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Just a few days ago, I was able to install steam no problem into a VM (Ubuntu 17.10). However, I setup a live usb and in general I've been having a lot of installation problems. Now, I get this error from synaptic when trying to download steam:

steam-installer:
 Depends:steam(=1:1.0.0.54+repack-2ubuntu5) but is not installable

When running apt-get install steam (yes I did apt-get update and other ways to download steam). I get a similar error in the terminal:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 steam-installer : Depends: steam (= 1:1.0.0.54+repack-2ubuntu5) but it is     not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I've tried fixing this with apt-get -f install, and it says it didn't do anything. I've ran a scripts posted on this website, still nothing. Downloading the steam installer manually and running it through software installer gives the same unable to install error. I've also tried the various other ways of downloading steam.

My setup: regular non-persistent live usb. I set persistency through grub menu (access through e). I have a partitioned part of the drive which I set to casper-rw. Persistency works. I've reset it by clearing that partition and reseting it.

Why can't I download steam?

EDIT: I tried installing wine as well, basically the same error. There may be something wrong that isn't allowing me to download stuff.

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 winehq-stable : Depends: wine-stable (= 3.0.0~artful)
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Using synaptic I managed to download flash player, and other various programs just fine. They work. However I get this error:

W: Target Sources (main/source/Sources) is configured multiple times in       /etc/apt/sources.list:2 and /etc/apt/sources.list:4
W: Target Sources (restricted/source/Sources) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:2 and /etc/apt/sources.list:4
Led
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    'held broken packages' often means a version conflict, typically caused by non-Ubuntu software from a non-Ubuntu source. The offending software depends upon a wrong version of some package, blocking install/removal of other software by apt. There are two ways to track it down: 1) Go down the rabbit-hole by trying to install steam or wine-stable and reading those error messages for clues, or 2) Uninstall ALL software from non-Ubuntu sources, and disable those sources. – user535733 Feb 08 '18 at 18:31
  • @user535733 thanks for the suggestion. Is there a quick way to do that, with a script, or do I just manually go through the folders and delete things. I've also tried completely wiping the memory, so I think if might actually have to do with my persistence live usb setup. – Led Feb 08 '18 at 19:03
  • An alternative might be to replace the persistent live Ubuntu system with an installed Ubuntu system. Such a system can be completely updated & upgraded, so that all program packages are up to date. This makes it more likely to work in a case like yours with Steam. You might also test another version of Ubuntu, I am thinking of 16.04 LTS (with long time support) instead of 17.10. – sudodus Feb 08 '18 at 19:28
  • @sudodus I tried using 16.04, and I get the exact same errors! For some reason I can't access root folders, and I think my problem is that I can't download files into correct folders since they are blocked. – Led Feb 09 '18 at 16:53
  • Is this 16.04 LTS system installed or persistent live? 2. Did you run apt-get install steam with sudo ?
  • – sudodus Feb 09 '18 at 17:03
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    @sudodus I did it both regular live, persistent live and it works for installed. I ran sudo apt-get install steam. So basically live doesn't work for some reason. Probably folder permissions. – Led Feb 09 '18 at 20:30
  • I also updated my question to include more related errors. Hopefully this will let us triangulate the problem. – Led Feb 09 '18 at 21:34