Steam - Unable to change default content library for games

General Help
1

Hello Zorin community, nice to meet you all :slight_smile:

I've been running Zorin for the past couple of weeks and it will be my new goto OS for my laptop. In getting myself setup for my own personal use, I installed Steam from the Software store.

It installs and runs absolutely fine but I'm having a real show stopper of a problem. I'm running Zorin OS 16 on a 30 GB SSD and there is simply not enough storage for games.

As such, I created a 200 GB ext 4 partition on my 1 TB standard internal drive so I can use is as data storage for Zorin. It is mounted, I can see it in file browser and from df -h all fine.

The problem is, when I try to change the Steam Content Library directory, it only allows me to select between a few different dirs in the / of my Zorin OS partition and shows absolutely nothing outside of the. Things like /usr /var /etc etc.. (ba dum tish).

My drive is mounted in /mnt but Steam cannot see it. It seems broken to me as my bro uses Manjaro and he doesn't have this issue at all. So seems to be a Zorin/Ubuntu problem.

I found multiple dirty workarounds on the interwebnets which involve moving steam folders, creating symlings, different mountpoints etc. I spent about 2-3 hours trying all this and anything else I could think of but alas no joy.

Hoping someone else has had the same issue and can help me cut to the chase as I'm at a total loss and would like to start using Steam in Linux. It seems this feature is broken rather than being an after thought as I imagine it's extremely common for folks to install their games on the big mechanical drive instead of the (invariably) much smaller SSD.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

2

How did you install steam? If you install it as snap/flatpak it recommended not to. It may be the cause of your problem if it is.

3

Thanks Storm. I just installed it from the Zorin Software store. A quick ps aux suggests it is indeed running in flatpak:

spawnsw+ 21767 0.0 0.0 2588 608 ? S 13:29 0:00 /usr/libexec/flatpak-bwrap --args 45 /app/bin/steam-wrapper
spawnsw+ 21795 0.0 0.0 2984 1620 ? S 13:29 0:00 /usr/libexec/flatpak-bwrap --args 45 /app/bin/steam-wrapper

I guess I should uninstall it completely and try installing directly from apt?

4

Yep. Snap/flat is root to all evil in my book. Uninstall it. And then:

sudo apt install steam
1 Like
5

Now that you mention it, that would probably explain why it can't see anything outside of its flatpak bubble.

I'll give that a bash and will update on the outcome!

Thanks Storm! :+1:

1 Like
6

So there it is. Nailed it Storm!

Uninstalled from the software manager which gives me the flatpak installlation. Then installed with sudo apt install steam

I can see all the dirs, set my new default folder and am now downloading Portal!

I also checked the app on the store and I have once again reminded myself how important it is to RTFM! I somehow missed a rather important piece of information.

There is a note at the bottom which only appears if Steam isn't installed. It specifically mentions the need to run an additional command if you intend to use a game directory outside of flatpak. It even displays the command which I would share but I can't see it anymore as the app is now installed.

So thank you again and I am now fully up and running!

2 Likes
7

Happy gaming :slight_smile:

8

I wrote a tutorial on this, because the software store comes with Flatpak Steam, people are inevitably going to run into this issue.

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