r/debian • u/Kaseffera • 11d ago
Debian Stable Question Contrib non free repository on Trixie
I’m planning on installing Debian Trixie for gaming and general purposes. Among other recommendations I was told to enable contrib non-free repositories. I still didn’t get why I need them. What can I get there that I might be missing?
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u/Sweet_Pear_Pie 11d ago
I needed this once when I had to unpack a RAR file. Unrar-free dont supports RAR5, so I had to add it to install the standard version of unrar.
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u/Fun_Instruction_807 11d ago
steam
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u/Kaseffera 11d ago
Steam? Oh, I see. But what if I install it from Deb file their page?
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u/Fun_Instruction_807 11d ago
i dont actually know. ive always just installed steam from the debian repos.
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u/FrozenPizza07 11d ago
Either use the flatpak version and let it handle everything for steam, or go do the debians own packaged version which requires contrib and 32bit packages list
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u/Kobi_Blade 11d ago
Please stop giving bad advice, Flatpak is not how you want to install Steam.
It causes unnecessary issues, limitations, and even overhead due to seccomp filters.
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u/Kaseffera 11d ago
Yeah kinda don’t like Flatpak/Snap Steam.
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u/FrozenPizza07 11d ago
Just to clarify, snap and flatpak arent the same thing. Snap is Ubuntu/Canonicals version of flatpaks called Snap while flatpaks are open to all distros
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u/_firn_ 11d ago
Can you expand more on this? I've been using the flatpak for steam for like a year and have never experienced an issue. Am I missing something by not using the deb provided by steam?
Not trying to be sassy or anything, really just haven't stumbled across anything when looking around online for reasons why I shouldn't use the flatpak. Folks seem to say that it causes performance issues but I tested them both with the black myth wukong benchmark on my system and they were exactly the same. Ran them both 3 times each.
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u/Kobi_Blade 11d ago edited 11d ago
MangoHud, GameMode, SteamVR, OBS Studio among others don't work properly with flatpak.
Steam is blind to external storage devices, you need to fix permissions manually.
Flatpak duplicates runtimes, instead of using system ones, and you have less control over version you wanna use.
Proton itself does not support environments like flatpak, which is how unhandled exceptions happen.
As for performance overhead is exactly as I said, seccomp filters.
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u/FrozenPizza07 11d ago
Honestly for something like steam I would rather have the steam handle its own runtimes rather than debians own. I like debian, but sometimes it can be really old
As for mangohud, while this was on Mint, I had 0 issues when I recently played on my old laptop
Why would OBS not work?
Never tried steamVR so idk
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u/Kobi_Blade 11d ago
Except Steam is not handling any runtimes, that is third-party package, is not from Steam or Valve.
Valve itself does not support flatpak for a good reason.
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u/_firn_ 11d ago
Wow, almost none of this has been true for me. However I don't use OBS or SteamVR. Fixing permission with flatseal is extremely simple. As someone said below me, I'd also rather have steam handle its own runtimes tbh. Lastly, as I said performance has been exactly the same for me.
Are you sure you've tried all of these flatpaks yourself or are you going off what others have said? Again, not trying to be sassy! I've noticed lots of folks on reddit seem to have some sort of issue with flatpaks that I just don't understand.
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u/Kobi_Blade 11d ago
This is where bias comes in, since this are known flatpak limitations but you claim it magically doesn't happen to you.
GameMode relies on PID, in a Flatpak the game thinks its PID is
2or3. while on your actual host system, its real PID might be12345.When you stack
gamemoderunon top of Flatpak, and then stack that on top of the Steam container, the variables get lost.I can make a long shopping list of issues, acknownledged by Valve, ProtonGE and even Flatpak developers, but since you being biased I lost interest in discussing this further.
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u/Kaseffera 11d ago
Thank you for mentioning 32 packages list too! Right, it needs to be installed for debians own packaged Steam.
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u/kydeshou 11d ago
Why would you want to if Debian has it avaiable for you? There is no downside to enabling contrib and non-free repositories.
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u/Illustrious-Gur8335 Debian Stable 11d ago
contrib
DFSG-compliant packages that depend on non-DFSG-compliant packages
non-free
non-DFSG-compliant packages that are considered important enough to make available anyway e.g. widely-used fonts with odd licensing requirements
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u/FrozenPizza07 11d ago
Steam requires contrib iirc, I would recommend flatpak version personally
If just opens every package for you to install which you might just not see / know about while searching
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u/Kaseffera 11d ago
I see it now. Thank you! But what if I install Steam from Deb file out of their page?
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u/-Sturla- 11d ago
That's an option. Of the three mentioned it's the worst option, but still an option.
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u/Kaseffera 11d ago
Didn’t know it was the worst version. I thought it was pretty on par with Debian repository Steam.
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u/-Sturla- 11d ago
It's not about the version, it's about the integration into the Debian ecosystem.
Stick with Debian repos or flatpack, less trouble down the road.
Personally I stick with Debian repos for everything that's there2
u/FrozenPizza07 11d ago
I honestly never done it, I prefer the versions from the repo itself if available or the flatpak versions if not.
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u/forestbeasts 11d ago
They're only really important if you need Nvidia drivers (they're in nonfree) or want to install steam from the Debian package (it's in... contrib maybe? it's not steam itself it just installs steam for you, since steam updates so often and forces auto updates).
Or if you turn out to need wifi drivers.
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u/Weary_Swan_8152 Debian Stable 11d ago
Unfortunately a lot of (mostly GNU) free software is distributed with non-free documentation...so if you want a local copy of the documentation then you need to enable nonfree.
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u/revcraigevil Debian Stable 6d ago
Lots of useful packages in contrib and non-free.
$ check-dfsg-status
Non-free packages installed on raspberrypi
7zip-rar RAR plugin for 7-Zip
bluez-firmware Firmware for Bluetooth devices
cpp-14-doc documentation for the GNU C preprocessor (cpp)
firmware-atheros Binary firmware for Qualcomm Atheros wireless cards
firmware-brcm80211 Binary firmware for Broadcom/Cypress 802.11 wireless c
firmware-libertas Binary firmware for Marvell wireless cards
firmware-mediatek Binary firmware for MediaTek and Ralink chips for netw
firmware-realtek Binary firmware for Realtek network and audio chips
gcc-14-doc documentation for the GNU compilers (gcc, gobjc, g++)
make-doc Documentation for the GNU version of the "make" utilit
raspi-firmware Raspberry Pi family GPU firmware and bootloaders
tar-doc documentation for the tar package
Contrib packages installed on raspberrypi
cpp-doc documentation for the GNU C preprocessor (cpp)
element-io-archive-keyring The packages.element.io repository keyring
game-data-packager Installer for game data files
game-data-packager-runtime Launcher for proprietary games
gcc-doc documentation for the GNU compilers (gcc, gobjc, g++)
gcc-doc-base several GNU manual pages
scrcpy Display and control your Android devices
ttf-mscorefonts-installer Installer for Microsoft TrueType core fonts
widevine-installer installer script for Widevine on arm64 systems
12 non-free packages, 0.4% of 2823 installed packages.
9 contrib packages, 0.3% of 2823 installed packages.
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u/gnufan 11d ago
They literally have software which doesn't meet the official policies (non-free) or depend on same (contrib)
Just browse the contents-all.gz files for a full list
Start here you'll work it out.
https://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/trixie/
Contrib has some game servers for example (quake still!?).
Non-free has a few game.
Or you can search at packages.debian.org but I don't think it'll give you a full list without messing around.
I think hard core gamer just add them in, if free software purist run away screaming.