I installed steam on my 32-bit thinkpad and it said it's unable to use the steam browser as they dropped compatibility with it for 32-bit linux operating systems. Because of this, I couldn't access my steam library.

Is it now just impossible for me to download/play all the games I bought on steam unless I get a 64-bit computer?

So don't really luse steam on linux to know if there's a workaround for that, but does your PC not support 64-bit? How old is it, what's the CPU? If it's less than 10 years old it probably does support 64-bit and you could just reinstall if there is no workaround.

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How odd. I play Steam on Linux (or used to) and have a full 64 bit system. Steam requires the installation of the 32 bit architecture to run. I would think it would just work on a 32 bit system because Steam itself is 32 bit.

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I'm not sure. I don't think my laptop is capable of supporting 64-bit. It's an IBM ThinkPad T60. I ran lscpu and it didn't list a 64-bit opmode.

Is it a Core {Solo,Duo} or a Core 2 {Solo,Duo}? Core you'd be right, 32-bit only. Core 2 supports 64-bit (and socket/electrical compatible) and you could install a 64-bit OS.

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Just an addition: Core 2 Quad (4 cores) does exist too. And that one, of course, supports 64-bit op-mode too.

To the OP: use the 'cat /proc/cpuinfo' (without the quotes's, of course) command.
It will give you both the specific cpu model name as well as a list of "flags".
If the "lm" (long mode) flag is present, it can do 64-bits:

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I'm not convinced that Steam cannot run on 32bit systems.

• how did you install steam?
• “it said it’s unable to use the steam browser as they dropped compatibility with it for 32-bit linux operating systems” - sounds like the browser is complaining, not steam?

It's in there somewhere:
http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/...wbook_2013.pdf
https://thinkwiki.org/

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Exactly, where previously steam client could've worked with (x86) wine-gecko, it has since switched to chromium backend which is only available for x86_64
So the client launchers, CLI, UI all work on 32bit, except the integrated browser component is now 64bit only i.e. none of the web services (store, library) are being rendered.

Note that I only tested it on 32 bit a few years ago due to request, and it may have changed since then.
I did use it for a while before it switched to chromium, but I only have like one game so it doesn't matter much to me.

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No, unfortunately they don't have any lm flags.
It's an Intel(R) Duo CPU T2400

Looks like it can only handle 32-bit.

I used the steam slackbuild available at www.slackbuilds.org.
The application worked fine, it's just that I can't seem to download or even view the games in my steam library what with the steam browser (which the client uses) being incompatible with my device architecture.

Yup. Bummer. If you were really adventurous you could try finding something like a Core 2 Duo Pxxxx and swap processors. The Core & Core 2 were socket & electrically compatible for the most part. All but the very earliest Core chipsets also supported the Core 2. From what I understand, the v3 board on the T60 fully supports the Core 2's, which was by far the most abundant board released for it. P series over T series due to cooling. The T2400 was only a 31w TDP processor, while the C2D P{7,8}xxx are 25w TDP, vs. 35w on MOST C2D T series. The C2D P9xxx are still only 28w TDP. Buy you a bit more time before needing to consider replacing the entire thing. Also would inmprove overall system performance as the P series all had 1066 FSB instead of the older 667 FSB of the T2400.

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https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us...7-mhz-fsb.html
Lithography 65 nm
# of Cores 2
# of Threads 2
Processor Base Frequency 1.83 GHz
Cache 2 MB L2 Cache
Bus Speed 667 MHz
FSB Parity No
TDP 31 W
Scenario Design Power (SDP) 0 W
VID Voltage Range 1.1625 V - 1.30 V
Intel® Turbo Boost Technology ‡ No
Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology ‡ No
Intel® Virtualization Technology (VT-x) ‡ Yes
Intel® 64 ‡ No <======================================================Your CPU is 32 bit instruction set only (also called IA32)
Instruction Set 32-bit
Idle States No
Enhanced Intel SpeedStep® Technology Yes
Intel® Demand Based Switching No