Fix steam error libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast in debian

If you have steam client installed on debian sid, once a while, operating system is upgraded and then the upgraded break steam client. An example output of such error encountered.

user@localhost:~$ steam
Running Steam on debian 8 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1421694684)
libGL error: unable to load driver: r600_dri.so
libGL error: driver pointer missing
libGL error: failed to load driver: r600
libGL error: unable to load driver: swrast_dri.so
libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast
^C

So steam client fail to launch and this look like 3d graphic driver unable to load or not install. Don't bother to even install the package libgl1-mesa-swx11 that provide the file swrast because at this point of time, installation of this package will not work as conflict is clearly indicated. Conflicts: libgl1, libgl1-mesa-swrast, mesag3, mesag3+ggi, mesag3-glide, mesag3-glide2, nvidia-glx. Installation of this package will render debian gui not usable, had that path :( So don't do that.

So I have google and found a good solution and below is what I have taken. I hope it works for you too.

user@localhost:~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu$ mv libstdc++.so.6.0.18 libstdc++.so.6.0.18.remove.by.user
user@localhost:~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu$ ls libstdc++.so.6*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user user   19 Jul 19  2014 libstdc++.so.6 -> libstdc++.so.6.0.18
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 901K Jul 19  2014 libstdc++.so.6.0.18.remove.by.user
user@localhost:~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu$ rm libstdc++.so.6
rm: remove symbolic link ‘libstdc++.so.6’? y
user@localhost:~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu$ pwd
/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu


user@localhost:~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu$ pwd
/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
user@localhost:~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu$ mv libstdc++.so.6.0.18 libstdc++.so.6.0.18.remove.by.user
user@localhost:~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu$ rm libstdc++.so.6
rm: remove symbolic link ‘libstdc++.so.6’? y
user@localhost:~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu$ pwd
/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
user@localhost:~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu$

As you can see above, the example shown two symbolic links libstdc++.so.6 in two different directory, i386 and amd64 were removed. Then again for the file that symlink pointed to libstdc++.so.6.0.18 is moved to another name and so it can be revert if something goes wrong after.

After these were removed, start again the steam client and steam will redownload the file and it should work again! :-)