Troubles with steam on Zorin OS 18.1 Core

General Help
1

Hello there guys, I am new to ZorinOS from windows and I am having some troubles with getting Steam to work. I have tried the flatpak and zorin versions of the apps, and they will work fine at first, but then will just stop opening no matter how much I click on it. Any ideas what it could be?

2

Hi and welcome.

Zorin 18 is based on Ubuntu 24.04 so used this in my search criteria. I have extracted the appropriate elements from a Brave A.I. search result.

First, uninstall any versions of Steam you currently have, then:

" 1. Enable the Multiverse repository (if not already enabled):

sudo add-apt-repository multiverse
sudo apt update
  1. Install the official .deb package:
sudo apt install ./steam_latest.deb

Additional Troubleshooting:

  • Wayland Display Server: If using Wayland , the UI may fail to launch from the application menu. Fix this by removing the user-level .desktop file and using the system one:
rm ~/.local/share/applications/steam.desktop
cp /usr/share/applications/steam.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/
sed -i -e 's/Install Steam/Steam/g' ~/.local/share/applications/steam.desktop

  • GPU Acceleration: If Steam launches but crashes, disable "Enable GPU accelerated rendering in web views" in Steam Settings > Interface .

  • AMD Graphics: If launching fails on AMD systems, right-click the Steam icon and select "Launch using integrated graphics card" , then add DRI_PRIME=1 %command% to specific game launch options.

  • AppArmor Restrictions: If games run but the UI is blocked, check for AppArmor profiles in /etc/apparmor.d/steam that may be restricting necessary directory access.

AI-generated answer. Please verify critical facts."

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3

Maybe you find some ideas here in this thread:

Try to launch steam (Zorin apt package) via the terminal

steam
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4

Welcome to the Forum!

Are Secure Boot and Fast Boot in BIOS disabled? When that happens, do You get any Error Messages? Did You tried the Version from Steam directly?

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5

When Steam would get client updates upon opening, it doesn't tell you about it, but it takes relatively forever to open.

If you run steam via terminal, then you can watch it progress (or see if an error occurs), but you could just try running it once and waiting 10 minutes without doing anything special.

6

Thank you very much, that actually works! However, will I just be stuck having to launch it like that each time?

7

Steam boots up just fine via the terminal oddly enough, but will that mean I will have to start it from there each time?

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In the linked thread is a reddit link which helped the user to solve their problem. You can try the solutions mentioned there:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1dcidzy/steam_only_launches_when_run_via_console_command/

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Both secure boot and fast boot are disabled. Steam seems to boot right up via the terminal just fine as a commenter helped me figure out, but will that mean I will just have to boot it up from there permanently.

10

OH MY GOD IT WORKED! Thankyou so much man! I was starting to lose it.

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