This would be a stunning own goal by Red Hat (and let’s face it, they are the largest driving force behind Fedora, if not in complete and total control of the project). Steam and gaming have brought so many new users to Linux - maybe even doubled the entire userbase - that if anything, they should be doing all they can to support it even better if they really want to increase the size of the userbase.
Even if flatpak is still an option, it will still drive a lot of new and existing users to use non Fedora-based distros, which would be sad for the project. I myself have never been a Fedora user, but I’m really grateful to see a lot of the positive things they do for the Linux community, so this would be a very sad step in my opinion. On the other hand, it would make me even happier if we see more users switching to Debian-based distros instead.
Gamers will be fine, it’s bad news for Fedora.
I’ve been running Steam as a Flatpak for a long time, it works just fine regardless of the underlying distro. Don’t panic.
Doesn’t Steam run basically everything, including the client itself, inside the Steam Container Runtime now? No Steam games, native or not, use the system libraries anymore. I know I occasionally need to wait a couple of seconds after an update for it to update the Steam Container Runtime before even starting the client, which makes me think that they run the client in the container as well. I think the only real 32-bit dependency it has on the system is the user space graphics driver.
Doesn’t Steam run basically everything, including the client itself, inside the Steam Container Runtime now?
What makes you think that? I don’t remember any announcements to that effect.
Last time I checked, Steam used pressure-vessel (the container) only for games, not for itself. But I haven’t been following changes in that area lately.
Through some script sleuthing, I did discover that Steam ships several of its own 32-bit and 64-bit libraries, and that paths to both are added to
LD_LIBRARY_PATH(search path for library files) when the client is launched by the Steam Runtime, but many files (specifically the Steam Runtime) are only present as 32-bit binaries in~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32.Whether the Steam client uses those is a question someone else less sleep-deprived can answer.
Damnit I just installed Fedora and it’s the best experience I’ve had lately. Works better than Bazzite and Cachy. Sigh.
I strongly doubt that they’d render Steam not runnable on their distro.
Maybe Steam could just bundle the needed 32 bit libs for Fedora until they can get a 64 bit only version ready.
Does the Steam Flatpak already do that or would it need to be changed to do that?
Flatpaks don’t use system libraries.
Meaning the libraries should already be included in the Flatpak right?
Sorry, I’m a noob trying to understand what the possible solutions are.
i would have liked if this had happened and i play games. this way, the pressure would rise on valve to release a 64bit steam!
a short pain but better in the long run.
Just went and voted against. You should too.
