linux-steam-integration

Linux Steam Integration attempts to improve the Steam* gaming experience for users on Linux. In the default mode, it will disable the Steam runtime, and facilitate usage of the distro's own runtime for improved integration and performance. The Steam Runtime is a very old set of Ubuntu libraries, and as such provides a suboptimial experience for many Linux users. A key example of this is broken fontconfig, C++ ABI issues preventing loading, or even the broken theming of GTK widgets on non-Ubuntu distros. These woes have been compounded for users of the open source drivers.

The LSI tool also allows you to use Steam's runtime if you need to, as currently not all cases are covered. It will also take care to prepare the environment, ensuring that users can load Steam using it's own runtime without hitting any of the issues common to a modern distro, i.e. ABI issues and having to LD_PRELOAD libraries to even make Steam start.

More importantly, LSI achieves all of this by not having to butcher your existing Steam installation, as is common in some new tools.

This project, and by extension Solus, is not officially endorsed by, or affiliated with, Steam*, or its parent company, Valve*.

Linux Steam Integration is a Solus project

Integrating LSI

To correctly integrate LSI, your Steam package will require modification. LSI must provide the /usr/bin/steam binary, so your Steam package must move the main launcher to a shadow location.

For users who do not have access to LSI in their distribution, because it has not been integrated yet, please configure with -Dwith-shim=co-exist to preserve your existing Steam integrity. Then use the "LSI Steam" shortcut in your menu to launch Steam via LSI.

Configuring LSI build

There are a number of meson configure options you should be aware of when integrating LSI correctly. The prominent ones are explained here.

-Dwith-shim= none | co-exist | replacement --disable-replace-steam

    Control behaviour of the shim build. `none` will disable building the main
    shim, required for actually launching Steam in the first place.
    
    `co-exist` will ensure this does not conflict with the `/usr/bin/steam`
    path, providing a new `lsi-steam` binary and desktop file.

    `replacement` will provide a drop-in replacement `/usr/bin/steam` binary
    shim responsible for bootstrapping Steam via LSI. This will require you
    to mask the original steam binary to a new location.

    The default value for this option is::

            replacement

-Dwith-steam-binary=$PATH

    Set the absolute path for the shadowed Steam binary.
    LSI will execv Steam after it has initialised the environment.
    Note that execv, not execvp, is used, to mask programs that may be
    in the `$PATH`, hence requiring an absolute path.

    The default value for this option is::

            /usr/lib/steam/steam

    This option is only applicable for distribution integrators, when
    Steam replacement is enabled.

-Dwith-preload-libs=$LIBS

    A colon separated list of libraries that are required to launch Steam
    when using its own runtime. LSI enables users to switch back to the Steam
    runtime, and in this instance we manage the LD_PRELOAD environmental variable.
    Ensure this is correct, and escape $LIB for correct Linux usage.

    The default value for this option is::

            /usr/\$LIB/libX11.so.6:/usr/\$LIB/libstdc++.so.6

-Dwith-frontend=$boolean

    A small UI application is shipped to enable configuration of LSI, which presents
    a simple GTK3 Dialog to the user. It is not enabled by default, it is up
    to the integrator to decide if they wish to employ lsi-settings, or implement
    an alternative.

    The lsi-settings application will only ever write new configurations to the
    **user** settings file, and requires no special permissions.

    The default value for this option is::

            false

How LSI Works

LSI provides a /usr/bin/steam binary to be used in place of the existing Steam script, which will then correctly set up the environment before swapping the process for the Steam process. When using a full build of LSI, the bootstrap shim will force a correct environment, removing any issues that can cause various older SDL versions to kill Steam. Additionally it will then force STEAM_RUNTIME=0 if this is set in the config (default behaviour).

When using the native runtime, and the intercept library is enabled, the LSI shim will also set up LD_AUDIT to use liblsi-intercept. This library will intercept all dynamic linking operations for the main Steam binaries and override their behaviour, allowing Steam to only load a handful of vendored libraries (libav fork) as well as its own private libraries. It is then forced to use system libraries for everything else. This means the Steam client, web helper, etc, will use the native SDL, X11, fixing many bugs with video playback, font rendering and such.

If you are packaging LSI for a distribution, please ensure you provide both a 32-bit and 64-bit build of the intercept library so that the entirety of Steam's library (.so) mechanism is tightly controlled by LSI. See the scripts in the root directory of this repository for examples of how to do this.

Configuration options can be placed in an INI-style configuration file in a series of locations, which are ordered by priority in a cascade::

    ~/.config/linux-steam-integration.conf
    /etc/linux-steam-integration.conf
    /usr/share/defaults/linux-steam-integration/linux-steam-integration.conf

The user configuration takes immediate priority. Secondly we have the system-wide configuration for affecting all accounts, and lastly the vendor configuration, which may be provided by the integrator.

Currently this INI file supports two options. The root section in this INI file must be [Steam].

use-native-runtime = $boolean

    If set to a true boolean value, (yes/true/on), the host OS's native runtime
    will be used instead of the Steam provided runtime. If this is set to
    a false boolean value (no/false/off), then the startup will be modified
    to export the relevant `LD_PRELOAD` and `STEAM_RUNTIME` settings.

    The default value of this variable is true.

force-32bit = $boolean

    If set to a true boolean value (yes/true/on), the shadowed Steam binary will
    be run via the `linux32` command. This will force the `steam` process
    and all children to believe they are running on a 32-bit system. This
    may be useful for 64-bit games that are buggy only on 64-bit.

    If this is set to a false boolean value (no/false/off), then the
    shadowed Steam binary will be directly executed. Note that on 32-bit
    OSs this setting is ignored.

    The default value of this variable is false.

Common issues

Missing tray icon for Steam client using native OS runtime

Ensure you have the 32-bit version of libappindicator installed. This is required for the tray icon. libappindicator falls back to a standard X11 tray icon in the absence of desktop appindicator support.

Related issue: Steam tray icon missing #2

License

src/shim src/frontend src/lsi src/intercept:

    Copyright © 2016-2017 Ikey Doherty

    linux-steam-integration is available under the terms of the `LGPL-2.1`

data/lsi-steam.desktop:

    This file borrows translations from the official `steam.desktop` launcher.
    These are copyright of Valve*.

See LICENSE.LGPL2.1 <LICENSE.LGPL2.1>_ for more details

• Some names may be claimed as the property of others.