Getting Steam to work on a Linux system with hybrid graphics

Using Steam on a Linux system with hybrid graphics can cause display issues, such as a blank or unresponsive screen. Thanks to a Reddit post¹, which pointed out a solution from the Steam Community forums², I managed to resolve these issues.

After installation, copy /usr/share/applications/steam.desktop to ~/.local/share/applications/steam.desktop.

Open the copied desktop file and change the line PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true to PrefersNonDefaultGPU=false.

When set to false, Steam will use the more powerful GPU instead of the integrated graphics.

Now the Steam client can be launched using the desktop icon without any display issues.

Footnotes

1. Editing Steam’s .desktop files per this post fixed my problem with Steam displaying solid black windows unless launched from Terminal - Reddit ↩

2. Steam works only if launched from terminal - Steam for Linux General Discussion ↩