I’d hazard a guess that most people down vote you not because you don’t want to use steam or that you want to pirate, but rather because it’s most likely something wrong with your setup and you can’t be arsed to figure out what the problem is. Which might end up being a lot more serious than simply being unable to launch steam.

IMO, figure it out, get your system to work properly and then go pirate if that’s what you prefer.

Not knowing what you’re looking for, I can’t help much. But I found a whole lot of art books on cgpeers and gfxpeers in the past. But registrations are closed now I think.