0

I have a Debian Sid guest running in Virtualbox (on a Debian host), where I installed the steam package from the non-free repository.

When I try to run steam, I get the following errors:

libGL error: unable to load driver: swrast_dri.so
libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast

I found some other posts regarding this error message (e.g."Steam not opening in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS") ... but none of them are about virtualbox, and they don't have answers that fix the problem I'm having. I have also tried using the .deb file provided from the steam website and ran into the same problem.

Most of the other "solutions" online suggest doing the following:

rm ~/.steam/steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6
rm ~/.steam/steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6

... and then running steam like this: LD_PRELOAD='/usr/$LIB/libstdc++.so.6' DISPLAY=:0 steam ... but none of this works for me, and I get the same error even after removing the libraries from the steam directory. firmware-amd-graphics, libgl1-mesa-dri and other 3D rendering libraries are installed and working correctly on both the host and guest, so that's not causing the problem.

I think the problem might actually have something to do with the fact that VirtualBox uses this virtual video card for the guests. When I run lspci from within the guest, this is the graphics card that shows up:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH VirtualBox Graphics Adapter

The actual video card, as displayed on the host is:

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Topaz XT [Radeon R7 M260/M265 / M340/M360 / M440/M445] (rev c1)

which uses the amdgpu drivers.

I can't find solutions online that specifically address running steam on Debian within Virtualbox ... Does anyone know what I need to do to fix this error, and get steam running inside a VM?

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

I've had trouble with this and this worked for me you have to kind of prepare steam by doing this:

In your terminal enter these commands:

cd ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/

./steam

also, run:

steam

a couple of times to get it running if it freezes first time just ctrl+c,

It should work on the second try.

Improve this answer
2
  • While this may answer the question, it would be a better answer if you could provide some explanation why it does so.
    – DavidPostill ♦
    Commented Jul 8, 2018 at 19:23
  • You have to pre-prepare steam because the command "steam" doesn't do that, almost like compiling it
    – Ethan
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 19:51
0

I found the solution to my problem. Basically, the Steam client for Linux requires 32-bit libraries to run, and the default install for Debian only supported the 64-bit architecture.

To fix this, I started with a fresh VM (without Steam installed), and then ran the following commands to add support for 32-bit (i386) libs:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install steam

And everything is working now!

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .