Valve has done an excellent job of giving gaming on Linux a big boost by bringing over the Steam client to Linux, and encouraging as many developers as possible to release Linux versions of their games- so that has to be commended, definitely. But right now, it seems that you’d be better off if you weren’t using Steam on your Linux powered computer- a devastating, crippling bug for the Steam client on Linux has emerged, one that has the potential to wipe out all potential files on your computer, and on any and all USB connected drives as well.
Holy crap.
The exact specifics about the bug are, of course, unknown, but users complaining of this bug appear to have moved their .steam or ~/.local/share/steam directories, or invoked Steam’s Bash script with the —reset option enabled. So while those are the specific steps you want to avoid, you probably want to just err on the side of safety, and simply not use Steam right now- if you do, it might be best to have local backups that are not connected to your computer when you are using Steam.
Valve has acknowledged the issue, and issued the following statement:
So far we have had a handful of users report this issue, after they manually moved their Steam install. We have not been able to reproduce the reported issue, but we are adding some additional checks to ensure this is not possible while we continue to investigate. If anyone else has experienced this or has more information, they should email linux@valvesoftware.com.”
Just, take steps to ensure the safety of your data, guys. I’d say your personal files are a whole lot more important than not being able to play some games for a bit.