Issues encountered with Linux and Steam titles
Issues encountered with Linux and Steam titles
A few years back I set up Linux Mint as a dual boot with Windows 10 to experiment. It worked well, especially with an NVidia card, since I could easily share my Steam library and play games. However, over time I stuck to Windows by habit. Recently, I decided I wanted to move away from it, so I created a Ventoy drive using an old NVMe enclosure. I installed the latest Mint version, Bazzite, Cachy OS, ZorinOS, and GLF OS (a French gaming distro based on NixOS). I first installed Mint, fixed the invisible Steam UI with some tweaks, but couldn’t access my Windows drive—no clear reason. Then GLF OS froze during installation, and the devs suggested it might be a hardware issue (not Ventoy-related). I tried Cachy OS, but they mentioned Ventoy isn’t supported. They advised disconnecting Windows drives during installation, but I wasn’t sure how to update GRUB on it. Zorin OS installed smoothly and looked nice, though the Gnome interface didn’t appeal to me. All drives showed up, but launching Steam games still caused compatibility problems (even after installing ProtonPlus). I learned that some games fail due to NTFS vs EXT4 file systems, which seems unrelated to the installation process. Reformatting drives was necessary, and I lack sufficient free space for backups—except on my HDD, which would take a long time. I’d need to remove some software and back up data first. Now I can’t play anything on Steam in Linux, which is frustrating.
It’s unclear why you believe you can run Steam games on Windows inside Linux from the same directories. For the highest success rate, install it on Linux rather than attempting to launch Windows versions from there.
I strongly doubt it's okay. I'm curious about whether the person is more successful after installing directly from the distro.
Yes, you meant the same drive should support launching game installs on both Linux and Windows.
I faced comparable problems while experimenting with Linux recently. You can retain NTFS drives for dual booting, though not every game supports that format. Proton doesn't work well with NTFS, even if games appear functional on Steam Deck. Switching to ext4 (or another Linux-specific format) would simplify things. Also, verify your mounting settings for NTFS drives—by default, you might only get about 120MB/s with ntfs-3g, possibly needing a newer driver. Adjust permissions to allow greater read/write access.
This approach might overlook the practical challenges of dual booting and managing multiple partitions. I believe the issue lies in trying to combine several systems—gaming distro, NTFS drive, and GRUB—without a clean separation. My goal is to simplify things by removing old drives first, then installing the desired distro, ensuring a smoother experience. I’m also wary of rolling distros that promise flexibility but lack stability, preferring a straightforward setup without unexpected changes.
Everything's possible of course but again, I did this thing on multiple distros with multiple proton versions, still doing it to this day and never had any troubles with it apart from Civ VI. I even moved some games from NTFS to ext4 and back to see if it affected stability or performance and pretty much nothing changed. I get it that it's "not as intended" but never read anything specific on it's shortcomings apart from "maybe probably it may be bad idk why idk how so better do it on ext4". I'm not just trying to contradict you guys, but I think that forcing the move to ext4 for your games/data drives is one of the most complicated things for people trying out dualboot. It's a huge pain in the ass, wasting a lot of time and drive space which is as of recent became quite expensive. But I do agree that we need some more info and troubleshooting from OP's side, at least the journal logs for when it throws "compatibility errror". It may be completely unrelated to NTFS and whatever. Here's the guide for it by the way: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/...nd-Windows