Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

It seems an update of glibc has caused a bunch of Linux ports from Feral Interactive to be broken. Here's a possible workaround for now.

Add this as a launch option:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/path/to/steam/games/steamapps/common/gamename/lib/x86_64/" %command%Set it to the correct install path and replace "gamename" with the name of the game.

That can be placed by right clicking the game in Steam, going to Properties, hit Set Launch Options and put that in.

While stuff like this doesn't happen too often, it is one of the problems of being on a rolling distribution. Updates can break stuff! It's why even after I posted about how I loved Antergos, I'm back and happy on Ubuntu on my main gaming machine, so I don't have to deal with stuff like this.

I've emailed the PR people at Feral Interactive to let them know, and to see if we can get a comment on what they plan to do. It's worth noting the bug was reported to them nearly a month ago and so they should already be aware.

Hopefully this will be sorted before too long. Feral will need to sort it, since Ubuntu and others will update before too long. It could be a regression in the updated packages and not intentional to be fair, so it might not be Feral's problem to solve.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
8 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
53 comments
Page: «2/6»
  Go to:

cprn Sep 11, 2017
Do you not run Steam runtime anyway? I see no point in running native libs that might or might not work with a particular title. It's way more effective to just use what's provided and tested.


Last edited by cprn on 11 September 2017 at 1:28 pm UTC
Ray54 Sep 11, 2017
View PC info
  • Supporter
I am pleased that you are back on Ubuntu (I assume 16.04) for your main machine. I want to be able to read your game reviews and assume that I will get similar playability and reliability on my 3 older Linux Mint 18 gaming desktops. I have nothing against other Linux distributions, but as I said when you first moved to Antergos, I did not feel that it reviews using Antergos would be as useful as reviews using Ubuntu to the majority of your readership.
BTRE Sep 11, 2017
View PC info
  • Contributing Editor
Quoting: Ray54I am pleased that you are back on Ubuntu (I assume 16.04) for your main machine. I want to be able to read your game reviews and assume that I will get similar playability and reliability on my 3 older Linux Mint 18 gaming desktops. I have nothing against other Linux distributions, but as I said when you first moved to Antergos, I did not feel that it reviews using Antergos would be as useful as reviews using Ubuntu to the majority of your readership.
According to GOL's own statistics, Ubuntu users are the largest single group but definitely not the majority of users. So it's actually more useful to the majority to know how it runs on non-Ubuntu distros using your logic. Still, in practice, it doesn't really matter what distro we're on since it's rare for there to be really significant issues with games. At least something that won't eventually affect all distros, as is the case with this glibc thing.
bolokanar Sep 11, 2017
Quoting: GnurfosThere's something I don't understand, can someone clarify :
  • In addition, why would there be libs already present in a game's folder, which are not used by default by the game launcher ?
The problem is that it can't find thouse game libs. That's the whole problem.
Samsai Sep 11, 2017
Quoting: cprnDo you not run Steam runtime anyway? I see no point in running native libs that might or might not work with a particular title. It's way more effective to just use what's provided and tested.
Steam runtime is not exactly a perfect solution either. It worked decently well for a while until libstdc++.so along with some other libraries in the runtime became so outdated they broke OpenGL support on open source drivers. That forced a lot of people to abandon the runtime in favour of Steam native. Then Valve went and kind of fixed the problem by preferring host libraries, with the result that stuff is broken now because now a system library gets loaded and is incompatible with the game.

I don't think there's a single winning move with the current setup. Steam runtime is in a serious need of updates and central libraries in general should put more effort into backwards binary compatibility.
Duckeenie Sep 11, 2017
Will be very interesting to monitor their response to this. It would put me right off paying full price for games if I thought their lifespan was severely limited. Feral Interactive seem like a good bunch though so hopefully things turn out well.
property Sep 11, 2017
Ubuntu 16.04 is also affected when upgrading Mesa. XCOM 2 WotC keeps crashing after I've installed Mesa 17.2. After reinstalling the Mesa 17.0.7 it just fine.

However, Warhammer DoW 3 seemed to be working with Mesa 17.2 as well as 17.3-git
Liam Dawe Sep 11, 2017
Quoting: propertyUbuntu 16.04 is also affected when upgrading Mesa. XCOM 2 WotC keeps crashing after I've installed Mesa 17.2. After reinstalling the Mesa 17.0.7 it just fine.

However, Warhammer DoW 3 seemed to be working with Mesa 17.2 as well as 17.3-git
Different issue, contact Feral support and log the issue on the Mesa bug list.
kokoko3k Sep 11, 2017
One workaround would be to run steam in a steamos container (lxc, systemd-nspawn, docker, maybe flatpak?)
Not tested, something like that:
https://hub.docker.com/r/andrey01/steam/
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/06/steam-now-available-flatpak
-EDIT-
WOPS!, just saw this:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/steam-is-now-available-as-a-flatpak-app-via-flathub.9858
...So i wonder why liamdawe changed distro (?)
maybe because:
QuoteNote: I've not used Flatpak at all myself, nor have I tried out this Steam Flatpak as I don't want any issues with my existing install.
But since you're just having issues... eheh.


Last edited by kokoko3k on 11 September 2017 at 6:33 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Sep 11, 2017
Quoting: kokoko3k...So i wonder why liamdawe changed distro (?)
maybe because:
QuoteNote: I've not used Flatpak at all myself, nor have I tried out this Steam Flatpak as I don't want any issues with my existing install.
But since you're just having issues... eheh.
I changed so I don't have to deal with issues like this. My Ubuntu install is perfectly fine and running like silk.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.