[Nottingham] Kubuntu Steam install vanished

[Jason Irwin]

On 31/10/2018 00:14, Benjamin Crowe via Nottingham wrote:
> Strange thing happened to day on my current install of Kubuntu, I tried to load up Steam and got the following message:
> /kdeInit could not launch '/usr/bin/steam'
Well...that's weird, but it's also reminiscent of an old bug in Steam which would nuke files (although that was somewhat more severe).

Luckily that location isn't where your games and data are stored, they live under ~/.steam if the following command lists a bunch of directories, that's all your saved game data:
    ls -lh ~/.steam/steam/SteamApps/common/
The actual game binaries are less critical as Steam will just drag 'em down again.

> I had a look in the '/usr/bin' directory and couldn't find anything relating to steam. 
> I had installed steam via the .deb file on their website, though have now reinstalled using apt-get install. 
> I'm wondering where my previous install had gone too?
It shouldn't have gone anywhere. Are you sure an update didn't barf part-way though? Would explain the menu items/launchers hanging around.
"apt" (part of what is doing the work in the background) is usually pretty good at flagging problems, but things can get "stuck" at times.

Is Steam the only thing you've "lost"?
I am wondering (pessimist that I am) if there is a potential disc problem, especially if it's and older piece of spinning rust.
If it's laptop you're using, perfect opportunity to get it to a meet and have it checked out.
Martin just *loves* doing tricky things with hard discs under time pressure, whilst drinking beer. :-P
Otherwise, look-up "smartctl" and "fsck". You'll probably want to run commands like "sudo smartcrl -a /dev/sda" and "sudo fsck /dev/sda1"
There should be GUIs for these tools, but I can't say I've ever bothered to use them.
Oh, backup, backup and backup again.

Minor aside, if you run this you will be able to play some Windows games under a separate Steam install:
	snap install steamforwindows
(If memory serves, Snaps are now supported in "Discover" on Kubuntu 18.10 onwards)

Not tried "steamforwindows" myself, I'm still using WINE directly like some kind of knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.

-- 
╔═════════════╦═════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Jason Irwin ║ OpenPGP (GPG/PGP) Public Key: 0xD0C592B1    ║
║             ║ Import from hkp://pgp.mit.edu               ║
║             ║ Follow me https://social.irrwitz.com/@jason ║
╚═════════════╩═════════════════════════════════════════════╝