Trying to install Steam on Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS 64-bit

Question

When I try to install through sudo apt-get install steam I get this error:

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:i386 : Depends: libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 but it is not going to be installed
              Depends: libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I looked into lots of possible solutions, one example:

sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 
sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-glx:i386

All that does is give even larger errors:

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:
 libegl1-mesa : Depends: libgl1-mesa-dri (= 17.0.7-0ubuntu0.16.04.1) but it is not going to be installed
 libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 : Depends: libdrm-amdgpu1:i386 (>= 2.4.63) but it is not going to be installed
                        Depends: libdrm-intel1:i386 (>= 2.4.48) but it is not going to be installed
                        Depends: libdrm-nouveau2:i386 (>= 2.4.66) but it is not going to be installed
                        Depends: libdrm-radeon1:i386 (>= 2.4.31) but it is not going to be installed
                        Depends: libdrm2:i386 (>= 2.4.38) but it is not going to be installed
                        Depends: libelf1:i386 (>= 0.142) but it is not going to be installed
                        Depends: libllvm3.8:i386 but it is not going to be installed
 libqt5feedback5 : Depends: libqt5multimedia5 (>= 5.0.2) but it is not going to be installed
 libqt5svg5 : Depends: libqt5gui5 (>= 5.3.0) but it is not going to be installed or
                       libqt5gui5-gles (>= 5.3.0) but it is not going to be installed
              Depends: libqt5widgets5 (>= 5.3.0) but it is not going to be installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.

and

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:
 libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 : Depends: libdrm2:i386 (>= 2.3.1) but it is not going to be installed
                        Depends: libglapi-mesa:i386 (= 11.2.0-1ubuntu2) but it is not going to be installed
                        Depends: libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 (>= 7.2) but it is not going to be installed
 libonline-accounts-daemon1 : Depends: libonline-accounts-client1 but it is not going to be installed
 libqt5feedback5 : Depends: libqt5multimedia5 (>= 5.0.2) but it is not going to be installed
 libqt5svg5 : Depends: libqt5gui5 (>= 5.3.0) but it is not going to be installed or
                       libqt5gui5-gles (>= 5.3.0) but it is not going to be installed
              Depends: libqt5widgets5 (>= 5.3.0) but it is not going to be installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.

respectively, before and after

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

which makes no diffrence.

The issue persists even through fresh installs, so I really don't know what to do

I'm hesitant to install any major system updates as they tend to break my laptops touchpad, beacuse of that I'm leaving it as a last resort, but at this point anything is welcomed to be honest...

Edit: Welp, it really seems like updating is my only choice. Hope it doesn't break my touchppad like last time, or I'm gonna have to make a whole different ask ubuntu for it... here goes nothing

Edit 2: THANK GOODNESS IT WORKED! I made a full update, and afterwards it gave me a different screen (maybe for some of you it will be useful idk)

Steam needs to install these additional packages: 
    libgl1-mesa-dri:i386, libgl1-mesa-glx:i386, libc6:i386
[sudo] password for ****: 
.......
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
  libllvm4.0
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove it.
The following additional packages will be installed:
  gcc-5-base:i386 gcc-6-base:i386 libbsd0:i386 libdrm-amdgpu1:i386 libdrm-intel1:i386 libdrm-nouveau2:i386 libdrm-radeon1:i386 libdrm2:i386 libedit2:i386 libelf1:i386 libexpat1:i386 libffi6:i386
  libgcc1:i386 libglapi-mesa:i386 libllvm5.0:i386 libpciaccess0:i386 libsensors4:i386 libstdc++6:i386 libtinfo5:i386 libtxc-dxtn-s2tc0:i386 libx11-6:i386 libx11-xcb1:i386 libxau6:i386 libxcb-dri2-0:i386
  libxcb-dri3-0:i386 libxcb-glx0:i386 libxcb-present0:i386 libxcb-sync1:i386 libxcb1:i386 libxdamage1:i386 libxdmcp6:i386 libxext6:i386 libxfixes3:i386 libxshmfence1:i386 libxxf86vm1:i386 zlib1g:i386
Suggested packages:
  glibc-doc:i386 locales:i386 lm-sensors:i386
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  gcc-5-base:i386 gcc-6-base:i386 libbsd0:i386 libc6:i386 libdrm-amdgpu1:i386 libdrm-intel1:i386 libdrm-nouveau2:i386 libdrm-radeon1:i386 libdrm2:i386 libedit2:i386 libelf1:i386 libexpat1:i386
  libffi6:i386 libgcc1:i386 libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 libglapi-mesa:i386 libllvm5.0:i386 libpciaccess0:i386 libsensors4:i386 libstdc++6:i386 libtinfo5:i386 libtxc-dxtn-s2tc0:i386
  libx11-6:i386 libx11-xcb1:i386 libxau6:i386 libxcb-dri2-0:i386 libxcb-dri3-0:i386 libxcb-glx0:i386 libxcb-present0:i386 libxcb-sync1:i386 libxcb1:i386 libxdamage1:i386 libxdmcp6:i386 libxext6:i386
  libxfixes3:i386 libxshmfence1:i386 libxxf86vm1:i386 zlib1g:i386
0 upgraded, 39 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
Need to get 25,6 MB of archives.
After this operation, 223 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

