How is that a bug with Steam? openSUSE 12.2 ships with GLIBC 2.15; just backup your data and upgrade.
Static linking GLIBC is not a good solution, see https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:No_Bundled_Libraries
Yes, that's not a "bug on steam", but that is for sure a flaw on steam for linux development in the first place. When we buy any software the first thing we think of is the support. Shipping a Linux commercial software that will only run with and depend on specific distros and library configuration is not a good thing at all. "Just backup your data and upgrade" is the worse answer you can expect.
Any commercial Linux software should preferentially be statically linked and the less dependent on the distro as possible. Specially regarding LIBC, which is the heart (or the eye) of any Linux distro. If you don't want to statc link it, you must have probably preferred a previous version that would run compatible with as many distro as possible. For the record, Windows 7 was launched on 2009 and OpenSUSE 12.1 on 2011. It's still getting active support and updates.
As it seems, for now, "Steam for Linux" is not "for Linux", it's for specific "Ubuntu Versions" or other distros "that you may find compatible".
Nothing extracted yet.
After installing libfreebl3-32bit libsoftokn3-32bit mozilla-nspr-32bit mozilla-nss-32bit mozilla-nss-certs-32bit on my 64Bit openSUSE 12.1 and running alien -r --fixperms steam_latest.deb the only thing "missing" is the glibc 2.15, openSUSE 12.1 only comes with 2.14 :-(
Even the Update worked.
~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32> LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PWD:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH ldd * 2>&1 |fgrep found
./chromehtml.so: /lib/libc.so.6: version
GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by /home/holle/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/libcef.so) ./libcef.so: /lib/libc.so.6: versionGLIBC_2.15' not found (required by ./libcef.so)./libmiles.so: /lib/libm.so.6: version
GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by ./libmiles.so) ./libsdl2-2.0.so.0: /lib/libc.so.6: versionGLIBC_2.15' not found (required by ./libsdl2-2.0.so.0)./steam: /lib/libc.so.6: version
GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by ./steam) ./steamclient.so: /lib/libc.so.6: versionGLIBC_2.15' not found (required by ./steamclient.so)./steamservice.so: /lib/libc.so.6: version
GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by ./steamservice.so) ./steamui.so: /lib/libc.so.6: versionGLIBC_2.15' not found (required by ./steamui.so)./steamui.so: /lib/libc.so.6: version
GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by /home/holle/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/libcef.so) ./steamui.so: /lib/libc.so.6: versionGLIBC_2.15' not found (required by /home/holle/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/libsdl2-2.0.so.0)./vgui2_s.so: /lib/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by ./vgui2_s.so)
Too bad, would be cool if the glibc related parts would be statically linked (i.e. libc.a) since this library cannot easily be exchanged or a libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.15) would be added to ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32 as well.
It coughed a couple of times about:
/etc/os-release: Zeile 2: Syntax error
(' /etc/os-release: Zeile 2:VERSION = 12.1 (Asparagus)'Since SUSE somehow decided to add brackets to the version ...
But thumbs up so far. Only I am neither going to install an Ubuntu 32 Bit nor a Windows something ... if we could iron out the tiny library problems. There are other "steam"-like installers that handle this very well (using lot's of python code).