Which desktop environment or window manager are you using?
Pantheon, which uses the Gala window manager, which is based on Mutter (the one used in Gnome Shell).
Confirming that I see this as well, multi-monitor configuration using the Cinnamon WM (based on Gnome Shell), also using nvidia drivers for multi-monitor support.
This was already reported by me. You should scan the bug reports before reporting.
One workaround is to add -windowed -noborder to the tf2 launch options, then use alt+mouse1 to drag the window to your primary monitor.
I'd like to note that this bug primarily refers to the steam client and not tf2. Super+m1 does not move the steam window and there's no way to get it out of its maximised state.
Does it not have the same behavior on single-monitor setups? Is it possible to unmaximize the steam window on a single monitor system?
I have exactly the same problem with almost exact situation: two moniotrs, left 1280x1024, right 1920x1200. I maximized Steam on the left monitor and from this moment I cannot unmaximize or move it. Keyboard shortcuts to move/resize window won't work.
Once I launched Killing Floor, steam moved maximized to the main, right monitor and I cannot unmaximize or move it either. Although, I can use small mode, which is movable and resizable, but wherever I move steam in small mode, in large mode Steam returns to last monitor where Steam was maximized.
Linux Mint 14 Nadia (64 bit) with Cinnamon.
If I launch Big Picture mode,then it opens up on the primary/right monitor (performance is still lacking, though). When closing Big Picture mode, the window bounces back to the left monitor.
Thanks for the hint about Small mode!
I can reproduce this only on Cinnamon. Maximize the Steam client on the non-primary monitor and you can never un-maximize it. On the same machine it works fine in Gnome, XFCE, KDE, and Unity. I think it is a Cinnamon WM bug. I suggest you open a bug with them and see what they say.
edited title to indicate that this is WM-specific
@johnv-valve I'm not using Cinnamon, or the Cinnamon window manager. So it's not only related to the window manager, and should thus be fixed in the Steam client.
@MrSchism Are you sure this issue is related? I don't get the game on both monitors; Just the wrong one.
@RobinJ1995 I just asked you to read through see if anything seemed similar to your issue or your configuration.
Things in common:
Linux
NVidia
nvidia-310-experimental driver
But the guy from that bug report says TF2 runs on his primary monitor. For me, however, TF2 just starts on the left monitor, which is not my primary one. Haven't tried Trine 2 as I don't own it.
@RobinJ1995 can you repro this behavior on a different WM? I could not repro it on Unity, Gnome, KDE, or XFCE, but I see exactly what you and @Asahnoln describe (maximize steam client on non-primary monitor and you cannot unmaximize it) on Cinnamon. That is why I changed the title to "Cinnamon or Gala WM"
I am not talking about TF2 or Trine 2, just the steam client.
I too am experiencing this issue using Cinnamon.
My configuration:
3 monitors, each 1920x1080 using TwinView with nvidia driver 310.19-2 on Arch Linux.
The center monitor is the "primary" one, but once maximized on the left monitor, steam's "unmaximize" button does not seem to respond. Also, using they keyboard shortcut + mouse buttons to resize or move does not cause the steam client to become "unmaximized" and it will not transition to another monitor.
I'd like to give 2 raging thumbs up to valve for giving us a linux client, and would love to see it be all that it can be. I just installed Unity, Gnome, and XFCE to see if I get the same behavior.
I was unable to get Unity to start properly.
Steam behaved as expected under XFCE.
In Gnome 3, steam exhibited the same behavior as in Cinnamon using both mutter and metacity window managers.
When switching from mutter to metacity in Gnome 3, I noticed this message in the terminal:
Window manager warning: Treating resize request of legacy application 0x2c0001b (Steam) as a fullscreen request
After the initial warning, the two following messages were displayed in the terminal repeatedly
Window manager warning: Buggy client sent a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW message with a timestamp of 0 for 0x2c0001b (Steam)
Window manager warning: meta_window_activate called by a pager with a 0 timestamp; the pager needs to be fixed.
So it seems that metacity and mutter (Gnome), muffin (Cinnamon), and gala (Pantheon) are treating steam's request for maximization as a request for fullscreen, which may explain why the request for "unmaximize" goes unanswered?
Found a similar issue reported with Chrome. http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=32347
Can you try the workaround suggested there and see if that makes any difference?
metacity --replace --no-force-fullscreen
I logged into Gnome 3, started steam, and had the maximization issue.
I ran:
metacity --replace --no-force-fullscreen
Steam still misbehaved until I restarted it, after which, it began working as one would expect.
After switching to Cinnamon and starting Steam, I noticed it was still working properly. I thought maybe there was something saving my "session" but metacity wasn't running. After a reboot Steam is still behaving properly in both Cinnamon and Gnome 3.
I don't understand why Steam is still working properly after rebooting (not that I'm complaining!) but, it seems the "--no-force-fullscreen" argument did the trick.
I have put in a little workaround for this, should be in the next release
Nothing extracted yet.
My dual screen setup:
2 monitors, both 1280x1024, the right one being my primary monitor.
nvidia-experimental-310
What Steam does:
It puts its window maximised on the left (non-primary) monitor. I can't unmaximise the window (the button just doesn't do anything, only the mouseover brightness thingy). I can't move the window either (I tried dragging it by the window border, and I tried Super+Drag).
If I want to use both my left and right screen, then I have to make sure that the Steam window is minimised/closed (seems to do the same thing). If I have a few windows open on top of the Steam window, and then give a window on my right screen focus, Steam jumps to the front on the left monitor, hiding all other windows on my left screen behind it.
Team Fortress 2 also only wants to run on the left screen, in stead of on the primary monitor, as is usual on Windows.