protonscr

Steam proposes to install games only to default location and to /boot

steamclosed reviewedSteam client
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#612 · opened 2013-01-09 by lumag · updated 2017-03-28 · 11 comments · github
Llumag 2013-01-09 github

Actually it looks like two problems here. First, Steam incorrectly parses filesystem information (mtab? /proc/mounts? whatever). From all the mounted partitions it selects only /boot. For the reference I will provide my /proc/mounts at the end of the bug report. Note that I also /home and / mounted. Most probably it looks for /dev/?da? mounts instead of just block devices?

Then it also does not allow one to specify an installation to the user (some kind of 'Other' installation directory - selected by user).

$ cat /proc/mounts
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
udev /dev devtmpfs rw,relatime,size=10240k,nr_inodes=214190,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000 0 0
tmpfs /run tmpfs rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,size=407420k,mode=755 0 0
/dev/mapper/valinor-root / ext3 rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,barrier=1,data=ordered 0 0
tmpfs /run/lock tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k 0 0
tmpfs /run/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=814820k 0 0
/dev/sda1 /boot ext3 rw,relatime,errors=continue,barrier=1,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/mapper/valinor-home /home xfs rw,relatime,attr2,delaylog,noquota 0 0
rpc_pipefs /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs rpc_pipefs rw,relatime 0 0
fusectl /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw,relatime 0 0
binfmt_misc /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd nfsd rw,relatime 0 0
MMrSchism 2013-01-09 github

There is much discussion going on regarding what to install where. Before it goes to stable, it will probably change again, if not a few times.

Llumag 2013-01-09 github

@MrSchism Ah, it's ok. I can fully understand that client development is an ongoing process. Thanks to @ValveSoftware for it. However in this issue report I wanted to point that there are other mount targets that can serve as a installation target, not only simple HDD partitions.

MMrSchism 2013-01-09 github

The new client seems to be slightly more flexible, but I can't tell where it'll allow installation to. It allows me to install to either of the mounted harddrives I have. I presume it'd allow installation to any mounted partition.

Llumag 2013-01-09 github

@MrSchism I posted my /proc/mounts output. From them the client has picked only default location (~/.local/share/Steam) and /boot. It obviously missed installing directly into /home and / :)

I'm using LVM. So here are some obscure "partitions" (just for the reference):

  • Device Mapper devices (in particular LVM)
  • Software RAID (/dev/md*)
  • NFS/Samba/etc/ mounts
  • Obscure Hardware RAID devices with non-standard device names (like Promise, probably some others).
Sslouken 2013-01-10 github

Out of curiosity, should /, /home, and /boot be skipped when looking at valid partitions?
Those are generally special case partitions that you wouldn't want to use for software installation...

Jjohndrinkwater 2013-01-10 github

imho, /boot should always be skipped, its a smaller partition for bootstrapping files anyway.
/dev/mapper/* is going to pull in truecrypt and other virtual filesystems that would be lower priority for a game install.

Llumag 2013-01-10 github

@johndrinkwater While I can agree about /boot, I totally disagree about /dev/mapper. E.g. I have /home on /dev/mapper/valinor-home. IIRC that is one of the partition schemes proposed by Debian Installer framework.
I don't see how it's related to truecrypt.

Mmdaffin 2013-01-10 github

Work around: you can add new libraries from the steam settings and select any folder to use.

Not sure why it list the mount points when it really wants a directory, it should not care about the mount points as all. My guess is it is a hang over from windows where you need to select the drive first, in Linux you should just need to select the directory.

My suggestion would be to replace the mount points with commonly used locations for example:

  • $HOME
  • /
  • /opt
Sslouken 2013-01-10 github

Well, the suggestions in that UI are supposed to be other locations with more diskspace, so you want them to be on other partitions. If you just want to pick an arbitrary directory for the Steam Library, there's a UI to do that in Settings.

Llumag 2013-01-10 github

I would suggest to have it as a choice:

  • either the default location (e.g. .local/share/Steam/.....)
  • or Other location (this should bring the directory selection dialog)

Probably no actual point in any fancy stuff around that (other than maybe saving a few last "other" directories).

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2017-03-28 github

Closing as Steam was changed to provide a list of pre-selected Steam Library Folders instead of mount points when there are multiple storage locations.

Nothing extracted yet.