Ok here is how I got steam running under linux. YMMW and there are probably a heap of better/quicker ways, but if you probably just want the hat it should work or close enough. I'm running a couple of years old Windows 8 box with an AMD card.
Big disclaimer...I didn't get TF2 running with this method, just Counter Strike and FTL. This is simply because I don't want to download all that 12GB of data for a hat (Australian internet here and the fuck is TF2 12GB?). But I imagine it will work just as well for it too.
--- TL;DR ---
* Download a Linux Lite iso
* Burn it to DVD or make a bootable USB drive
* Boot into it, run steam
* Maybe dick around with your file system if you want more space
--- Getting Linux Running ---
* Download the Linux Lite iso from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxlite/ will be about 720MB. It comes with all the shits and bits you will need.
* Download the Universal USB Installer from
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/
* Run UUI and select "Linux Other" and the iso you downloaded above. Select a USB drive with 2GB+ and let it install.
* You now have a bootable USB drive with linux+steam.
* So reboot, you may need to press F8 or similar whilst booting to get a menu. Once you do, select the USB drive and you will see the next linux menu.
* Select the default option, which is to run linux in "live mode" (nothing is changed on your PC).
* When it pops up to login, type "root" for the username and just leave the password blank by pressing Enter.
* Ok so wait a while and you have linux running. First we need to get your network going. If your PC is not 20 years old this shouldn't be a drama. Click on the two computers in the bottom right hand corner and select your wireless connection or set an IP address or whatever. If you are not sure how to set up your network now is the time to learn.
--- Getting Steam Running ---
* Hopefully the first section was painless. This should be easier. Go to Menu > Games and run Steam. It'll probably update at around 175MB.
* Accept the T&C. Enter in your login details as normal and do your steam guard magic if needed.
* Right click your games and install
* Hopefully enjoy your hats
--- But hang on, that doesn't work because I don't have enough disc space ---
* Ok one problem you will have with this method is TF2 is a 10GB game and you are probably going to want to use your hard drive or your existing downloaded files depending on your USB.
* If this is the case you need to do a bit of file system manipulation which is getting out of scope. The basic steps are:
- Can't you just add a folder library to steam? Well you can, but the linux version doesn't seem to give you the option when you install some games to pick this folder. Oops.
- So close steam
- Go to the folder icon down the bottom left of the screen. Right click any hard drive you see there (you will see your own hopefully) and 'eject volume'. We do this because it isn't mounted in a way that is useable to steam.
- Now open up a command prompt. It is the black >_ icon.
- Create a directory, say "steam"
> mkdir steam
- Now you need to mount your harddrive. Chances are the command is something like
>mount -t ntfs -o nls=utf8,umask=0222 /dev/sdb1 steam/
- You should now be able to go into the steam folder and see all your windows files (use "cd" to change directory and "ls" to list files. If it isn't the right drive, back up with "cd .." and use
>umount steam
to unmount it and try again with a different drive. To find the right device /dev/sda1 or whatever, try
>df -h
and it will list them all out.
- Create a new directory like 'steam' and change to this, it should be empty.
> cd steam
- Now copy all the old steam installtion files over to this new folder
- cp -R /root/.local/share/steam/* .
- This will take a minute whilst everything copies over.
- You can now run ./steam.sh from this directory and you should have many GB of space to do with as you please.
- But won't this break the link on the desktop to steam? Well we are linux hackers now, so don't worry too much about that. You can however create a symbolic link from the old folder to the new one. > ln -s source destination or change the menu link.
* You should also be able to then create links to the old windows downloaded archive files or copy them over if you have them. Unfortunately I didn't.
Don't know if that will help somebody or not.
