this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025

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On August 15th, 2025, Steam will officially stop supporting Linux distributions with a version of glibc older than 2.31 (help.steampowered.com)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

To check which version of glibc you have, run ldd --version in the terminal.

all 30 comments

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 1 week ago

For reference, even Deban Stable has been at glibc 2.31 or newer for three major versions now, and another major version is on its way this year. I don't think this will affect many people.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 week ago (1 children)

2.31 was released on 2020-02-01.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's surprisingly new. Wonder what causes the incompatibility

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The changelog for 2.31 is here:

https://sourceware.org/legacy-ml/libc-announce/2020/msg00001.html

Latest version of glibc is 2.41, released 2025-01-30. That puts 2.31 at least 10 releases behind. That version is quite outdated. There are numerous security and bug fixes in 2.31 alone, with each newer release also fixing some as well.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 week ago

This might be the reason for requiring glibc 2.31 and newer:

Security related changes:

CVE-2019-19126: ld.so failed to ignore the LD_PREFER_MAP_32BIT_EXEC environment variable during program execution after a security transition, allowing local attackers to restrict the possible mapping addresses for loaded libraries and thus bypass ASLR for a setuid program. Reported by Marcin Kościelnicki.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I'm curious, would running the Flatpak version of Steam "fix" this by providing its own glibc?

You know, for the people that want to stay on an old glibc yet are also comfortable with using Flatpak.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yes, but which OS is still running glibc < 2.31?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Almost Linux Mint Debian (2.32)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Debian Trixie 2.41-7 Debian stable 2.36-9

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

I think they are preparing their next edition soon.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

The Hannah Montana Linux distribution?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

It should.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

I use Arch (btw) so I'm not worried about it

[+] [email protected] -213 points 1 week ago (8 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

You: *2 day old account*
Also you: *comes into linux gaming community and starts insulting everyone*

You're definitely the pinnacle of chill mate :)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

The funniest part is their claim that people were being salty and should chill, at a time when there were almost no comments, and none were salty. Bot?

[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What was that promise Valve made some years ago? That they’d keep Steam running regardless of the OS version?

You, umm, got a source for that? Because that sounds like an insane promise to make.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Dudes not worth my time to look this up for sure, but I'm fairly certain the statement was they'd support any Linux distro.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

OK... You do understand the difference between distribution and version, right?

You need to have a 5 year old distribution with no updates whatsoever to be at risk of losing Steam.

So, what exactly is the problem here?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

I'm on your side dude, I was saying chucklenuts up above was confused.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Regardless of OS version? That sounds like nonsense. Only someone who doesn't know how Linux works would believe that.

glibc is a fundamental library that underpins Linux. Its been going since the 1980s and is constantly updated and patched.

Similarly the Linux kernel undergoes constant evolution and change.

No one can promise to support Linux regardless of the OS version because by necessity it is constantly changing. Even slow release cycle distros like Debian move forward with each major release. Backwards compatibility is actually a bit of a nightmare on Linux. Ironically it can be easier to get old windows software running on Linux than old Linux software.

People running systems older than glibc 2.31 really should patch and update their systems. That package itself is already 5 years old.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago

I don't think buddy knows the difference between a Linux version and a Linux distro.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

Backwards compatibility is actually a bit of a nightmare on Linux. Ironically it can be easier to get old windows software running on Linux than old Linux software.

I've been discovering this on Steam, actually. Square Enix released Linux versions of some games, like Life is Strange or the most recent Tomb Raider trilogy, but they'll crash at the main menu if you try to run them. Similarly, the Shadowrun games from Harebrained Schemes assume that you have a configured .asoundsrc file in your home directory, which likely isn't true if you're on a distro that has migrated to pipewire. The .asoundsrc issue is easy to fix by just making the file yourself, but LIS and TR have to use the Windows versions via Proton to run at all.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Just get an OS that doesn't have versions. Ezpz fix.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

TempleOS?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago

They've never promised that, because that would be an absurd promise to make. This is no different from Valve dropping support for older versions of Windows, which they have also done.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago

No?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

That glibc version might not be that old but they do this most likely because of security reasons. There will be a time when Valve will drop 32-bit support entirely as well. Also, you shouldn't use old distros because of the same reason. Currently glibc v2.31 is on Debian Bullseye which is the old-stable version and Valve still supports it. Technically there is no problem with that announcement.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Wow. This might be the most down voted comment I've ever seen on lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

It is a sight to behold