Just recently Valve (major gaming company) released Steam (game delivery platform) for Ubuntu.

Installing Steam on Ubuntu gives you access to the many games that have been ported to Linux (and many more to follow), but if you didn't already know that, then you probably don't play video games and therefore you probably got to this page by accident.

Anyway, here I'll go through how to get Steam installed.

Note: Check out So I installed Ubuntu... Now what? for a one-shot command that will install Steam as well as perform several other common (and important) tasks for a freshly installed Ubuntu.

From the Steam package

This is the simplest method. Although you may notice an error message at one point in the installation process, it is corrected in a later part.

  1. Open Dash (the top left-most button in Launcher)

  2. Type Terminal and then open it by hitting the <enter> key (or clicking the icon)

  3. Copy and paste all of these lines (all at once) into Terminal

     pushd /tmp
     sudo apt-get install -y curl wget && \
     wget -E http://media.steampowered.com/client/installer/steam.deb && \
     sudo dpkg -i steam.deb ; \
     sudo apt-get install -yf && \
     exit
    
  4. Hit the <enter> key

  5. Close the box that pops up (you don't need to take any action)

  6. Open Steam (from Dash)

  7. The first time Steam is run, it will download updates

Note: I found the link at http://store.steampowered.com/about/

From the Steam repository

If for some reason you you have trouble with the method above, here's an alternate method:

You only need to run (copy, paste, and hit enter) these lines (all at once):

sudo apt-get install -y curl && \
curl -L -s https://raw.github.com/gist/4713132/install-steam-repo.bash \
  | sudo bash

Explanation (for advanced users)

Here's what the script above (https://gist.github.com/4713132) is doing:

  1. Add Steam's "key" to the list of trusted keys for Ubuntu Software Center (meaning all future Steam software can be installed as well).

     sudo apt-key adv \
       --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com \
       --recv-keys F24AEA9FB05498B7
    
  2. Add Steam's repository to Ubuntu Software Center

     REPO="deb http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/ $(lsb_release -cs) steam"
     echo "${REPO}" > /tmp/steam.list
     sudo mv /tmp/steam.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ && \
     sudo apt-get update
    
  3. Install Steam

     sudo apt-get install -y steam
    

References


By AJ ONeal

If you loved this and want more like it, sign up!


Did I make your day?
Buy me a coffeeBuy me a coffee  

(you can learn about the bigger picture I'm working towards on my patreon page )