Linux mint almost completely incapable of playing games for me

[76561198050929976]

So i'm not really new to using mint, i've distro hopped for years looking for the most stable and effortless distro, and finally i've made the complete jump from windows 10
and its going absolutely horrible lol. I've installed steam, now at this point i've forgotten exactly how, i started off using the .deb on their website and i think that didnt work, so my next attempt was using terminal commands i found online which im assuming is what worked, but once i got into steam it went ahead (after adding my games drive library) and re downloaded random amounts of content for every single game i have installed, and when i try to run a game it fails. I click play, it says its running the game, then it goes back to "play".
the game drive is running NTFS, my entire linux installation is on my main EXT4 drive, i've tried moving games to the EXT4 linux drive and that hasn't changed anything. I tried the command for proton to spit out a debug log when trying to launch a game and that doesn't do anything either. I'm completely lost, for an OS that was supposed to be easy and a direct jump from windows, in all these years, its never been that way and i really want to give this a patient try but my patience is running thin. Help would be highly appreciated.

[76561198050929976]

*I have also tried looking at options for completely re installing my amd drivers, but i have only seen instructions for nvidia users and even then i don't want to touch anything and break my distro any more than it already is without me doing much. I've also tried "re installing" steam but all that did was install some specific dependencies i apparently didnt already have and i can't uninstall steam, it doesn't show in the package manager and trying to "uninstall or manage addons" in the discover app, shows the error" "could not open appstream://com.valvesoftware.steam.desktop because it was not found in any available software repositories. Please report this issue to the packagers of your distribution"
I have no idea how im supposed to uninstall steam if linux isnt giving me any real way to do so..

[AndyMcDandyCDN]

Well your first mistake was using the installer from the steam website. Really wish they would remove it.

Although I use LM, I'm not a Linux expert but I would load up synaptic manager and remove all steam items then try reinstalling steam.

Again I'm not a Linux expert so someone else might have a much better way.

Hope you get it solved.

[N0P3]

Tried the same thing with Arch a long time ago; seems "Linux Steam" has issue with NTFS game installations using "Windows Steam."

1.) Install Steam using your package manager (as others have stated).
2.) Reinstall your games with the installed Steam client, but this time to an Ext4 partition.
3.) Enjoy (provided there are no driver issues).

Really, the only sound way of doing it. I pretty much do no gaming in Windows anymore and my daily driver has become Linux as well. M$ better wake the hell up - all I'm saying. I feel ya wanting to get nestled in with Linux and do your daily routine without interruption, but it's easier to just go all in in a manner of speeking.

[76561198050929976]

thanks you guys, that seems to narrow down the possible issues. It seems the majority of troubleshooting online narrows down to "you really cant mix ntfs installed games with linux installed steam no matter which way you installed steam, not a steam issue, a linux x windows issue". Ill keep my steam but reinstall my games on an ext4 formatted hard drive i have here and see what that does.

[76561198050929976]

Originally posted by N0P3:

Tried the same thing with Arch a long time ago; seems "Linux Steam" has issue with NTFS game installations using "Windows Steam."

1.) Install Steam using your package manager (as others have stated).
2.) Reinstall your games with the installed Steam client, but this time to an Ext4 partition.
3.) Enjoy (provided there are no driver issues).

Really, the only sound way of doing it. I pretty much do no gaming in Windows anymore and my daily driver has become Linux as well. M$ better wake the hell up - all I'm saying. I feel ya wanting to get nestled in with Linux and do your daily routine without interruption, but it's easier to just go all in in a manner of speeking.

yeah and to also reply to the other two responses i got, i think my central problem really is i just didnt go all in, which can ya blame me? had been distrohopping for years and never settled because of how problematic it was lol but this month im finally genuinely needing to just go all in, ext4 all my drives and really cover every base this time, which ill start doing tonight.

[76561198050929976]

Originally posted by Xenophobe:

what terminal command did you use to install steam? did you uninstall the .deb version before installing the other version? on mint, steam is in software manager for install ... you could try:

sudo apt remove steam

sudo apt purge steam

if you still have the .deb file, run it again and see if there is a remove option in the launcher.

i added the steam repo and sudo apt get steam i think.
Installing steam through the software manager in mint was basically the same thing as using that .deb with the package manager, along with a strange error telling me some configs were unable to be written. I think my mint might be slightly broken lol.

