techokami

Techokami

@techokami

For use only on NTSC Genesis Systems.
Avatar image by CyanSorcery!

log inask
Message Boardings
jul.rustedlogic.net/index.php
Mastodon
woof.tech/@techokami
Tumblr (inactive)
tumblokami.tumblr.com/
Twitter (inactive)
twitter.com/Techokami
Bluesky, I guess
bsky.app/profile/techokami.bsky.social
techokami
@techokami
MorningSong
@MorningSong
kokoscript
@kokoscript
This page's posts are visible only to users who are logged in.
log in
kokoscript
@kokoscript
This page's posts are visible only to users who are logged in.
log in
techokami
@techokami

Wait hold up

THAT'S why my Steam library was acting up? I had migrated it to the new SSD that I installed Fedora onto, because I thought the ancient HDD was starting to finally give out, and doing this fixed it. But it was because I was still using the NTFS partitions from when I was using Windows??? What the hell

MorningSong
@MorningSong

If anyone is curious *why* this is?

It's because whatever disk partition your steam library folder is in needs to support at least two things:

  • UNIX-compatible symlinks
  • Colons in the filename

It also greatly prefers to have UNIX style ownership and permissions and Extended Attributes, but I'm not certain these are 100% mandatory.

Vanilla wine technically only needs these on your home directory since it defaults to everything sharing one "prefix" (combination configuration directory / virtual windows installation), but Steam's Proton makes a separate prefix for every game, in $STEAMLIBRARY/compatdata. So if your library is on a not-strictly-unix flavored filesystem like SMBFS-from-a-unix-server, NTFS, or older versions of ExFAT, it might be possible with the right driver and mount options to get it mostly-working, but it's delicate.

The worst part is, I'm not sure why this is still the case. AFAICT, Wine/Proton only really need symlinks for drive mapping. A DOS-style C:\Folder\file path gets rewritten as $PREFIX/dosdevices/c:/Folder/file. with the colon in the filename. Valve could seriously improve compatibility by changing the rules a little so that the dosdevices symlinks don't need the colon, and could basically fix everything by storing the drive mappings in an ini file.

You must log in to comment.

in reply to @kokoscript's post:

roxie
@roxie

as a definite computer toucher (my greatest shame), i will fight kicking and screaming and howling to make windows continue to be bearable and usable for the people i know who arent computer touchers, with third party tools if absolutely necessary, before i ever bring them anywhere near linux for even a moment
hell. id even rather recommend a cheap used macbook to someone over linux. its that bad of a suggestion

login to reply
osedax
@osedax

Yes thank you. using only linux (not by choice entirely) and struggling. "Proton makes linux gaming possible" ok why do half of games not work, performance tanking, modding near-impossible . let alone having to use wine for so much.

login to reply
osedax
@osedax

yep, protonDB exists to help figure out which proton to use ... another hoop to jump through. Nevermind that official proton from steam isn't usually recommended, but a community fix Proton GloriousEggroll, which you have to find and download and use on your own......... cannot imagine trying to navigate any of this if I didn't "kind of" fit in both of the categories in OP

login to reply

in reply to @kokoscript's post:

megashinyserperior
@megashinyserperior

Uh. When was the last time you checked? I've been running my games on good old EXT4 and they've all worked just fine. That said, while I don't think you need to be a programmer to use linux (hell, I'm not), you do need to be computer literate, which unfortunately a lot of people are not.

login to reply
bp-
@bp-

frankly I don't know how much that is linux and how much of it is the public perception of what using linux is like.

like. the steam deck is selling REALLY well. and it's goddamn arch linux. and it's played nearly everything I've thrown at it. and, should something not play on it (like e.g. com__et keeps hanging. regrettable), one could (get this) play a different game instead. is that annoying? sure, but that's what you'd do if you were using OSX. you'd blame the computer program, and keep your system stable.

meanwhile, you've seen linus j sebastian uninstall xorg within minutes of having installed popOS. no graphical installer would've allowed that to happen (and indeed the graphical tool correctly preempted disaster). but, instead of giving up, or trying again the next day, he was like "huh. graphical installer's busted. this is linux. i bet I have to use the terminal instead. time to google install steam linux reddit" and we know how that ended.

login to reply
Longinus
@Longinus

I've had more problems playing games on Windows where sometimes Microsoft either forgot or decided not to ship DirectX DLLs, and missing INI files would cause crashes at startup, all with the good old "a serious error was encountered."

partitioning

I would like to know the number of persons who learned that partitions were even a thing by installing any OS, and that of those who already knew.

login to reply
rachelmae
@rachelmae

i think most of the "just use Linux" comments i've seen have been written under the assumption that people just want to play video games or browse the web, ignoring the rest of us that use our computers for other tasks that Linux is ill-suited to, especially when it comes to driver support for specific hardware. like my current streaming setup is straight-up incompatible, because companies like AVerMedia largely don't give a shit about Linux

login to reply
kugerio
@kugerio

I returned to Linux after 16 years of not using Linux and I was delighted at first at how smooth and seamless it looked (Fedora 40 KDE Plasma) - then I spent the next hour trying to figure out why the clock was 8 hours ahead even though I was in the right timezone and region. I found it a nice challenge but I would not recommend to a layperson at all!

login to reply
Pinned Tags