Wish I didn’t cave in and bought an NVidia card back in 2022. But well now we’re served with severe shortage of PC hardware all thanks to fucking AI and I’m stuck with a 500GB main SSD and an almost full 2TB spinning disk with a 3050 and I’m sick of MS getting slower by the day it’s ridiculous; I’m still on 10 and not actually paid MS for it ;), but still.
The plan was to get a new 2TB SSD and install a distro, but see above fuckery because of AI.
I’m going to check if I moved all my installed Steam games to the spinning disk will Steam on Linux be able to read it. Because I’m sure as hell am not downloading the game files again if I can help it. If the answer is yes, I’ll just nuke the current SSD to install a distro. I’ll figure how to move installs again later in 2029 or something when SSD prices have gone down again and I can get 2 or 4TB SSD for less than 2 kidneys.
If I were in that situation, one thing I’d consider trying… get 2 USB pendrives, one to put a Live/Installer distro on (Devuan, or AntiX being the two friendliest of my likely candidate distros (or VoidLinux, Artix or Gentoo if feeling a little more bold)), and a bigger one to install the distro to, just like it’s a HD or SSD, to see if “everything works”. Then can decide from there if wanting to just carry on from there living like that, or, move to the main SSD.
M$ Windoze gets slower by the day, by design. Just one of many anti-features abusing the user used. Planned obsolescence, actively engaged, to encourage you that you need to buy the new version, and new hardware. Stick a GNU+Linux or a BSD on it, and then surprisingly the hardware’s nippy again, for over a decade more, sparing your kindeys.
Ooh, I’ve never seen installing on a pendrive being suggested before, I think. I certainly do have a couple pendrives. I’ll give that a shot, since I also have a gaming wheel I’d like to test.
When I first set up my current gaming PC, I had Kubuntu running from a 1Gb external SSD, just to check all the hardware was good before wiping the main internal SSD.
Used it that way for weeks before figuring that I needed to get around to setting it up on the internal drive. At no point did it feel like a problem. Games were running from a 2Tb HDD, and were playing just fine.
Also had it installed on a 64Gb thumb drive, so I could boot some of the Windows machines at work into Kubuntu for hardware testing.
It really is extraordinary how flexible Linux can be.
I’m going to check if I moved all my installed Steam games to the spinning disk will Steam on Linux be able to read it.
I advise against trying to use the same library for windows and linux, but if you just want to migrate, it should be possible to use Steam’s backup feature.
Just to add, since I recently started to switch. Steam will find the game if I mount the “old” NTFS drive and point my steam library to it. It will be able to download missing files and appears to launch the game. The game doesn’t start though. After adding a EXT4 partition, I was able to add a library there and use the “move installation folder” in game settings. Then it works.
so I can’t use the files if my 2TB HDD is NTFS as is. the main drive currently with windows and a few games that I’ll move to the HDD, I’ll be converting to a distro I haven’t yet decide.
so I’m guessing after I get Steam running on the linux drive, install any game then move the games installed from the old windows install…?
I’m not sure I follow the question. I’ll try to list the steps.
Install distro
Install steam
Mount NTFS drive
Add steam library in NTFS drive (point to existing Window library)
Let steam recognize the game and install potentially missing files
Create EXT4 partition disk (preferably done already when installing distro)
If EXT4 game partition is not main drive, mount it and create steam library on it
Move game files.
Hopefully that makes sense. Somewhere along the way steam will probably install Proton as well. It might work straight from NTFS too, maybe? But I didn’t get it to on Linux Mint
It works straight from NTFS if you install the ntfs driver, but you’re better off moving them to a BTRFS or EXT4 formatted drive so as to not fuck around with NTFS too much since NTFS can cause issues.
Highly recommend CachyOS for gaming too, has one click GUI installer for all gaming components out of the box.
CachyOS is on my short list to try first. But I’m gping to try installing a light distro on a pendrive first like someone suggested to me to check if my gaming wheel would work with it.
