Working with non Steam games

Table of Contents

• About
• How-To List

About

This page contains useful information for running non-Steam games on SteamOS. Please try to keep this to Linux-native applications and games.

Creating desktop files

On SteamOS, the "Add Library Shortcut" function should discover .desktop files in these directories:

/home/steam/.local/share/applications
/usr/share/applications
/home/steam/Desktop

Also it needs to be an appropriate .desktop file. Please take special note of the below:

• Exec does not support relative paths, only full paths or commands in $PATH.
• The Exec= line cannot have spaces
• Cannot have a configuration line of NoDisplay=true
• Cannot have a configuration line of Categories=Settings
• Requires the configuration file to have Type=Applications

Example

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Retroarch-Src
GenericName=Retroarch-Src
Comment=Retroarch-Src launcher
Exec=retroarch-launch.sh
Icon=/home/steam/Pictures/retro-arch-src-logo.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Game
Actions=Fullscreen;Standalone;

How-To List

• How-to: Minecraft With The Steam Controller On Linux Desktop And SteamOS

Issues

If you have a case where you are not seeing this behavior or you think this behavior needs to change, please open an issue ticket with all the details. (including the .desktop file)