Steam on Ivon's Blog

Steam is a threat to FOSS and user freedom on Linux

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 07:00:00 +0800

Although Steam Has Contributed to Gaming on Linux, We Still Need to Be Wary of the Threat It Brings as Non-Free Software.

Why do users who pursue free software still play closed-source game programs? And help this kind of ecosystem do evil?

Honestly, I can no longer look at any game console casually. Game consoles are also a kind of computer, and they need software. After I learned that consoles such as Playstation and Switch all run on heavily modified BSD systems, and that they are non-free systems, I could no longer accept playing games on them. Game discs are often locked to specific platforms and are hard to circulate. Therefore this is not freedom. I more strongly support playing games on PCs. And when it comes to stores that sell games, the biggest one is Steam, which can also count as a console platform. Besides selling games, it is also a game launcher.

Although Steam has contributed to gaming on Linux, simplifying the pain of playing games through Proton and Steam Deck, it is in reality promoting a closed platform. This is no less than Google Chrome’s ambition to occupy the browser market. After all, it is still proprietary software, and it is driven by a commercial company. Cross-platform support is about expanding commercial reach and covering as many places as possible, not about putting concern for users first, right?

Playing games can easily corrupt the heart. According to the psychological temptation techniques set up by developers, it makes you fall into the traps commercial companies use to seduce you. I know! Not all games are like this, but for games to be fun, they need these mechanisms to tempt people. Psychology is very important in games! Otherwise you would not get addicted to having characters in games call you husband/wife in a daddy-flavored voice!

If Steam has not reached the level of openness of Flathub, then it is still an object we need to be wary of. Valve not doing evil at the current stage does not mean it will not do evil later. We can only hope Gaben lives a long life.

The deeper problem is: why can users who prefer free and open source software make an exception for games? Are games not also a kind of software? I think the discussion here is pretty good: Why are people here so worried about proprietary programs, but games get a pass?

There is also a meme describing this hypocritical mentality. Image source

Here I want to digress a little. Some free software developers have pretty sharp mouths. For example, early versions of Sway did not support Nvidia, partly because Nvidia’s Wayland support was very poor and required workarounds. Therefore, when launching Sway on an Nvidia graphics card, you had to add the --my-next-gpu-wont-be-nvidia FLAG. After Nvidia support improved, this FLAG was changed to --unsupported-gpu.

Also, the author who ported Steam to FreeBSD: shkhln/linuxulator-steam-utils, believes Steam has full read access to the home directory, and malicious programs could steal your SSH keys. Therefore, you should create a user account specifically for running Steam. Otherwise you have to add the “I am an idiot” environment variable: DUMB_PERSON_FLAG = '--allow-stealing-my-passwords,-browser-history-and-ssh-keys' before Steam can start.

Arch Linux vs SteamOS: A Brief Look at the Similarities and Differences

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 02:00:00 +0800

It is necessary to correct the myth about the relationship between SteamOS and Arch Linux. The two cannot be equated, and using SteamOS does not mean you can say “I use Arch btw.”

Recently, while playing Galgame on Arch Linux, under almost identical testing conditions, Steam games’ Proton kept crashing for inexplicable reasons until I was annoyed. Going back to Debian made everything fine, so let me talk about this issue.

In my humble opinion, rolling-release distributions such as Arch Linux & CachyOS are not suitable for gaming. Semi-rolling releases such as Fedora & Bazzite are not suitable either. Only battle-tested Debian Stable or Ubuntu LTS are trustworthy. I really do not know how I dared to play games on Arch Linux in the past, but now I use Debian.

Another consideration is that when reporting game compatibility to ProtonDB, I hope to use a traceable and stable system version. The testing platform should be stable, not a system that keeps changing.

According to information from the SteamOS official website, although SteamOS after 3.0 is indeed developed based on Arch Linux, SteamOS is an immutable system. Users cannot, and should not, modify system files. Every system OTA update downloads a new image to overwrite the old version. Also, SteamOS is not a rolling release. The system update schedule is decided by Valve, a commercial company, not by Arch Linux’s rolling updates.

Valve has its own Steam Deck & Steam Machine product experience to take care of. It wants SteamOS to become a reference console platform, so updates cannot be too aggressive. For example, in 2026, the stable SteamOS 3.7.8 desktop mode still uses KDE 5.27, while Arch Linux’s KDE 6.0 was released back in 2024. KDE 6 in SteamOS 3.8.0 is still in beta. At present, the strategy of SteamOS’s main screen compositor, Gamescope, is to run X11 games through XWayland while also enjoying Wayland HDR support, a stitched-together strategy. Whether it can move toward pure Wayland in the future remains a huge question mark.

Valve must ensure the “entire” SteamOS system and Steam client are stable before releasing updates.

On the other hand, according to the Arch Wiki, Arch Linux’s software update schedule is not fixed. Each piece of software has different maintainers, and the open source community releases it when they think it is stable, letting the whole public beta-test and catch bugs. The testing time is not long enough.

The benefit of this approach is that problems can be discovered and fixed quickly. The downside is that nobody can guarantee whether the current system is completely stable, because there are too many variables.

Arch Linux in its freshly installed state has no graphical interface at all. There is no so-called “default”, no “whole”, and therefore it is hard to do comprehensive testing before releasing updates. A small package update may blow up the KDE desktop.

On Arch Linux, the Steam client is modified by the open source community based on the installer released by Valve. Even though the Steam client itself has its own Runtime to satisfy Proton execution and tries not to depend on OS libraries, components of the Arch Linux system still affect the Steam client, and random problems can occur.

