Valve has signaled an important shift in Steam’s Linux support policy. According to a recent announcement, the Steam client will no longer run on any distribution with a GNU C Library (glibc) version older than 2.31 starting August 15, 2025.
Users who stay on an outdated toolchain will find not only Steam but also any purchased games unable to launch until the underlying operating system is upgraded. But for most of you, there’s no room for worry. Here’s why.
Older versions of glibc—specifically those before version 2.31—are still found in Linux distributions released five years or more ago. For example, consider Debian 10 (Buster), Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver), Fedora 31, Linux Mint 19, the CentOS 7/RHEL 7 family, RHEL 8, AlmaLinux 8, and Rocky Linux 8, among others. You got the picture.
Now, since we’re talking about desktop systems here, the chances of someone still using those really old versions, many of which are already out of support, are pretty slim. But if you are one of the folks still relying on them, it’s probably a very specific use case… and honestly, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
That said, if you want to keep enjoying your favorite titles after August, you should start thinking about upgrading your system. And just quickly, before we wrap up—I want to share a bit about why the glibc library is actually such a big deal in all of this.
Glibc forms the low‑level runtime glue that every dynamically linked application on Linux relies on. Think of it as the universal toolbox that almost every program on your system reaches for whenever it needs to do everyday jobs—like opening a file, showing text on the screen, talking to the network, or asking the kernel for more memory.
So, once Steam and its games are compiled against newer glibc symbols, older libraries quite literally will not understand the calls they make. As a result, neither Steam itself nor the games it launches will be able to run.
Once again, if you’re running a Linux system with a glibc version before 2.31 for some reason, it’s time to consider an upgrade. And happy gaming!
