I have a few issues with steam and steam games.
I'll start with my laptop's specs:
Acer-Aspire-E5-722G
- Operating system : Kubuntu 26.04
- Kernel: 7.0.0-29 generic
- CPU: AMD A8-7410 APU with 4 cores
- Memory : 6.72GB DDR3 (supposed to be 8)
- Storage: WD HDD with 931.51GB
- Graphics device 1 : AMD Radeon(TM) R5 M335
- Graphics device 2 : AMD Radeon(TM) R5 Graphics (iGPU)
Issue 1: I have installed steam and it ran once but now it crashes if i try to open it (I can share the crash logs) and it works fine if I run it in terminal (I just type steam in Konsole and hit enter).
Issue 2: I installed Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 on my laptop and I ran it once and I had to turn the settings way down for decent frames but I got it playable, when I try to open it it doesn't crash it just take forever (I waited foor 20 minutes and it didn't open). Here is what I have tried:
-
I switched Poton version form experimental to the latest stable version (9.0-4)
-
I added
to CSM 18 launch options settings in steam
Here is a picture of where it gets stuck

Issue 3 (I don't know if this one is solvable): I used to have Windows 10 on this laptop and I could play American Truck Simulator on it with low settings, but on Kubuntu it doesn't launch.
Thanks in advance.
If you need more information just ask and i'll try to provide it.
UPDATE: All of the issues have been solved (mostly)
Issue 1: I disabled "GPU acceleration" and “smooth scrolling in web views”
Issue 2: I used this fix from ProtonDB: Set launch options to PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command%
Issue 3: I used this fix from ProtonDB: Set launch options to PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command% however my laptop doesn't have enough RAM and steam was closed by the kernel
The solution to an issue someone is facing isn’t to immediately switch the entire OS
I would agree pretty much with you, but OP posted this 13 hours ago. In ten hours only one person replied and only had a similiar issue about one of the points.
Kubuntu is no a popular distro of choice within the gaming space so i doubt it will easy to find someone who can help to troubleshoot their problem. Also i think i read somewhere that Ubuntu had some problems with 32 bit libraries. I may be wrong tho.
As i replied on another comment, changing distro will probably be the fastest way to solve or at least diagnostic the problem. It's probably extreme but better than nothing. I would also try the flatpak version first.