Install Steam on Debian without using an installer

Firstly, during the Steam setup, I’m acting as the user tester. Any other user can be used instead of tester, but in that case, all path references in this documentation must be adjusted accordingly.

First, download the official Steam installer from their website. This will place the file steam.deb in the downloads folder.

If you unpack this Debian package, you’ll find the necessary files under the directory /CONTENTS (unpacking with Midnight Commander is very simple: select steam.deb and press Enter). The files you should see are:

• /usr/bin/steam
• /usr/bin/steamdeps
• /usr/lib/steam/bootstraplinux_ubuntu12_32.tar.xz

The last file can be named differently under certain circumstances. Below /usr/lib/steam (within steam.deb!) There should be only one file.

All three files are now e.g. copied to /home/tester/steam/bin (This directory must be created beforehand!) Then the following steps are carried out as user root:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dri:i386
sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-glx:i386

Now change to the directory /home/tester/steam/bin and call the file steam:

cd /home/tester/steam/bin
./steam

If packages are still missing, they are now displayed in a separate window (missing packages are installed as above, the package names displayed by Steam can be adopted 1: 1) Otherwise, the execution of the Steam application begins, which usually starts with the Update of own binaries begins. Ultimately, the usual Steam window appears where games can be started and installed.

Addendum: The way described above does not create any desktop icons and otherwise Steam is NOT integrated into the existing desktop environment via GUI but has to be started manually as stated above.