Steam is a popular game distribution platform by Valve. Since Hyprland is a Wayland compositor, Steam requires additional setup to run on a Wayland session because the Steam client itself is an X11-only application and lacks native Wayland support.

Login as a root user

su - cleanly resets all environment variables, changes the working directory to the target user's home directory, and sources the target user's profile scripts, simulating a fresh login as root:

su -

Enable 32-bit architecture support

Steam requires 32-bit architecture support libraries and proprietary components, so enable it:

dpkg --add-architecture i386

Enable non-free & contrib repository sources

The Steam installer package resides in the contrib repository, and the non-free repository provides the essential 32-bit (i386) graphics drivers, Mesa libraries, and other hardware-specific components required for Steam to function and for games to run correctly. Ensure that both repositories are active in your sources list for your release. Depending on which source list is currently active on your PC, fill in the following information on one of these files:

1. Within /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged ceres main non-free non-free-firmware contrib

2. Within /etc/apt/sources.list.d/devuan.sources:

# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb
URIs: http://deb.devuan.org/merged/
Suites: ceres
Components: main non-free non-free-firmware contrib
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/devuan-archive-keyring.gpg

Update repositories and install Steam

After enabling the required repositories, update your package lists:

sudo apt update

Install the steam-installer package using:

sudo apt install steam-installer

Install and set up xwayland

The Steam client requires xwayland to run on a Wayland session because the Steam client itself is an X11-only application and lacks native Wayland support. If you're experiencing a display crash or the "Could not open connection to X" error, it's likely because Steam cannot connect to an X server. Currently, under a Wayland session, this is handled by xwayland, which acts as a compatibility layer allowing X11 applications like Steam to run.

Install xwayland via:

sudo apt install xwayland

Verify xwayland is active by running by printing the value of the $DISPLAY enviroment variable. This should return :0:

echo $DISPLAY

If the DISPLAY variable is not set, you can set it manually. The command export DISPLAY=:0 sets the DISPLAY environment variable to :0, telling graphical (a la X11) applications to render their graphical interface on the first local display (screen 0) of the local X server:

export DISPLAY=:0

Restart Wayland session

Restart your Wayland session to ensure xwayland starts with the compositor; an easy way to do that for Hyprland specifically would be:

hyprctl dispatch exit
dbus-run-session start-hyprland

Launch Steam

Finally, launch Steam from the application menu or via the terminal:

steam

By following these steps, you should be able to install and run Steam on your Devuan system using a Wayland-based desktop environment like Hyprland.

Context

You might have seen this post series from my organization related setting up Pipewire and Hyprland on Devuan. Another potentially important piece of the puzzle is my earlier post related to asking about the possibility of switching to the Devuan OpenRC Setup Post-Desktop Live Install.

Essentially, at the time I created the guide, I was memed into using the default OpenRC configuration offered on some of the .iso installation options for Devuan. I'm new to init freedom altogether, so I'm playing around with what init system would be optimal and friction-least for a computer user. For an unrelated reason, my installation borked after an attempt at cleaning up unnecessary packages on my system (the exact cause to me is a mystery). This post, after reading a little bit about how Devuan approaches init ("enhanced" SysVInit being apparently more performant, and how the default OpenRC apparently uses SysVInit for certain things anyway), is about exploring as another "branch" of experimentation of how this can cleanly be done using Devuan's default init system.

What is happening?

Essentially, when I boot up into the tty on the SysVInit computer, I'm getting logs similar but not limited to:

startpar: service(s) refused failure: x11-common ... failed!
startpar: service(s) refused failure: pulseaudio-enable-autospawn cups cups-browsed ... failed!

I'm not sure how to exactly extract the logs that pop on a tty on startup, upon learning how, I'll edit/add a post to include them.

My assumption would be that this would essentially be a game of whack-a-mole of telling SysVInit scripts to not call certain applications to allow applications to function properly. For example, in the first snippet above, I'm curious if having pulseaudio-enable-autospawn fail would cause me problems later in regard to being able to use printers with cups. Conversely, I'm curious if this could not be the case and it is simply a matter of flipping off configuration files or hiding the messages in come way in the case that, generally speaking, the ... Failed! messages are inconsequential (an example being that pulseaudio-enable-autospawn failing doesn't appear to be affecting my ability to use audio devices with Pipewire).

Any pointers appreciated.

Best,