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Steam Flatpak

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Eamonn Rea edited this page Aug 28, 2024 · 6 revisions

Steam Flatpak

Flatpak is a utility for software deployment and package management. It offers a sandbox environment in which users can run applications in isolation from the rest of the system.

SteamTinkerLaunch is available as a Flatpak and is only for use with Steam Flatpak. It will not work with regular Steam, and this includes Steam Deck. The Flathub repository for SteamTinkerLaunch Flatpak is available here. It offers both Stable and Beta builds of SteamTinkerLaunch.

Caveats

The nature of Flatpak is to run applications in sandbox - Meaning they are isolated from the rest of your computer. This is in the interest of security, but it comes with some limitations.

  • It only supports Steam Flatpak, as Steam Flatpak compatibility tools are intended to be installed as Flatpaks. SteamTinkerLaunch Flatpak was created with Steam Flatpak in mind and therefore does not support regular Steam installs. Please see the Installation wiki for other methods of installing SteamTinkerLaunch with regular Steam.
  • Currently, Flathub doesn't list addons/extensions of runtimes on their website, so it must be installed via the command line or a frontend such as KDE's Discover.
  • Only a limited number of the optional dependencies are included, as it is not viable to include every single optional dependency. General dependencies such as jq, imagemagick, and rsync are included, but applications such as MangoHud, or Nyrna are not included. You should be able to use the Flatpak versions of Linux applications if they are available.
    • If a Flatpak version of your application is not available then it can't be leveraged by SteamTinkerLaunch. If you're desperate for an application to be supported in Flatpak, you would need to approach the relevant software developer and politely ask them for Flatpak support.
    • If there is a missing general dependency which is not an application, you can politely request that it be added in an issue on the SteamTinkerLaunch Flatpak repository.
  • Currently, SteamTinkerLaunch doesn't show up in the system's application menu, so must either be launched via the command line, or via Steam Flatpak.
  • Certain applications, such as Vortex Mod Manager or other Windows software that SteamTinkerLaunch can install for you, may not work exactly as expected. It may be missing things like Mime-Type support (which is used to handle the "Mod Manager" button on Nexus Mods), and by default will likely be unable to access external drives.
    • Flatpak filesystem permissions and other settings can be managed from the command line or from a frontend like Flatseal which makes it very simple to graphically configure environment variables and filesystem permissions.
  • Tools like MangoHud and GameScope may not work if the Proton version you are using is going to use the Steam Linux Runtime, or if the native game you are playing is going to force a Steam Linux Runtime version (such as Counter-Strike 2, which requires "Steam Linux Runtime 3.0 (Sniper)"). If you run into issues, you can try disabling the Steam Linux Runtime from the SteamTinkerLaunch Game Menu, or for Proton games you can try using a Flatpak version of a community Proton flavour that already ignores the Steam Linux Runtime, such as Flatpak GE-Proton.

Installation

See Flatpak installation section of the Installation wiki for guidance on how to install both the Stable and Beta releases of SteamTinkerLaunch Flatpak.

Beta release

As mentioned there is a beta branch available for SteamTinkerLaunch. This should contain Flatpak-specific fixes only available in git releases, but may (or may not) also contain newer features only available in SteamTinkerLaunch git. As a result, Flatpak-specific issues may be fixed but other areas may be less stable.

The Flatpak is not intended to be a git release of SteamTinkerLaunch in Flatpak form, so you won't always be getting the latest changes, but you should get any fixes currently available in SteamTinkerLaunch git that specifically address Flatpak support - and potentially any changes that happened up to that point.

Usage

The tool is installed as a Steam Compatibility Tool by default, so all you have to do is either enable the tool globally in Steam's options, or on a per game basis as explained on the Steam Compatibility Tool page.

It should also work as a Steam launch option for native Linux games by adding steamtinkerlaunch %command% to your game's launch options.

Contributing

Contributions for fixing or improving Flatpak support are always welcome! If you would like to contribute a fix for a Flatpak bug to SteamTinkerLaunch, please open a pull request on the regular SteamTinkerLaunch repository.

If there are Flatpak fixes in SteamTinkerLaunch git that are not available in SteamTinkerLaunch Flatpak Beta, you may open an issue on their issue tracker (noting that you are using the Beta and attaching the relevant SteamTinkerLaunch commit) or open a pull request on the SteamTinkerLaunch Flathub repository. For some guidance on opening a good PR, see this comment from the SteamTinkerLaunch Flatpak maintainer.

Uninstalling

See Flatpak Uninstallation.

Reporting Issues

It's up to you where is best to report issues, use common sense and your best judgement.

You can report general issues with STL in a new issue here, or if you feel it may be specific to Flatpak in the existing Flatpak discussion issue.

Issues relating directly to the Flatpak package itself (such as missing dependencies, or SteamTinkerLaunch Flatpak-specific oddities) can be reported on the Flatpak's issue tracker.

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