Support Family Library Sharing

[jayschwa]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Is the feature related to a problem or existing issue?

No response

Describe the solution/feature you'd like.

Steam supports users of the same computer sharing their game libraries with each other. On Windows, this feature generally "just works" because Steam uses shared storage for all users of the machine. On Linux, it's more complicated because Steam defaults to each user's home directory for storage. However, it is possible if a user-independent location is created that can be used for Steam's library storage. Disk space conservation is also a nice side effect if multiple users on the same machine download and play the same game.

Describe any alternatives you've considered.

No response

Additional context

• https://store.steampowered.com/promotion/familysharing
• https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/57A7-503C-991F-E9A8
• https://blog.budhajeewa.com/make-steam-family-library-sharing-effective-in-ubuntu-linux/

[ashuntu]

The Steam Snap should support adding external libraries in places like /mnt or /run/media to be shared, is that not what you need?

[jayschwa]

I have been experimenting with this today. So far, I have been able to setup a shared storage area for two users, enable bi-directional family sharing, and see the shared games in the other user's Steam library. I have not been able to launch a shared game yet, as the main button shows "Purchase" rather than "Play". It is not clear to me yet if this is a file system permission issue or something else.

I created the shared location with the following commands:

sudo mkdir /mnt/steam
sudo chgrp users /mnt/steam
sudo chmod g+rws /mnt/steam

I then added /mnt/steam as a storage location for both Steam users.

These steps require some technical know-how on the user's part. It'd be nice if the snap could setup shared storage by default.

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[ashuntu]

I'll tag this to stay open, as I think it's worth investigating in the future.

[JGCarroll]

Is this still a problem with the new Steam Families functionality?

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/4149575031735702628

It seems to me that this works on an account based level on the Steam Store side, rather than relying on the individual installation to keep track of both account and installation/session.

If Steam Families works, I'd expect the existing library sharing mechanism to likely be removed in favour of the new system which would potentially obsolete this issue.

[jayschwa]

It looks like that feature is still in beta, but I'll try it out with my account and my wife's account once it's rolled out further. If it seems to work well, then I'll close the issue.