Multiple problems on Steam for Linux

Kladiator

Kladiator

Member
On the second hard disk of my main desktop a couple of days I installed Ubuntu 14.04 (on the first one I still have 12.04 working flawlessly).

After updating the system, I installed first the Nvidia driver 331.38 from the repository and then Steam; so far so good, as usual, tested the whole thing with a couple of small games without glitches.

Then I tried Metro Last Light and .... absolutely nothing, it didn't start (no messages or other indications).
It was very odd, I thought maybe I did something wrong but Half Life 2 was working reasonably well (I say reasonably because I had the impression of a slight lag).

Finally I tested PainkilledHD which took a very long time to start: it worked, but it was missing textures on the ground of every map.

I decided to replace the driver with the legacy one of the repo (304something) and it was better, because Metro LL worked, other games on Steam seemed more responsive but still the textures were missing on PainkillerHD (I found out later that the problem is probably due to the recent update of the game).

So I decided to manually install the latest stable driver from NVIDIA (331.79) following the excellent allenskd's guide but it turned out that I had the same problems I was experiencing with the 331.38, meaning that Metro LL was again not starting (and by the way, I have not tested every single game I own on Steam for Linux, so there may be other issues as well).

So, what are my options, would installing another distro like Mint or Manjaro change anything?

Does anybody else have issues with Steam?
 
What is your GPU? Some older nvidia cards should not use newer drivers according to their own forum.

But if it is working without issue on 12.04, that certainly makes it sound like something specific to Ubuntu 14.04. If you are on 64-bit, you probably need to ensure you have all 32-bit libraries as well if you have not already done so.

I am not having problems with Steam or any of my Steam games. There is one thing you may want to try. You don't lose your games, but it will ensure Steam have all the included libraries it should need. Just open a terminal and type:

Code: 
steam --reset

The steam website recommend you restart your computer after this.

Also, another fairly basic thing but it might be easy to forget. You mention installing new drivers, I assume you reboot after new driver install. And also, depending on what was updated for Ubuntu, there is a chance it would need a reboot.
 
Changing distributions does not change much, besides being hard work sadly if you consider you have to configure everything again. Besides how updated are the packages and how the packages are delivered. First things first, let's get an output on that.

Since Metro LL doesn't start go to. I'm going to assume you are using the default Steam Library

Code: 
cd ~/.steam/steam/SteamApps/common/

- type ls to list the directory contents

- Enter the Metro LL directory.
- Run the binary directly, some games allows you to do this.
- If the game doesn't allow you to run the binary due to needing you to be on Steam specifically. Look for logs in the directory, there must be something.

What Daedanrin says is very important, a game can simply not launch if it's missing 32bit audio library:

you probably need to ensure you have all 32-bit libraries as well if you have not already done so.
Click to expand...


I assume you reboot after new driver install
Click to expand...

I don't think you need to reboot as far as I remember. Just turn off X (turn off the display manager) and start it up again when you are done installing the drivers. Now I'm curious... gonna check it out once the new stable or beta is out.

Kladiator: By the way just to be sure your driver installation went well:

Use glxinfo | grep "server\|client" and paste the output

Then use lshw -c video

What you should expect

$ glxinfo | grep "server\|client"
server glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
server glx version string: 1.4
server glx extensions:
client glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
client glx version string: 1.4
client glx extensions:


and

$ lshw -c video
WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: GF108 [GeForce GT 440]
vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
version: a1
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0 < -- take a look
resources: irq:54 memory:fa000000-faffffff memory:f0000000-f7ffffff memory:f8000000-f9ffffff ioport:e000(size=128) memory:fb000000-fb07ffff
WARNING: output may be incomplete or inaccurate, you should run this program as super-user.


I have another question but uh... my post is already big enough....
 
Daerandin and allenskd, thank you both for the quick and very detailed replies.

First of all, the specs of my system are
Intel Core i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz 8G RAM
Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti

As I wrote, on another disk Ubuntu 12.04 is running very well, with many games installed on Steam and even more on PlayOnLinux (the good ones btw), using the 331.20 NVIDIA driver.

This was a clean install, after activating the drivers (and rebooting every time), the first thing I did was trying to get Steam to work.
At first I thought it might have been some missing 32bit libraries but, as I said, older games like Half-Life 2 worked, and even Metro Last Light runs with the legacy driver (304.xxx).

In the meantime I found out that I am not the only one with problems, as these guys with Ubuntu and Mac (!!) are reporting on Steam Community.

What I didn't write in my post is that, yesterday evening, out of sheer frustration, I nuked Ubuntu 14.04 and replaced it with Manjaro Openbox (the NVIDIA driver has been installed automatically).

At the moment I am at work, so I will try in the evening and report back how it went.

If I fail, I will reinstall 14.04 once again and follow every suggestion you wrote and of course I'll let you know the results.

Thank you again for your help.
 
Looking over it again, I think allenskd is correct that you only really need to restart X after driver update.

Also regarding your GPU, it should work with new nvidia drivers. The 304 drivers and older are intended for the old GeForce 7xxx cards and older.
 
Apparently my GPU is not as good as I was led to believe.

I had tried Manjaro earlier in the year (you may remember helping me getting Chessmaster to work:)) but regrettably I had to remove it because, no matter what workaround I tried, I was not able to solve the problem of video tearing.

Yesterday I found this wiki page which basically states that this one is a specific issue for my type of card (also in Windows, if their information is correct).

I'll let you know about this as well.
 
Please try with the latest beta drivers (or latest stable), I prefer the former (beta drivers).

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

They often include a lot of fixes. I also had tearing but it was mostly caused by KDE which I resolved by adding this to my /etc/profile .

export __GL_YIELD="USLEEP"

You will need to restart (maybe, I don't know if /etc/profile gets called once a session starts again
 
@allenskd

I will try first with Manjaro and the 331.79 driver which was installed by default.

I don't expect this operation to be successful, given the performance of the same driver on Ubuntu.
In this case, I will reinstall 14.04 with the latest beta driver, as you suggest.

As soon as I have new information, I will post it here (late evening CET).

Thanks again.
 
Despite my pessimism, I am very pleased to report that with Manjaro everything works!

Basically I didn't do anything, even the driver (331.79), the latest stable one if I am not mistaken, was installed and configured automatically.

I simply copied the games and even Metro Last Light works; by the way, everything feels faster on Manjaro, no doubt thanks to its Arch roots.
So the problems were entirely due to Ubuntu Trusty: missing libraries? But why would Steam work with the legacy driver?

And one last thing: the wiki page I linked earlier finally solved the video tearing problem!

Thank you again for your advice: I have no doubt those suggestions will be useful when facing similar issues in the (probably near) future.
 
Another brownie-point for Manjaro!
Those games better work, that is a rocking video card!
If my GeForce 550 Ti runs all my games, yours should run them even better.
Glad you got it working!
 
Hi Booman!

Just a question: are you using Mint 17, which is based on Ubuntu 14.04?
And if so, does it all work well as it should?

Because in this case something in the latest Ubuntu, which is supposed to be a safe and stable version given its LTS status, must be seriously wrong.
 
Yeah, everything is working flawelessly. I don't even experience the pulseaudio/alsa fighting in PlayOnLinux anymore.
I use it almost every day.
So far since May I have:
  • tested games in PlayOnLinux
  • used simplescreenrecorder
  • posted guides
  • downloaded games
  • listen to music on grooveshark
  • watch videos on online and mp4s
 
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