Which distro/DE are you running?
Ubuntu 12.10 GNOME
make sure you have the ia32-libs installed, in terminal just type: sudo apt-get install ia32-libs because steam is only designed for 32bit at the moment. they are not installed in a 64 bit Linux distro by default.
but if you are new to Linux I highly advise running ubuntu 12.04 LTS. just because you will run into less problems, it's the most stable and fine tuned. 12.10 to 13.10 will have experimental features for the most part, you will run into weird quirks from time to time, each of those builds will take a good 6 months before they get to where they are considered "stable". in 12.04 you can install the video drivers easier as well with the "additional drivers" app.
ia32-lib is already installed and the newest version.
I had 12.04 but upgraded to use atI beta drivers, everything worked properly before and tf2 ran better than expected.
If you reboot does the problem still occur?
Nothing changed upon reboot.
Something is strange about your config, as Steam is trying to create a semaphore and that's failing with access-denied, which indicates the semaphore existed. That shouldn't be the case after a reboot so something about your system is causing semget to fail. I don't know what that would be unfortunately, we'll have to check into it.
@Caltw0 do you have SELinux enabled / in enforcing mode?
It is currently disabled.
You have two accounts in the system?
I'm having this error after installing the steam in the second account.
I had only one account, backed up and reinstalled 12.04 and steam started working again up until now.
Is this still active?
Closing pending confirmation that this still happens.
Nothing extracted yet.
Uninstalled and reinstalled with latest steam_latest.deb, installation goes fine but when prompted to start steam linux beta nothing happens. I'm still getting learning GNU/Linux and ubuntu and hope someone can help me with this.
Linux CAL 3.6.2-030602-generic #201210121823 SMP Fri Oct 12 22:24:18 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Running steam from terminal gives me this before crashing:
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1357953871_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1357953871_client)
threadtools.cpp (1441) : Assertion Failed: Permission denied
Assert( Assertion Failed: Permission denied ):/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/tier0/threadtools.cpp:1441
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1357953871_client)
Uploading dump (in-process) [proxy '']
/tmp/dumps/assert_20130113115400_1.dmp
success = yes
response: CrashID=bp-8b7d2ebb-4f8f-4b15-a0cf-c44732130113
threadtools.cpp (1091) : Assertion Failed: semaphore creation failed Operation now in progress
unlinked 0 orphaned pipes
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 6814 with name 0emSteamEngineInstance
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 6814 with name 0eSteamEngineLock
threadtools.cpp (1441) : Assertion Failed: Permission denied
Shutting down. . .
unlinked 2 orphaned pipes
CAsyncIOManager: 0 threads terminating. 0 reads, 0 writes, 0 deferrals.Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1357953871_client)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1357953871_client)
threadtools.cpp (1441) : Assertion Failed: Permission denied
Assert( Assertion Failed: Permission denied ):/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/tier0/threadtools.cpp:1441
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1357953871_client)
Uploading dump (in-process) [proxy '']
/tmp/dumps/assert_20130113115400_1.dmp
success = yes
response: CrashID=bp-8b7d2ebb-4f8f-4b15-a0cf-c44732130113
threadtools.cpp (1091) : Assertion Failed: semaphore creation failed Operation now in progress
unlinked 0 orphaned pipes
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 6814 with name 0emSteamEngineInstance
removing stale semaphore last operated on by process 6814 with name 0eSteamEngineLock
threadtools.cpp (1441) : Assertion Failed: Permission denied
Shutting down. . .
unlinked 2 orphaned pipes
CAsyncIOManager: 0 threads terminating. 0 reads, 0 writes, 0 deferrals.
CAsyncIOManager: 46 single object sleeps, 1 multi object sleeps
CAsyncIOManager: 0 single object alertable sleeps, 1 multi object alertable sleeps
CAsyncIOManager: 46 single object sleeps, 1 multi object sleeps
CAsyncIOManager: 0 single object alertable sleeps, 1 multi object alertable sleeps