debian 6 so we hope we can fix this stupid dependencies error. I must confess, the LTS branch went to hell because of the dependencies error. It was worse than the rolling for some reasons.
I am working with Palinuro trying to find a good solution to fix this error in the future. Nobody likes this error.

dmknght · August 21, 2023, 12:29pm

If you are playing games on Steam, Steam will install Proton automatically. I assume it’s better than install Wine. AFAIK, Steam doesn’t use native Wine in the system.
P/s: I’m playing arma 3 with Steam’s proton and it’s freaking awesome.

happyoutkast · November 14, 2023, 1:07am

That actually fixed steam and wine! thank you for the solution. Of course now I’m in the process of upgrading to parrot 6.0 so hopefully it will be fixed in the update.

happyoutkast · November 14, 2023, 1:09am

I use wine for other things besides steam. However on that note, MS FSX doesn’t run under proton, but does under wine steam. I also have a “windows” steam library folder and a “linux” steam library folder for (testing) reasons as well. No, the same games aren’t installed under both, that would be a waste of space.