EDIT: I’d guess that the following would probably work on a Debian trixie system:
If you have your system set up for only 64-bit packages, you’d need this at some point prior to the install, to let your system use 32-bit packages, since Steam’s only available as a 32-bit binary:
$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
I think that deciding whether to use both 64-bit and 32-bit packages or not is an option in the Debian installer, but I might be misremembering.
You can update your list of packages at this point, upgrade, all that, but that goes for any install operation; there’s nothing specific to Steam there. If you’ve just added 32-bit packages for the first time above, then you probably do want to update the list of packages, since your system won’t have a list of 32-bit packages yet.
$ sudo apt update
But then it’s just like any other installation of software.
$ sudo apt install steam
That actually just contains, as I recall, the Steam installer — enough to pull down and install the current Steam environment for a given user, which happens next time you run the Steam binary.
$ steam
EDIT2: I guess that assumes that you do have “contrib” enabled on the Debian repo, and I don’t know whether that’s enabled by default by the Debian installer or whether it’s an option during install or what. I do distinctly remember one point in time when “non-free-firmware” was not enabled by default, because I always had to turn it on to get support for <random hardware device with closed-source firmware blobs>, but I don’t know whether contrib is always enabled or not. I have main, contrib, non-free, and non-free-firmware enabled. From /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources:
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://mirror.i3d.net/debian/
Suites: trixie
Components: main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
Using the official Valve repository is my preferred method because it provides a direct line to the developers, ensuring you get the latest GPG keys and installer updates immediately without waiting for them to make their way through the Debian maintainers. While the Debian repo is convenient, it requires you to enable contrib and non-free components globally across your entire system. The method I suggested adds Steam as a specific source without cluttering your main package list with other non-free software. This also makes the installation more consistent across different versions of Debian. Whether you are on Stable or Testing, you are not at the mercy of Debian’s specific package transitions or library freezes, which can occasionally break the Steam bootstrap process in the community-maintained version. I do not believe either way is better, just different for different types of users.
Most of that is setting up third-party apt repos, which I don’t believe is necessary. Steam’s in the Debian trixie repo.
https://packages.debian.org/stable/steam
EDIT: I’d guess that the following would probably work on a Debian trixie system:
If you have your system set up for only 64-bit packages, you’d need this at some point prior to the install, to let your system use 32-bit packages, since Steam’s only available as a 32-bit binary:
I think that deciding whether to use both 64-bit and 32-bit packages or not is an option in the Debian installer, but I might be misremembering.
You can update your list of packages at this point, upgrade, all that, but that goes for any install operation; there’s nothing specific to Steam there. If you’ve just added 32-bit packages for the first time above, then you probably do want to update the list of packages, since your system won’t have a list of 32-bit packages yet.
But then it’s just like any other installation of software.
That actually just contains, as I recall, the Steam installer — enough to pull down and install the current Steam environment for a given user, which happens next time you run the Steam binary.
EDIT2: I guess that assumes that you do have “contrib” enabled on the Debian repo, and I don’t know whether that’s enabled by default by the Debian installer or whether it’s an option during install or what. I do distinctly remember one point in time when “non-free-firmware” was not enabled by default, because I always had to turn it on to get support for <random hardware device with closed-source firmware blobs>, but I don’t know whether contrib is always enabled or not. I have main, contrib, non-free, and non-free-firmware enabled. From
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources:Using the official Valve repository is my preferred method because it provides a direct line to the developers, ensuring you get the latest GPG keys and installer updates immediately without waiting for them to make their way through the Debian maintainers. While the Debian repo is convenient, it requires you to enable contrib and non-free components globally across your entire system. The method I suggested adds Steam as a specific source without cluttering your main package list with other non-free software. This also makes the installation more consistent across different versions of Debian. Whether you are on Stable or Testing, you are not at the mercy of Debian’s specific package transitions or library freezes, which can occasionally break the Steam bootstrap process in the community-maintained version. I do not believe either way is better, just different for different types of users.