Skip to content
Snippets Groups Projects

Introduction to the Steam container runtime framework

The Steam container runtime framework, often referred to as Steam Linux Runtime, is a collection of container environments which can be used to run Steam games on Linux in a relatively predictable container environment, even when running on an arbitrary Linux distribution which might be old, new or unusually set up.

Instead of forming a LD_LIBRARY_PATH that merges the host OS's shared libraries with the shared libraries provided by Valve, these new runtimes use Linux namespace (container) technology to build a more predictable environment.

It is implemented as a collection of Steam Play compatibility tools.

More technical background on this work is available in a talk recorded at FOSDEM 2020: https://archive.fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/containers_steam/. Many of the features described as future work in that talk have now been implemented and are in active use.

pressure-vessel

The core of all of these compatibility tools is pressure-vessel, which combines application-level libraries from the Steam Runtime with graphics drivers from the host operating system, resulting in a system that is as compatible as possible with the Steam Runtime while still having all the necessary graphics drivers to work with recent GPU hardware.

The Steam Play compatibility tools automatically run pressure-vessel when necessary.

Steam Linux Runtime 3.0 (sniper)

Steam Linux Runtime 3.0, sniper, is the recommended runtime environment for new native Linux games on Steam. It can be used by any game that benefits from a newer library stack or SDK environment.

It is a newer runtime than scout, based on Debian 11 (released in 2021). Most of its libraries are taken directly from Debian, and can benefit from Debian's long-term security support. Selected libraries that are particularly important for games, such as SDL and Vulkan-Loader, have been upgraded to newer versions backported from newer branches of Debian.

sniper is designed to be used as a container runtime for pressure-vessel, and cannot be used as a LD_LIBRARY_PATH runtime.

For backwards compatibility, the default runtime environment for existing native Linux games is Steam Linux Runtime 1.0 (scout). To opt-in to using sniper, app and game developers should compile their titles in the sniper SDK and reconfigure the title's metadata to ask Steam to run it with Steam Linux Runtime 3.0 (soldier). For more information please see Steam Linux Runtime - guide for game developers.

Games that use sniper include Valve's Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2, and third-party titles like Battle for Wesnoth, Endless Sky and Retroarch.

sniper is also used as a runtime environment for Proton version 8.0 and up, which are compiled against the newer library stack and would not be compatible with scout. Some older versions of Proton use the older Steam Linux Runtime 2.0 (see below).

The Steam Linux Runtime 3.0 - sniper compatibility tool, app ID 1628350, will automatically be downloaded to your Steam library as steamapps/common/SteamLinuxRuntime_sniper if a game or a version of Proton requires it. It can also be installed by running this command:

steam steam://install/1628350

In Steam client betas since January 2024, a private copy of the sniper runtime is also installed into ~/.steam/root/ubuntu12_64/steam-runtime-sniper and used to run the Steam client user interface (steamwebhelper).

Documentation in the steamrt "metapackage" provides more information about sniper.

Steam Linux Runtime 2.0 (soldier)

Steam Runtime 2, soldier, is another newer runtime based on Debian 10 (released in 2019). It is very similar to sniper, except for its base distribution being 2 years older: this means its core libraries and compiler are also approximately 2 years older.

This runtime environment is not directly available for use by game developers, but it forms part of the implementation of the Steam Linux Runtime 1.0 (scout) compatibility tool. Proton versions 5.13 to 7.0 (inclusive) also use this runtime environment.

The Steam Linux Runtime 2.0 (soldier) compatibility tool, app ID 1391110, is automatically downloaded to your Steam library as steamapps/common/SteamLinuxRuntime_soldier when you select a version of Proton that requires it, or the Steam Linux Runtime 1.0 (scout) compatibility tool which requires it (see below). It can also be installed by running this command:

steam steam://install/1391110

Documentation in the steamrt "metapackage" provides more information about soldier.

Steam Linux Runtime 1.0 (scout)

Steam offers a large number of older native Linux games. Some of these games, such as Portal, were carefully compiled in a strict scout environment, so that they can run in the scout LD_LIBRARY_PATH runtime, or in any environment that provides at least the same libraries as scout.

