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So, I am fairly new to xubuntu, and have just made a fresh install. I decided to get steam, so I used the Software Center to install steam, but i am encountering problems. Running steam from the start menu simply brings up a box saying:

Couldn't set up Steam data - please contact technical support

And running it from the terminal produces: 

alex@Craptop:~$ steam
Repairing installation, linking /home/alex/.steam/steam to /home/alex/.local/share/Steam
rm: cannot remove ‘/home/alex/.steam/steam’: Is a directory
Setting up Steam content in /home/alex/.local/share/Steam
rm: cannot remove ‘/home/alex/.steam/steam’: Is a directory"

Tried re-installing twice now, and am still getting the error saying it couldn't set up steam data.

Snail284069
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4 Answers4

73

You could try this:

mv ~/.steam/steam/* ~/.local/share/Steam/
rmdir ~/.steam/steam
ln -s ../.local/share/Steam ~/.steam/steam
rm -rf ~/.steam/bin

Which is essentially doing what the steam executable is trying to do, but failing.

Denilson Sá Maia
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15

I know it's been a while and you've probably solved the problem already, but here is a fix that also works.

This error can result if you HAD Steam installed, then did a "nuke and pave" to re-install your system but had /home on a different partition. When you reinstall Linux, your home directory is intact, including your Steam settings, which are in the ~/.steam directory. Remove the directory by opening the terminal and typing:

cd ~
rm -rf .steam

This will delete the settings folder, and Steam should install normally.

David Foerster
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Ric Crouch
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3

In case none of these work, find out if your home is not on a drive that is mounted noexec. If the drive was mounted with user option, noexec is implied.

If that is the case, steam will also give this error. Solution is to mount the drive with the exec option.

Example /etc/fstab:

UUID=3acfd832-1761-45f8-9b34-24810195172e   /home  ext4 rw,auto,user,sync,exec,dev,suid 0 1
Sebastian Stark
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Mr. Wrong
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3

considering that you had already the ff:

  1. /home/.steam
  2. steam launcher

Steps

  1. at terminal:

    $ mv ~/.steam/steam/* ~/.local/share/Steam/

  2. using GUI, goto .steam folder, by default its located at /home/.steam

  3. inside the ./steam folder, delete the steam folder.. yeah, theres still another steam folder inside the ./steam folder.. just delete it.

  4. press Ctrl+T at terminal.. $ steam --reset then hit enter

  5. your steam should working and updating.

Community
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user339589
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