Planning to switch to linux. Do I need to reinstall my games?

[binja]

I have an SSD where I have windows installed, and a hard drive with all of my games. I want to wipe the SSD and install mint on it, and I am wondering if I need to also wipe the hard drive, and reinstall my games to be able to play them from mint.

[Bloo Alien]

It is highly likely that reinstalling your games will give you the most "pain-free" experience, as running games from an NTFS filesystem under Linux almost always comes with some hassles/extra configuration. Better if you're planning on sticking with Linux that you reformat your games partition to a Linux native filesystem format like EXT4 to avoid those issues entirely. (Be absolutely certain that you've backed up any important data from this partition before doing so, as the process will generally erase the drive entirely.) This of course will result in a lot of downloading, so be sure to do it near the beginning of a billing cycle if your Internet provider caps your usage (Comcast/Xfinity caps many of their customers at 1.2TB of usage per month, before charging extra fees for example.)

[skinnyraf]

It may be possible to copy game folders to an external drive, reformat the drive used for games into ext4, create a Steam library there and copy all the games again from the external drive. Steam should then verify the files and limit necessary download significantly.

At least this is how it works when moving to a new drive on Linux or on Windows. I'm not sure it would work when moving between Windows and LInux, so be ready to re-download. Also, depending on the speed of your external drive and your internet connection, re-downloading may be faster :)

[class101 [OLED deck]]

Well technically no, but you will need some manipulations. As to get ntfs-3g to be able to read NTFS from Linux, move the games to your SSD temporarily, format HDD to ext4 and move the games back to HDD.

What you should avoid in my opinion is to keep using a NTFS filesystem in Linux other than just read only purpose.

[Kiba Snowpaw]

Originally posted by class101 linux:

Well technically no, but you will need some manipulations. As to get ntfs-3g to be able to read NTFS from Linux, move the games to your SSD temporarily, format HDD to ext4 and move the games back to HDD.

What you should avoid in my opinion is to keep using a NTFS filesystem in Linux other than just read only purpose.

All he said and no, but if there is a linux version of the game or some file it need to run it on linux then it will redownload the game in that vertions.

[[GNU] Debian ☭]

for the sake of sakes, NTFS sucks!

[Aoi Blue]

Don't run off NTFS. Honestly it's always been a poor file-system and I don't know why Microsoft keeps using it. (Considering I could say the same about much of their OS, even though the core isn't bad.)

You can copy your files to a new drive, and change their permissions to Your User / Your Group / 755 (RWX,R-X,R-X) and then set Steam to install over them.

For windows games running on proton you will use the same files. For Linux native games it will vary how much of the files will be the same.

Which is more convenient depends on the size of your library and the bandwidth of your network connection. I personally wouldn't bother with the copy on my system, and I get a pathetic 8-15Gbps downstream.

[SIGKILL]

NTFS does not support unix file permissions, therefore not secure. Never use it.

[y05h1]

Originally posted by Bloo Alien:

It is highly likely that reinstalling your games will give you the most "pain-free" experience, as running games from an NTFS filesystem under Linux almost always comes with some hassles/extra configuration. Better if you're planning on sticking with Linux that you reformat your games partition to a Linux native filesystem format like EXT4 to avoid those issues entirely. (Be absolutely certain that you've backed up any important data from this partition before doing so, as the process will generally erase the drive entirely.) This of course will result in a lot of downloading, so be sure to do it near the beginning of a billing cycle if your Internet provider caps your usage (Comcast/Xfinity caps many of their customers at 1.2TB of usage per month, before charging extra fees for example.)

LMAO they do WHAT? Sometimes I forget the United States is an actual place..

[Aoi Blue]

Originally posted by (LINUX) Hot Sick:

NTFS does not support unix file permissions, therefore not secure. Never use it.

Yes, and if you have a spare small computer or even raspberry pi you can set up an NFS to exchange data between Linux and Windows easily while maintaining proper Unix permissions.