Unfortunately, many native Linux games have been compiled in a newer environment, and will only work in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH runtime if the host operating system happens to provide libraries that are newer than the ones in scout, while still being compatible with the game's assumptions. This is not a stable situation: a game that happened to work in Ubuntu 22.04 could easily be broken by a routine upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04. For example, a game that was compiled in 2022 against a then-current version of libtiff might have a dependency on libtiff.so.5, which was included in Ubuntu 22.04, but Ubuntu 24.04 no longer provides that library because it has upgraded to the newer libtiff.so.6, which does not have full ABI compatibility with libtiff.so.5.

The Steam Linux Runtime 1.0 (scout) compatibility tool, app ID 1070560, uses the same container technology as soldier to mitigate this problem. It will automatically be downloaded to your Steam library as steamapps/common/SteamLinuxRuntime if it is selected to run a particular game, or if a game requires it. It can also be installed by running this command:

steam steam://install/1070560

Unlike the soldier and sniper container runtimes, it is implemented by entering a soldier container, and then setting up a scout LD_LIBRARY_PATH runtime inside that container.

Since November 2024, it is the default for most native Linux games, unless the game developer has configured the game to use a different runtime environment. Before November 2024, it was used by default on Steam Deck but not on desktop systems.

Users can also specifically opt-in to running specific games in the Steam Linux Runtime 1.0 (scout) container via PropertiesCompatibility.

Possible future Steam Runtime branches

Steam Runtime 4, medic

Steam Runtime 4, medic, is a prototype runtime currently based on Debian 12 (released in 2023). Like soldier, it is structurally similar to sniper, but its base distribution is 2 years newer than for sniper.

medic is not yet available as a compatibility tool, and its contents are subject to change depending on testing results and game requirements. If it becomes available as a new runtime environment, the procedure for selecting it is likely to be very similar to sniper.

Steam Runtime 5

Steam Runtime 5 is a prototype runtime currently based on Debian 13 (which is expected to be released in mid 2025). Like soldier and medic, it is structurally similar to sniper, but with a newer base distribution.

steamrt5 is not yet available as a compatibility tool, and its contents are subject to change depending on testing results and game requirements. If it becomes available as a new runtime environment, the procedure for selecting it is likely to be very similar to sniper.

Why the container runtimes are necessary

The traditional LD_LIBRARY_PATH runtime only works because modern host OSs are strictly newer than it. Making a LD_LIBRARY_PATH-based runtime reliable is difficult, especially since we want it to be runnable on host OSs that have some packages that are older than the runtime, allowing users of older LTS distributions to run the latest games.

Some libraries cannot be bundled in a LD_LIBRARY_PATH for technical reasons (mainly glibc and graphics drivers). A LD_LIBRARY_PATH runtime needs to get these from the host system, and they need to be at least the version it was compiled against. This is fine for scout, which is very old, but would not be OK for a Debian 10-based runtime, which wouldn't work on (for example) Ubuntu 18.04.

Some libraries can be bundled, but need to be patched to search for plugins in different places (either inside the runtime itself, or in multiple distro-dependent places), which is not really sustainable. Avoiding the need to patch these libraries greatly reduces the time required to update them, ensuring that we can apply security and bug-fix updates as needed.

Using namespace (container) technology to replace /usr with the runtime's libraries sidesteps both these problems.

Reporting issues

Bugs and issues in the Steam Runtime should be reported to the steam-runtime project on Github.

Acknowledgements

The libraries included in the container runtimes are derived from Debian and Ubuntu packages, and indirectly from various upstream projects. See the copyright information included in the Steam Runtime for details.

The container technology used in pressure-vessel is heavily based on code from Flatpak, and makes use of the lower-level components bubblewrap and libcapsule. libcapsule is heavily based on internal code from glibc's dynamic linker, and of course, all of this container/namespace juggling relies on features contributed to the Linux kernel.