Wish I didn’t cave in and bought an NVidia card back in 2022. But well now we’re served with severe shortage of PC hardware all thanks to fucking AI and I’m stuck with a 500GB main SSD and an almost full 2TB spinning disk with a 3050 and I’m sick of MS getting slower by the day it’s ridiculous; I’m still on 10 and not actually paid MS for it ;), but still.
The plan was to get a new 2TB SSD and install a distro, but see above fuckery because of AI.
I’m going to check if I moved all my installed Steam games to the spinning disk will Steam on Linux be able to read it. Because I’m sure as hell am not downloading the game files again if I can help it. If the answer is yes, I’ll just nuke the current SSD to install a distro. I’ll figure how to move installs again later in 2029 or something when SSD prices have gone down again and I can get 2 or 4TB SSD for less than 2 kidneys.
Fuck Microsoft. Fuck NVidia.
If I were in that situation, one thing I’d consider trying… get 2 USB pendrives, one to put a Live/Installer distro on (Devuan, or AntiX being the two friendliest of my likely candidate distros (or VoidLinux, Artix or Gentoo if feeling a little more bold)), and a bigger one to install the distro to, just like it’s a HD or SSD, to see if “everything works”. Then can decide from there if wanting to just carry on from there living like that, or, move to the main SSD.
M$ Windoze gets slower by the day, by design. Just one of many anti-features abusing the
userused. Planned obsolescence, actively engaged, to encourage you that you need to buy the new version, and new hardware. Stick a GNU+Linux or a BSD on it, and then surprisingly the hardware’s nippy again, for over a decade more, sparing your kindeys.Ooh, I’ve never seen installing on a pendrive being suggested before, I think. I certainly do have a couple pendrives. I’ll give that a shot, since I also have a gaming wheel I’d like to test.
When I first set up my current gaming PC, I had Kubuntu running from a 1Gb external SSD, just to check all the hardware was good before wiping the main internal SSD.
Used it that way for weeks before figuring that I needed to get around to setting it up on the internal drive. At no point did it feel like a problem. Games were running from a 2Tb HDD, and were playing just fine.
Also had it installed on a 64Gb thumb drive, so I could boot some of the Windows machines at work into Kubuntu for hardware testing.
It really is extraordinary how flexible Linux can be.
I advise against trying to use the same library for windows and linux, but if you just want to migrate, it should be possible to use Steam’s backup feature.
Thanks. I have a feeling that might be the case. I’ll have to research properly.
Just to add, since I recently started to switch. Steam will find the game if I mount the “old” NTFS drive and point my steam library to it. It will be able to download missing files and appears to launch the game. The game doesn’t start though. After adding a EXT4 partition, I was able to add a library there and use the “move installation folder” in game settings. Then it works.
thanks for the tip.
so I can’t use the files if my 2TB HDD is NTFS as is. the main drive currently with windows and a few games that I’ll move to the HDD, I’ll be converting to a distro I haven’t yet decide.
so I’m guessing after I get Steam running on the linux drive, install any game then move the games installed from the old windows install…?
I’m not sure I follow the question. I’ll try to list the steps.
Hopefully that makes sense. Somewhere along the way steam will probably install Proton as well. It might work straight from NTFS too, maybe? But I didn’t get it to on Linux Mint
My question is a bit confusing yes, sorry 😅
But yes thank you for getting it. This helps a lot clearing up my uncertainties on moving to Linux
It works straight from NTFS if you install the ntfs driver, but you’re better off moving them to a BTRFS or EXT4 formatted drive so as to not fuck around with NTFS too much since NTFS can cause issues.
Highly recommend CachyOS for gaming too, has one click GUI installer for all gaming components out of the box.
CachyOS is on my short list to try first. But I’m gping to try installing a light distro on a pendrive first like someone suggested to me to check if my gaming wheel would work with it.