Steam has recently come out for Linux, but the package and installation process is for Ubuntu Linux. Here I’ll try to guide through this step-by-step procedure for openSUSE.

Please, feel free to check the «Spanish version» at ForoSUSE (Spanish official openSUSE forums).

Obviously, the whole thing is under your absolute responsibility, even though I had no problem, I cannot assure you won’t.

First of all, you have to download the package from the official source. You can get it from Getting Started thread. In this thread you’ll find the hardware specs. required to run Steam, and the installation process for Ubuntu.

I’ve tried to use alien to get a rpm package BUT got some problems with dependencies I could not satisfy. Therefore, we’re going to «decompress» the package in the root directory.
[code=»»»»»»]su -c ‘cd / && ar p /path_to_steam_package/steam.deb data.tar.gz|tar zx'[/code]

You’ll get no prompt, apart from the terminal asking for root password. Now, you have Steam installed in your computer BUT there’s a big problem: it won’t run out of the box (Steam will throw an error about loading a library and won’t start)… I’ve found the needed dependencies by trial and error, starting Steam with the command:
[code=»»»»»»]LD_DEBUG=libs steam[/code]

As my installed system uses 64bit libraries, I had installed the following dependencies (however, some of them might not be necessary, but I can’t assure it now).
[code=»»»»»»]su -c ‘zypper in python-gnome-32bit python3-32bitpython-32bit libpython3_2mu1_0-32bit libgtk-3-0-32bit libgtk-2-0-32bit libpng12-0-32bit libnsssharedhelper0-32bit libpango-1_0-0-32bit pango-tools-32bit'[/code]

On the other hand, if you have a 32 bit system, you should install the following:
[code=»»»»»»]su -c ‘zypper in python-gnome python3- python- libpython3_2mu1_0 libgtk-3-0 libgtk-2-0 libpng12-0 libnsssharedhelper0 libpango-1_0-0 pango-tools'[/code]

After zypper finishes installing software, you should be able to run Steam, getting the «library» view by default (and the Steam offers window before):

Some issues
1- Steam/Games have no sound: it seems to be a common error, and the «official» workaround is to start steam specifying the SDL audio driver:
[code=»»»»»»]SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa steam[/code]

2- Inverted cursor on Steam and other GTK windows (under KDE and other environments). Seems to be a «graphical environment» problem, due to an inverted error missing in the mouse cursor set (at least in KDE . Sale un «cursor invertido». In my case, using Oxygen_Black cursor set:
[code=»»»»»»]su -c ‘cd /usr/share/icons/Oxygen_Black/cursors && ln -s left_ptr arrow'[/code]

3- Graphical problems: low FPS rate, etc, specially with some AMD graphic cards: uninstall fglrx driver, and try with free ones.

Hope you can make it work.

Have fun!

Two months of extra stabilization work have resulted into a stellar release, chock-full of goodies, yet stable as you all like it.

The latest release of the world’s most powerful and flexible Linux Distribution brings you speed-ups across the board with a faster storage layer in Linux 3.4 and accelerated functions in glibc and Qt, giving a more fluid and responsive desktop. The infrastructure below openSUSE has evolved, bringing in newly matured technologies like GRUB2, and Plymouth and the first steps in the direction of a revised and simplified UNIX file system hierarchy. Users will also notice the added polish to existing features bringing an improved user experience all over. The novel Btrfs file system comes with improved error handling and recovery tools. KDE has improve its stability, GNOME 3.4, developing rapidly, brings smooth scrolling to all applications and features a reworked System Settings and Contacts manager while XFCE has an enhanced application finder.

Download openSUSE 12.2 from any of our mirrors: http://software.opensuse.org/

Today, I needed to use my «forgotten» Dropbox Account (which I had, but didn’t use).

First of all, you need a Dropbox Account, if you have none yet, get a free account here !
It is really easy to get it to work in openSUSE with KDE (for gnome there is a package called dropbox-nautilus), just type in a console:

sudo zypper in dropbox dropbox-servicemenu

Execute dropbox command:

The first time you execute it, the program will download the «proprietary daemon» (it’s an automatic process) and let you configure the necessary parameters to run the program.

After that, an icon should appear at your system tray:

By clicking in that icon, you will get to the folder you previously configured to be synced.

Have fun!