Can't install Steam because of unmet dependencies

Solution 1:

Install it again from their website's .deb file and then open a terminal (ctrl+alt+t) and use these two commands:

mv ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1{,.disable}
mv ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6{,.disable}

After that, start Steam and let it update.

P.S.: it might be possible that after the update steam fails to start again, but then just rerun those two commands. The missing lib error comes from steam trying to use own libraries instead of using the system's ones.

To fix you ongoing problems run this in a terminal:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-glx libcheese*

Solution 2:

Sometimes apt-get misbehaves when it comes to resolving dependencies on broken packages. Try running

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -f && sudo apt-get upgrade.

Briefly:

• sudo apt-get update refreshes the list of packages from the repository online
• sudo apt-get install -f installs any unmet dependencies for packages you're either installing or have installed
• sudo apt-get upgrade tries the upgrade again

Solution 3:

Tried all top Google solutions. None of them worked for me.

Came across this answer that described how we can reset broken packages.

Take a backup of the file /var/lib/dpkg/status first. Then erase all the contents of that file.

Then run sudo apt install steam. It may prompt you if there are files that already exist and will be overwritten. Best that you check for the differences in the file's contents. In my case, I decided to use the one from the package maintainers itself instead of my own.

Steam installed smoothly. Did not get any unmet dependencies error.

When I tried to start steam, I got an error about glxchoosevisual failed. For this, I then had to install libnvidia-gl-450:i386 library. Note that in my case, my nvidia driver version was 450 so used that. You need to use your version here. That's it! Steam then launched fine.

Sharing it here in case it helps somebody.