How to Backup My Games I want to change to another Distro

[Tristan]

How to Backup My Games I want to change to another Distro

I already have more then enough for storage

but I dont want to Download all my games again

Thank u

[LnN]

Steam has game backup feature. Put the game backup in separate drive.

[N0P3]

I install games to a separate drive in a dedicated Steam directory; when installing Steam (possibly in a new distro) I point it to the game drive Steam directory and let it do its thing (update and what-not) verifying the game titles.

[Tristan]

Originally posted by SoundDriver:

I install games to a separate drive in a dedicated Steam directory; when installing Steam (possibly in a new distro) I point it to the game drive Steam directory and let it do its thing (update and what-not) verifying the game titles.

I see what ur saying

many thanks

[Tristan]

CANT Find my external HDD

https://imgur.com/YXNito1

[Aoi Blue]

Originally posted by aloosdavid:

CANT Find my external HDD

https://imgur.com/YXNito1

That's because you have the entire tree collapsed.

It will mount under /mnt/{drive} /media/{drive} or in /home/{user}/media

It's not like Windows there aren't drive letters.

[Tristan]

Originally posted by Aoi Blue:

Originally posted by aloosdavid:

CANT Find my external HDD

https://imgur.com/YXNito1

That's because you have the entire tree collapsed.

It will mount under /mnt/{drive} /media/{drive} or in /home/{user}/media

It's not like Windows there aren't drive letters.

I will Look again

thanks

I also can jusy backup the enire directory to my external HDD

Wouldnt that be esier

[Kepos]

Just a reminder: do not forget to auto-mount the second drive in your 'fstab' file (etc/fstab), otherwise Steam can't find the folder/drive you installed the games to.

Backup and restoring your games is very time consuming. By having your Steam games located on a second drive, it only needs a one-click in Steam to have the full installed games ready to play again.

[Tristan]

Originally posted by Kepos:

Just a reminder: do not forget to auto-mount the second drive in your 'fstab' file (etc/fstab), otherwise Steam can't find the folder/drive you installed the games to.

Backup and restoring your games is very time consuming. By having your Steam games located on a second drive, it only needs a one-click in Steam to have the full installed games ready to play again.

Thank u

I also have backups from time shift

but i need to see if i can just restore steam

[Beninan]

Another thing to consider if you are planning on trying out multiple distros is to put /home on a separate partition or drive than your root folder. I have upgraded, swapped distros, complete reinstalled, upgraded to SSD, swapped different SSDs, deleted and reinstalled again, and my /home folder has been left untouched and is still the same one when I created it in 2009. When you reinstall, just indicate that your /home partition is going to be mounted as such and to not reformat it.

[Tristan]

Originally posted by Beninan:

Another thing to consider if you are planning on trying out multiple distros is to put /home on a separate partition or drive than your root folder. I have upgraded, swapped distros, complete reinstalled, upgraded to SSD, swapped different SSDs, deleted and reinstalled again, and my /home folder has been left untouched and is still the same one when I created it in 2009. When you reinstall, just indicate that your /home partition is going to be mounted as such and to not reformat it.

Thank u

But can u explain the home folder ? where or how should it be untouched ?

is there a tutorial ?

or do u mean use some other software to backup my home folder ? BTW that would work to right ??

thanks man

[Beninan]

Since you already have Linux installed, and I'm going to assume that its all one one large partitiom right now, its a little more difficult to save your game downloads with the way that I mentioned. You would either need to create a new partition and try to move /home to it (risky), or copy the contents of your /home folder to a separate harddrive and use that new drive for your new install, or depending on how much you installed it may be easier to start over fresh and use this as a learning experience as to why a separate /home partition is better :)

Here is one video where this guy is installing Ubuntu and putting /home on a separate partition. At around the 8:30 minute mark, he reinstalls the OS and shows how to do it without formating the original /home partition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOCQ9hEP8FM

Different distros do it slightly differently, but you need to select manual partitioning and indicate that /home will be mounted somewhere else other than the root folder, and make sure it does not get formattdd or you will lose all your data. I prefer to keep home on a completely separate hard drive, but if you only have one drive a partition will work just fine.

Another benefit I forgot to mention is your settings will also remain. So for example if you are switching distros from Linux Mint Cinnamon to Manjaro Cinnamon, all you Cinnamon desktop settings like desktop background, folder locations, etc. will all remain. If your root folder is on a separate hard drive and that drive dies, you can reinstall your root folder onto a new drive, leaving your /home folder untouched, and your computer will be *almost* back to normal. You will still need to reinstall your programs, but the settings and preferences that are stored in your /home folder will automatically be applied. So you would still need to reinstall Steam, but your games and any settings will still be there.