I am on Ubuntu 19.10 and installed Steam:

EDIT:

Originally, I tried this:

apt install steam

Then I got this error:

Package steam is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package 'steam' has no installation candidate

Then ... I looked around to see if perhaps I was installing it from the wrong place, and then did this:

dpkg -i steam_latest.deb

Apt was complaining about missing some packages ...

apt --fix-broken install

run steam

steam

output

Running Steam on ubuntu 19.10 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Pins up-to-date!
/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
process 9557: D-Bus library appears to be incorrectly set up; failed to read machine uuid: Failed to stat "/etc/machine-id": Value too large for defined data type
See the manual page for dbus-uuidgen to correct this issue.
process 9557: D-Bus library appears to be incorrectly set up; failed to read machine uuid: Failed to stat "/etc/machine-id": Value too large for defined data type
See the manual page for dbus-uuidgen to correct this issue.
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Fontconfig warning: line 5: unknown element "its:rules"
Fontconfig warning: line 6: unknown element "its:translateRule"
Fontconfig warning: line 9: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig error: "conf.d", line 1: failed reading config file
STEAM_RUNTIME_HEAVY: ./steam-runtime-heavy
process 9557: D-Bus library appears to be incorrectly set up; failed to read machine uuid: Failed to stat "/etc/machine-id": Value too large for defined data type
See the manual page for dbus-uuidgen to correct this issue.
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
CAppInfoCacheReadFromDiskThread took 0 milliseconds to initialize
[0329/211548.041683:INFO:crash_reporting.cc(247)] Crash reporting enabled for process: browser
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
CApplicationManagerPopulateThread took 0 milliseconds to initialize (will have waited on CAppInfoCacheReadFromDiskThread)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
[0329/211548.061836:WARNING:crash_reporting.cc(286)] Failed to set crash key: UserID with value: 0
[0329/211548.061916:WARNING:crash_reporting.cc(286)] Failed to set crash key: BuildID with value: 1585263054
[0329/211548.061921:WARNING:crash_reporting.cc(286)] Failed to set crash key: SteamUniverse with value: Public
[0329/211548.061926:WARNING:crash_reporting.cc(286)] Failed to set crash key: Vendor with value: Valve
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
[0329/211548.112333:WARNING:crash_reporting.cc(286)] Failed to set crash key: UserID with value: 0
[0329/211548.112421:WARNING:crash_reporting.cc(286)] Failed to set crash key: BuildID with value: 1585263054
[0329/211548.112426:WARNING:crash_reporting.cc(286)] Failed to set crash key: SteamUniverse with value: Public
[0329/211548.112431:WARNING:crash_reporting.cc(286)] Failed to set crash key: Vendor with value: Valve
[0329/211548.113137:INFO:crash_reporting.cc(247)] Crash reporting enabled for process: gpu-process
[0329/211548.143220:ERROR:sandbox_linux.cc(372)] InitializeSandbox() called with multiple threads in process gpu-process.
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
[0329/211548.179622:WARNING:crash_reporting.cc(286)] Failed to set crash key: UserID with value: 0
[0329/211548.179700:WARNING:crash_reporting.cc(286)] Failed to set crash key: BuildID with value: 1585263054
[0329/211548.179704:WARNING:crash_reporting.cc(286)] Failed to set crash key: SteamUniverse with value: Public
[0329/211548.179718:WARNING:crash_reporting.cc(286)] Failed to set crash key: Vendor with value: Valve
[0329/211548.180467:INFO:crash_reporting.cc(247)] Crash reporting enabled for process: utility
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1585264767)
process 9650: D-Bus library appears to be incorrectly set up; failed to read machine uuid: Failed to stat "/etc/machine-id": Value too large for defined data type
See the manual page for dbus-uuidgen to correct this issue.
process 9650: D-Bus library appears to be incorrectly set up; failed to read machine uuid: Failed to stat "/etc/machine-id": Value too large for defined data type
See the manual page for dbus-uuidgen to correct this issue.
INTEL-MESA: warning: Ivy Bridge Vulkan support is incomplete

Lastly, this is the screen I see:

EDIT: I have Chinese fonts:

locale -a
C
C.UTF-8
en_US.utf8
POSIX
zh_CN
zh_CN.gb2312
zh_CN.utf8

Both English and Chinese fonts render correctly on my system and English is set as the default. I'm also using i3 as my window manager if that makes a difference.

1 Answer

Just had the same issue in Ubuntu 21.04

First, download the zip from

Extract the fonts in that to ~/.local/share/fonts/

Then

sudo apt-get install libatk-adaptor:i386 libgail-common:i386 cups:i386-

(the package removal there is to stop it dragging in all kinds of unnecessary stuff)

Then restart Steam.

Proof that it's not anything to do with an "unreleased" version of Ubuntu: Ubuntu 14.04 Steam font issue