Should Linux Users Play Only Open Source Games?

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 14:00:00 +0800

If You Pursue Free Software on Linux, Should You Also Insist on Playing Open Source Games? Sharing a List of Open Source Games

Should you stick to playing free and open source games instead of proprietary ones when using free software on Linux？

Once upon a very long time ago, you owned the game, and the game owned you.

But now it is no longer like that.

In the past, I once published a hot take: you should not play Minecraft, because it is proprietary software and Microsoft has ruined it, especially Bedrock Edition, which added a pile of mobile-game monetization elements. After founder Notch left, Mojang had already lost its way!

You should switch to Luanti, a truly free block sandbox game (the point is freedom, not zero price!) It is cross-platform, written in C++, and is a Minecraft alternative. Inside it there is a subgame called VoxeLibre that can reproduce 99% of classic Minecraft gameplay, along with more mods than you can ever finish installing, plus built-in shader effects.

They are both about building houses, but playing Luanti makes my conscience feel better, ha! This is quite close to the level of madness of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). As a 10-year Minecraft PE veteran, switching to Luanti feels liberating!

If you use GNU/Linux, this free system, yet still install proprietary software, then impurities have mixed in and must be filtered out! As the saying goes, my Way is unified by one principle; software should all use free solutions!

“As long as you let one evil flower bloom… in the end, all of Gensokyo will be polluted. The fairies living inside the flowers will also be replaced, won’t they?” (Source)

But is this really good? What exactly are we pursuing?

1. Definition of Free Software Games
#

My own definition of free software games/open source games:

So-called games that pursue free software generally mean the code must be open source, use an open source license, and conform to the four freedoms advocated by the Free Software Foundation. The game itself must also be completely free, not controlled by DRM or restrictions on players’ rights.

The assets inside the game should use Creative Commons licenses and allow free reuse.

If a game allows players to install mods but the base game is still released as closed source, it still does not count as a free game. Examples include The Elder Scrolls, Hearts of Iron, Grand Theft Auto, Minecraft, Quake, Red Alert, and so on.

Even if you use an open source console emulator to play a game, if the ROM itself is still closed source, it still does not count as a free game. For example, playing Nintendo 64 games through RetroArch.

Games developed with closed source game engines should not be considered free software games, such as those using Unreal Engine. There are many open source game engines, such as Godot and Irrlicht.

Play Windows games from Steam on an Android phone: Mobox emulator tutorial

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 04:00:00 +0800

Note: this project is no longer maintained. Please switch to Winlator or another alternative.

Mobox is an open source exe emulator that lets us play Windows games from Steam on Android phones.

Specifically, what Steam games can Mobox play? As long as a game can be launched on Steam Deck (Proton), Mobox should also be able to run it.

As long as the phone hardware is powerful enough, running any game is not a problem. For example, Youtuber Geek Bay successfully ran Cyberpunk 2077 on a Qualcomm 8 Gen 3 phone:

1. Hardware requirements
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More than 10GB storage space
More than 8GB RAM
Prepare an external keyboard and mouse

For the principles behind Mobox, see Android轉譯玩Windows exe遊戲的方法一覽

The biggest difference is that Mobox uses Termux’s native packages to run the Linux system. Without container overhead, it runs at almost native performance, much faster than Winlator and Termux Proot, and roughly on par with Termux chroot performance.

The drawback is that Mobox operation is not as intuitive as Winlator’s interface, and requires typing a few commands.

Because Box64 translating Wine consumes a lot of performance, if you plan to play 3D AAA games, the phone processor should preferably be Qualcomm SD 865 or above. Also, considering graphics driver compatibility, Qualcomm processors are preferable; MediaTek may not be able to run at full speed.

My test environment
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Sony Xperia 5 II
Lineage OS 21 (Android 14)
Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
8GB RAM

2. Install prerequisite packages
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Refer to the original author olegos2’s Github instructions

Install Termux
Configure Termux X11
In Termux X11’s Preferences, set Display Mode to exact, and Display Resolution to 1280x720 (you can set a higher resolution depending on phone performance). Then uncheck Reseed screen while software keyboard is open. Also check Force Landscape Orientation.

3. Install Mobox
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In the phone system settings, force stop both the Termux and Termux X11 apps.
Open Termux X11 and leave it waiting in the background
Open Termux
Run the script provided by the Mobox author

curl -s -o ~/x https://raw.githubusercontent.com/olegos2/mobox/main/install && . ~/x

When asked which version of Box86 to install, enter 2 to select the Wow64 version
Wait for Mobox to install packages, then enter the mobox command to start the environment.
Use the on-screen arrow keys to move to Start Wine, then press Enter
Turn the phone sideways and wait for Mobox to initialize the system (pay attention to whether there is a Cannot Open Display: error message)
Next, your screen should automatically switch to the Termux X11 app, and you will see the Wine file manager.
Termux X11 operates in touchpad mode by default: two-finger tap for right click, double tap for left click, and use the back gesture to bring up the phone keyboard

Steam on Ivon's Blog

Steam is a threat to FOSS and user freedom on Linux

Arch Linux vs SteamOS: A Brief Look at the Similarities and Differences

Should Linux Users Play Only Open Source Games?

1. Definition of Free Software Games #

Play Windows games from Steam on an Android phone: Mobox emulator tutorial

1. Hardware requirements #

My test environment #

2. Install prerequisite packages #

3. Install Mobox #

1. Definition of Free Software Games
#

1. Hardware requirements
#

My test environment
#

2. Install prerequisite packages
#

3. Install Mobox
#