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Steam

From postmarketOS Wiki
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Steam running on the OnePlus 6T in Phosh

Steam, Valve Software's digital distribution service for PC games, is not directly provided in the Alpine or postmarketOS repositories, but it can be used on postmarketOS with some workarounds.

As Steam is only available for x86/x86_64 processors, an emulation layer must be used to get it working on arm64 platforms. While Steam may be installed directly (via Flatpak or otherwise) on x86_64 installations of postmarketOS, the majority of postmarketOS devices use the ARM architecture.

Install Guides

There are two candidates for the emulation layer used to run Steam on arm64 - FEX-Emu and box86/box64. I have created guides for setting up both of them inside Distrobox containers. FEX-Emu offers higher compatibility in my testing, but box86/box64 gives better performance on games that worked in both.

Games Tested

For a more generic list of games that were tested on FEX-emu please see this list. If you happen to have a game functional on your pmOS device that has not been added to their list, please be nice and add a wiki page with your tested game and/or device over there aswell.

Game Device Works in FEX Works in box86/box64 Notes
Baba is You nothing-spacewar Untested Yes
Bioshock xiaomi-elish No Untested Shows intro logos and then crashes to desktop
Celeste oneplus-fajita, xiaomi-elish Yes Yes
Cuphead nothing-spacewar Untested Yes
Drawful 2 nothing-spacewar Untested Yes Able to start games with just touch!
Firewatch nothing-spacewar Untested Yes
FTL: Faster than light clockworkpi-uconsole-cm4 Untested Yes
Goat Simulator xiaomi-elish Yes Untested Required SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11
Half Life xiaomi-elish Yes Untested Required SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11
Half Life 2 oneplus-fajita, xiaomi-elish Yes Untested Required SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11
Half Life 2: Deathmatch oneplus-fajita, xiaomi-elish Yes Yes Required SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11
Half Life 2: Lost Coast oneplus-fajita, xiaomi-elish Yes Yes Required SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11
Portal xiaomi-elish Yes Untested Required SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11
Retrowave nothing-spacewar Untested Yes
Retrowave 2 nothing-spacewar Untested Yes Crashes when loading certain maps
Road 96 nothing-spacewar Untested Yes Works pretty well in lower resolutions
Stardew Valley nothing-spacewar Untested Yes
Subnautica xiaomi-elish Yes Untested Required swapfile to start
Tetris® Effect: Connected nothing-spacewar Untested Yes
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion xiaomi-elish Yes No 4GB swapfile active
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim oneplus-fajita, xiaomi-elish Yes No Required swapfile to start
The Jackbox Naughty Pack nothing-spacewar Untested Yes Able to start games with just touch!
The Jackbox Party Pack 9 nothing-spacewar Untested Yes Able to start games with just touch!
The Jackbox Party Starter nothing-spacewar Untested Yes Able to start games with just touch!
The Jackbox Survey Scramble nothing-spacewar Untested Yes Able to start games with just touch!
Tomb Raider (2013) oneplus-fajita, xiaomi-elish Yes No Required using Windows version in Proton
Ultimate Chicken Horse xiaomi-elish Yes Yes Required SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11