Then I could just run steam normally, and the best part: My touchpad works fine! Thanks for all the answers and I am sorry if I wasted anyone's time

Nvidia GTX 950m, tried both the nvidia and open source drivers, no difference. — Thomas095, Apr 05 '18 at 19:48
Does this answer your question? Can't install Steam because of unmet dependencies — Kulfy, Aug 10 '20 at 08:51

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 05 '18 at 19:29

0

I use it running PlayOnLinux which is a WineFrontend. Heres a link that might help you decide how you want to run it on Ubuntu. https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/16751/how-do-you-get-your-steam-games-to-run-on-ubuntu-through-wine-or-something-simil

answered Apr 05 '18 at 19:29

Zachary Noe

3

Yeah, while you may get a performance improvement running the Steam client for Ubuntu, you will be able to play a lot more games on "Windows". – Karl Wilbur Apr 06 '18 at 00:05
Yeah Karl is 100% correct and thats also why I have 2 partitions installed at all times of ubuntu 16.04 and windows 8.1 – Zachary Noe Apr 09 '18 at 18:51
I mean technically if you had infinite time to loser out and port over games I'm sure its possible but good luck lol... Games are just windows ready and rarely have support on Linux a lot of the time – Zachary Noe Apr 09 '18 at 18:52
I meant native Steam client versus running the Windows EXE in Wine. – Karl Wilbur Apr 09 '18 at 19:47

Karl Wilbur · Answer 2 · 2018-04-07T14:01:17.627

0

Make sure that you have enabled the "universe" and "multiverse" repos.

sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo add-apt-repository multiverse
sudo apt update
sudo apt install steam

UPDATE:

You will want to make sure that you are fully updated as well:

sudo apt full-upgrade

Persisting dependency issues can sometimes be resolved with gdebi:

sudo apt install gdebi

After that, you can try to install the latest deb from the official repo:

wget http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/archive/precise/steam_latest.deb
sudo gdebi steam_latest.deb

While this may not completely resolve your issue, it should shed more light on the dependency conflicts.

You could always just force it and hope for the best:

sudo apt install -f steam

edited Apr 07 '18 at 14:01

answered Apr 05 '18 at 23:51

Karl Wilbur

1,875

They were both already enabled. Typed in everything you said, same libgl1 i386 errors. – Thomas095 Apr 06 '18 at 11:08
That's really strange. It really is supposed to be that easy. You can check this out (https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/06/install-steam-on-ubuntu-16-04-lts). I'll try to reproduce your errer in a VM in about 12 hours and report back. – Karl Wilbur Apr 06 '18 at 12:12
I completed the install on a clean VM and it went very smoothly. I suspect that something installed earlier on your machine is utilizing a package which is causing conflicts or locked a dependency to a specific version which in conflict with steam's dependencies. I'll update my answer with details to help troubleshoot this. – Karl Wilbur Apr 07 '18 at 13:32
I ended up doing the deb menthod. At multiple points in the installation it kept saying Steam needs to install these additional packages: libgl1-mesa-dri:i386, libgl1-mesa-glx:i386, libc6:i386 with the regular errors following. It kind of installed but then a pop up from steam says: You are missing the followng 32-bit libraries, and Steam may not run: libdrm.so.2 – Thomas095 Apr 07 '18 at 18:41

Trying to install Steam on Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS 64-bit

2 Answers2