Ubuntu gamers can help test a new version of Canonical’s Steam snap that uses a core26 base and an updated Mesa graphics driver stack.
A new testing channel sees the Steam snap’s underlying base runtime bumped to a version based on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, paired with a matching gaming-graphics-core26 content snap providing a newer set of GPU drivers – and potentially, better performance.
Users can opt in by running snap refresh steam --channel stable/core26 from the terminal, and test by doing what they’d normally do in Steam: install and play games, adjust settings, and so on.
Because the Steam snap uses its own stack of graphics drivers and system components, it allows gaming to run on newer components without the versions in the the host OS needing to be upgraded too – anyone sticking with LTS builds will appreciate that.
Canonical say to treat the new packages as a beta test for now, i.e., expect behavioural quirks and bugs. Issues should be reported to the Canonical Steam snap GitHub, and not directed at Valve (for reasons explained at the bottom of this post).
If things do go pear-shaped, it’s easy to revert back to a core24 version of Steam by running snap refresh steam --stable. The underlying graphics stack should take care of itself, with Steam relying on the *-24 version.
As I’m not (much of) a gamer, I can’t speak to any notable improvements. General consensus is that Canonical’s Steam snap runs as well as – if not better, depending – than the official Deb version that’s available to download from the Valve website.
A reminder that the Steam snap, be it a testing or stable build, is not supported by Valve, so complaints or issues found in the snap Steam package should always be reported to Canonical.