this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2024
77 points (97.5% liked)

Linux Gaming

15346 readers
9 users here now

Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.

This page can be subscribed to via RSS.

Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.

Resources

WWW:

Discord:

IRC:

Matrix:

Telegram:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
monolalia
77
When will Steam stop using i386 packages? (self.linux_gaming)
submitted 2 months ago by hellofriend to c/linux_gaming
32 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] lordnikon 59 points 2 months ago (2 children)

i could be wrong but my understanding it's still 32 bit because of game compatability with older steam games and since the app itself is only a limited web browser and library. It doesn't need that much memory. So the compatibility wins out for as long as it can.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Steam itself doesn't run the games, right? Couldn't they easily build a small 32 bit launcher for the older games that need it?

[–] p_consti 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You can start steam just fine without the packages. In fact, if you install without them, it'll ask you to install them every time, but you can skip that and it'll work, just 32bit games won't launch

Edit: Looks like I'm partially wrong, as pointed out by a commenter below, steam currently only launches the 32-bit version of the client, despite support for a 5l64-bit client

[–] steeznson 2 points 2 months ago

Steam runtime includes a lot of common static libraries that most games expect to be there. This means that older games will still work even though the wider OS might not have 32bit libs present.

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

Wine can run 32 bit games with WOW64 without the 32 bit libraries

[–] lordnikon 2 points 2 months ago

I'm not talking windows games I'm talking about Linux games