Please include the information requested at https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux to improve system understanding.
When I installed steam, it made a .steam folder in my home directory.
Thanks for your quick reply.
I am running arch Linux on an Intel I5 2400, and a nvidia GT440 graphics card. (sorry for not following the method described, but I cannot get into steam.
Kernal: Linux ArchPC 3.6.11-1-ARCH.
I am also running on a split drive, meaning that / /var and /home are 3 sepperate partitions. Home is the only one that a user can write on.
For me to get the exact same issue all that I need to do is to start steam as a normal user. (I have tried this in both xmonad and xfce.)
I have the .steam folder (as well as a steam folder) but the .steam one mainly contains links.
The issue is directly related to the above output in that steam does not have permission to write to that folder.
Honestly, I just use the link to request the information being I'm too lazy to write "Well, we need to know your system specs, blah blah blah."
So you're using LVM and Arch and the normal user cannot successfully run steam after installing, if I'm to understand correctly?
That's about right, although all the partitions are primary, so there is no lvm. Other than that I am using a normal, non-root account.
Thanks for looking into this for me.
Yes, steam will write to $HOME. If you don't have permissions to create directories and files in your $HOME directory then it will fail.
I am not sure what the bug here is, so I am closing this issue. From the original report it sounds like you are running steam in an account that doesn't have permissions to write to $HOME directory? That is not going to work for a variety of reasons and I don't anticipate any changes in that area.
If I am misunderstanding something, please reopen with some more details and repro steps. Thanks.
Sorry for not replying for a long period of time, but i have been unable to come to the computer with the issue for the last three weeks.
The directory that steam is attempting to write to is /home rather than $HOME, the difference being that one is my home partition while the other is the location of all home directories.
I do have write access to my $HOME as if I didn't I would not be able to write this. Most applications need write access there to run.
I have determined this by simply running steam from the command line. the output on fail (when attempting to extract the package) is:
[code]
):/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/surface_linux.cpp:1383
[/code]
Evidently, "buildbot" is not my $HOME directory, but is in /home and thus results in the permissions error.
"/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/surface_linux.cpp:1383"
is not your directory tree and file, it just points to line of the source code on the machine where it was compiled.
This helps developers to determne where (in code) your problem occured.
That was my misconception then, do you have any idea where I could find what is causing it to fail?
Thanks.
Nothing extracted yet.
When installing steam the client crashes with the error:
[code]
DebugAssert, Name: ?, Line: 1089, Expr: "open for read/write failed in CreateFile" && !pchErr, File: /home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam2_rel_beta_linux/build/Projects/GazelleProto/Client/Engine/../../../Common/Misc/PosixWin32.cpp
[/code]
Is there a reason for steam to create a new directory in /home?
Thanks.