Steam
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
| Game | Device | Works in FEX | Works in box86/box64 | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bioshock | xiaomi-elish | No | Untested | Shows intro logos and then crashes to desktop |
| Celeste | oneplus-fajita, xiaomi-elish | Yes | 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 |
| 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 |
| Subnautica | xiaomi-elish | Yes | Untested | Required swapfile to start |
| 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 |