Working with non Steam games

Table of Contents generated with DocToc

• About
• Creating desktop files
• Workaround for games with several exec options
• Examples
• How-To List
• Reference issues tickets
• Troubleshooting
• The game does not open

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 absolute/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=Application

Workaround for games with several exec options

If you must have multiple options to the Exec= line, consider creating a bash script as a "launcher."

Example: "dragonslayerz-launch.sh"

#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/dragonslayerz --u2 --kazoo --elephant-mode

Mark the script executable. You may also want to move the script to a common $PATH location for ease of use (e.g. /usr/bin/). If you choose to use a common location that is owned by root (e.g. /usr/bin/), be sure to prepend sudo to the below command.

chmod +x dragonslayerz-launch.sh

You would then replace the Exec= line with `Exec=/path/to/dragzonslayerz-launch.sh"

Examples

[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;

As another example, here is the "Return to Steam" desktop-mode shortcut:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Return to Steam
Comment=Exit desktop mode
Exec=/usr/bin/returntosteam.sh
Icon=steam
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Network;FileTransfer;Game;
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/steam;

How-To List

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

Reference issues tickets

• #424
• #148

Troubleshooting

The game does not open

In this case, if you are certain you have everything you need, and all dependencies installed, check the following:

• Via SSH, or on another TTY (CTRL+ALT+F1, for instance), run tail -f /tmp/dumps/steam_stdout.txt before launching the game and review the output
• Check the permissions on the files you are attempting to access