[[NL]Ben]

1) Just checking, but you do have Proton enabled for the games you want to run? Steam doesn't remember that setting for games with new installs - it's remembered client-side, not server-side
2) As you yourself noted - NTFS can cause some funny stuff at times with Mint. Not sure why though, but shouldn't to the extend you experience :/
3) Keep in mind with ext4 it's probably the best format once set up, but you will need to use su chown to transfer owernship from root to yourself for the Steam install map to be able to properly install stuff (once Steam itself is installed)
4) AMD drivers are included with the kernel for Linux. Have you updated the kernel through Update Manager -> View -> Kernels? Otherwise you won't have recent AMD drivers. Also, don't forget to get Mesa if you don't have it already

[76561198050929976]

Originally posted by NLBen:

1) Just checking, but you do have Proton enabled for the games you want to run? Steam doesn't remember that setting for games with new installs - it's remembered client-side, not server-side
2) As you yourself noted - NTFS can cause some funny stuff at times with Mint. Not sure why though, but shouldn't to the extend you experience :/
3) Keep in mind with ext4 it's probably the best format once set up, but you will need to use su chown to transfer owernship from root to yourself for the Steam install map to be able to properly install stuff (once Steam itself is installed)
4) AMD drivers are included with the kernel for Linux. Have you updated the kernel through Update Manager -> View -> Kernels? Otherwise you won't have recent AMD drivers. Also, don't forget to get Mesa if you don't have it already

yes proton's very ready to go
on point 3, i had no idea about that, what are the commands i need to use? That could be my main issue here hahahah i sure as hell didnt do that like i was supposed to apparently

[[NL]Ben]

sudo su
(your login password is needed after this)

sudo chown -r (your username:your usergroup) (location you want to 'own')

Took a while because I forgot how to set it up, had to check the helps online - was a while back I did this

[76561198050929976]

so huge update, i got dragons dogma downloaded and installed to my main drive, ext4 containing my linux install, and it runs just fine. i think it was a mix of the ntfs problem and my strange installation from before, because i restarted and noticed steam was uninstalled.. Lol im guessing the way linux uninstalls things is very different from windows because i didn't think it'd still be running steam in the backround as i was uninstalling before. I guess i didnt notice? Regardless steam seems to be fine and im speedily downloading a bunch of games to the main drive to test and decide what i want to do from here.

[Zyro]

Take away number two (besides the NTFS issue): Downloading an installer is so nineties/Windows...!

[76561198050929976]

Originally posted by Zyro:

Take away number two (besides the NTFS issue): Downloading an installer is so nineties/Windows...!

at least stuff works on windows lol

[76561198050929976]

yeah almost 24 hours later, i have a grand total of 4 of my 300+ game library steam and otherwise working, and even then i'd like to get modding support working for some of those games and it seems i cant find a reliable way to get that to work.
so... after all these years it just seems like linux will never not be the place to go if you have copious spare time to troubleshoot and try countless "maybe might work" troubleshooting steps others have tried, and you absolutely need to already be familiar with linux as a whole to even troubleshoot on your own, which completely defeats the selling points most linux users use to get windows users to permanently switch.
Proton on its own is useless if the rest of the linux distro won't play nicely, proton is VERY well made and if its given the right cooperation distro-wise games will just play and play fine. But linux still has a lot of work needed to get controller support, game modding, time to get game modding tools working well enough, it's just not there. Still. I just hope linux users will start to slow themselves down with their selling their ecosystem and focus more on improving it. At the moment , i think i might reformat my main drive a g a i n and just figure out totally de-spooking windows 10 all over again. I think i'll give linux another 2 more years.. lol. dammit. Thank you all for your help though, it'd be nice to ask for tech support from people personally but i don't want to be a bother.

[Arrogant Player]

i know you're stressed out but.. most everything works pretty amazing in linux and you are just doing it all wrong. I suggest you just take a breath, go on the linux mint forums and figure out where you went wrong. Once you get everything working and configured to your preference, you will be glad to be done with windows.

[N0P3]

Originally posted by Ligma:

Originally posted by N0P3:

Tried the same thing with Arch a long time ago; seems "Linux Steam" has issue with NTFS game installations using "Windows Steam."

1.) Install Steam using your package manager (as others have stated).
2.) Reinstall your games with the installed Steam client, but this time to an Ext4 partition.
3.) Enjoy (provided there are no driver issues).

Really, the only sound way of doing it. I pretty much do no gaming in Windows anymore and my daily driver has become Linux as well. M$ better wake the hell up - all I'm saying. I feel ya wanting to get nestled in with Linux and do your daily routine without interruption, but it's easier to just go all in in a manner of speeking.

yeah and to also reply to the other two responses i got, i think my central problem really is i just didnt go all in, which can ya blame me? had been distrohopping for years and never settled because of how problematic it was lol but this month im finally genuinely needing to just go all in, ext4 all my drives and really cover every base this time, which ill start doing tonight.

No blame, just been down that road myself and understand how confusing it can be; the fix is easy enough and look forward to you getting everything worked out so you can get on with your existence - cheers.

I've been using Linux for almost 25 years and every day is a new learning experience and I adore the fact. You may have been away for a bit, but it will all start coming back to you; just give it time and relax - don't stress because it will impede your recall and have fun!