(cc @smcv - looks like distributions modifying our packaging is causing issues again)

the script looked into .steam/steam/ubuntu12_32 folder and in my case it was .steam/steam/Steam/ubuntu12_32

This sounds like Fedora (or maybe just this one user) might perhaps have installed Steam into ~/.steam/steam/Steam instead of the usual ~/.local/share/Steam?

STEAMDATALINK="$STEAMCONFIG/$STEAMPACKAGE/Steam"

This is not how it's meant to work. Normally ~/.steam/steam and ~/.steam/root are meant to both be symbolic links pointing to the Steam installation directory, which is the directory that contains files and directories like steam.sh and ubuntu12_32/.

Please report this to the supplier of the rpmfusion-nonfree-steam RPM package, which is not directly controlled by Valve.

Definitely not normal behaviour of the RPMFusion steam package, and nothing similar was reported to RPMFusion.

Please report this to the supplier of the rpmfusion-nonfree-steam RPM package, which is not directly controlled by Valve.

rpmfusion-nonfree-steam is not a package, but a repo file included in Fedora to allow users to install only the steam package from third-party RPMFusion without enabling the entire RPMFusion repo (which contains other free and non-free software not in Fedora).

looks like distributions modifying our packaging is causing issues again

If Valve doesn't want "distributions modifying our packaging", please provide packages for distros other than Ubuntu LTS, or fund more people to work on flatpak perf and not overwork smcv :)

RPMFusion packagers are mostly also Fedora packagers and are too busy to make unnecessary changes to upstream. Below is the complete diff of bin_steam.sh between Valve's .deb and RPMFusion's steam package on Fedora 41.

--- steam_latest.deb/usr/lib/steam/bin_steam.sh	2025-08-20 01:00:01.000000000 +0800
+++ steam-1.0.0.83-1.fc41.i686.rpm/usr/lib/steam/bin_steam.sh	2025-05-11 08:00:00.000000000 +0800
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env bash
+#!/usr/bin/bash
 #
 # bin_steam.sh - launcher script for Steam on Linux
 # Copyright Valve Corporation. All rights reserved
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
     echo "bin_steam.sh[$$]: $*" >&2 || :
 }
 
-export STEAMSCRIPT_VERSION=1.0.0.84
+export STEAMSCRIPT_VERSION=1.0.0.83
 
 # Set up domain for script localization
 export TEXTDOMAIN=steam
@@ -185,32 +185,6 @@
 	ln -fns "$STEAMDIR" "$STEAMDATALINK"
 	setup_variables
 
-	# put the Steam icon on the user's desktop
-	# try to read ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs to get the current desktop configuration
-	# http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/xdg-user-dirs
-	# shellcheck source=/dev/null
-	test -f "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/user-dirs.dirs" && source "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/user-dirs.dirs"
-	DESKTOP_DIR="${XDG_DESKTOP_DIR:-$HOME/Desktop}"
-
-	if [ -d "$DESKTOP_DIR" ] && [ "$bootstrapdir" = "/usr/lib/$STEAMPACKAGE" ]; then
-		# There might be a symlink in place already, in such case we do nothing
-		if [ ! -L "$DESKTOP_DIR/$STEAMPACKAGE.desktop" ]; then
-			cp "$bootstrapdir/$STEAMPACKAGE.desktop" "$DESKTOP_DIR"
-			# Older .desktop implementations used the execute bits as
-			# a marker for a .desktop being safe to treat as a shortcut
-			chmod a+x "$DESKTOP_DIR/$STEAMPACKAGE.desktop"
-			if command -v gio >/dev/null; then
-				# Making it executable is not enough in recent
-				# (Ubuntu 20.04) versions of
-				# https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/ShellExtensions/desktop-icons
-				gio set --type=string "$DESKTOP_DIR/$STEAMPACKAGE.desktop" metadata::trusted true || :
-				# Generate an inotify event so the desktop
-				# implementation reloads it
-				touch "$DESKTOP_DIR/$STEAMPACKAGE.desktop"
-			fi
-		fi
-	fi
-
 	# Restore the umask
 	umask "$omask"
 }

changing STEAMDATALINK="$STEAMCONFIG/$STEAMPACKAGE"to STEAMDATALINK="$STEAMCONFIG/$STEAMPACKAGE"/Steam fixed the issue on arch too!

changing STEAMDATALINK="$STEAMCONFIG/$STEAMPACKAGE"to STEAMDATALINK="$STEAMCONFIG/$STEAMPACKAGE"/Steam fixed the issue on arch too!

also worked for me on CachyOS!! thank you!

This also fixed the issue for me; initially installed using CachyOS's "Hello" menu, then I reinstalled from repo with no success, and found this thread. Thank you!

BLESS YOU