How to add a new drive to my library in Linux?

[Disguised Poison]

I was able to see a drive with 2 partitions in sdb3. One partition in NTFS. The other one is in EXT4. But in the end Steam was not able to use either one.
What am I missing?

Thanks in advance guys!

DP

[Yujah]

/dev/sdb3 is a partition device node; "with 2 partitions in sdb3" does as such not make sense as a statement (/dev/sdb would be a drive device node).

It's in any case in Linux no different than in Windows; current Steam (through the GUI at least; via the console you can do more) recognizes one library per filesystem, i.e., in Windows per logical drive and in Linux as across a mountpoint.

Although I'm not aware of current state it at the very least did not use to ba a good idea to use NTFS for a Steam library on Linux. NTFS doesn't natively support per file/directory UNIX-style owner/permission bits meaning that unless you're quite careful you get constant permission issues and redownloads.

Anycase. Assuming you meant a /dev/sdb with one NTFS-formatted partition and one ext4-formatted one, the issue might just be that you need to (permanently) mount said filesystems somewhere. That'd make this a Linux-general rather than Steam-specific question but if it's as per above I could probably help. I'd want to know what distribution you are running and would want to see the contents of /etc/fstab and the output of the command "sudo blkid".

[Disguised Poison]

Thank you for helping Yujah. Sorry for the delay.
First off, you were totally right, my bad. I should have said: "I was able to see a drive with 3 partitions in sdb" (sdb1, sdb2, and sdb3).

Distro: Pop OS!

FSTAB file:
"# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
PARTUUID=7a39c96c-bda5-463a-aad9-7d8a7c0dc6f6 /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 0
PARTUUID=f2a74032-6f81-4ab8-9969-ecf86f4c45b3 /recovery vfat umask=0077 0 0
/dev/mapper/cryptswap none swap defaults 0 0
UUID=5009beb0-a279-497a-b8d2-2ad9e16c3a62 / ext4 noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 0"

BLKID:
"sudo blkid
[sudo] password for drpeppercan:
/dev/mapper/cryptdata: UUID="2y7c4O-2z3U-tGHC-0qf7-cFeX-iVRW-FCXKca" TYPE="LVM2_member"
/dev/mapper/data-root: UUID="5009beb0-a279-497a-b8d2-2ad9e16c3a62" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/loop1: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop19: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop17: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop8: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/sdb2: LABEL="Steam-Storage" BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="8E9CDBAD9CDB8DD9" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="7a786536-482f-44b7-a4d2-4c23e727135c"
/dev/sdb3: UUID="38b44485-991b-47b3-992f-6303ed13d160" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="PopExtra" PARTUUID="55e51520-ce66-4f67-bd91-7163a4e7b2a6"
/dev/sdb1: PARTLABEL="Microsoft reserved partition" PARTUUID="efc0373b-174a-4df5-b7e3-b613b9ddd7f0"
/dev/loop15: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop6: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop13: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop4: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop11: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop2: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/mapper/cryptswap: LABEL="cryptswap" UUID="04fb4018-39d4-4dd8-9f4d-ecebd580ca52" TYPE="swap"
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop18: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop9: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/sdc2: UUID="D180-E55B" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="recovery" PARTUUID="f2a74032-6f81-4ab8-9969-ecf86f4c45b3"
/dev/sdc3: UUID="0c0c706e-2980-410b-8347-6d524796ed8a" TYPE="crypto_LUKS" PARTUUID="99650c13-e6ea-466d-8a8b-994da6db332c"
/dev/sdc1: UUID="D180-E514" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="7a39c96c-bda5-463a-aad9-7d8a7c0dc6f6"
/dev/sdc4: UUID="be5458bd-429a-4047-8536-977c339289c4" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="f59af05e-9855-46b6-8476-402975789968"
/dev/loop16: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop7: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/sda4: BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="303EF0443EF0051E" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="8d7435c0-97f6-45f5-8cdf-7f0fc05add12"
/dev/sda2: PARTLABEL="Microsoft reserved partition" PARTUUID="55f66f11-e535-4dbd-8eac-29160274b2f2"
/dev/sda3: BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="9A5C83CF5C83A49B" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="f1802dcc-7d13-43e9-af61-75d92d2cf422"
/dev/sda1: UUID="9282-FC94" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI system partition" PARTUUID="a617fc14-6b54-4ee3-9ccb-171003a86024"
/dev/loop14: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/zram0: UUID="395691c1-75cc-42d8-9f25-3b8be3cc9283" TYPE="swap"
/dev/loop5: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop12: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop3: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop10: TYPE="squashfs" "

[Yujah]

OK. Yes, you have a NTFS-formatted /dev/sdb2 with fs-label Steam-Storage and an ext4-formatted /dev/sdb3 with partition-label PopExtra.

As mentioned NTFS is a bad idea on Linux but let's in any case mount those two partitions somewhere. I tend to use subdirectories of /mnt for permanent mounts; some use /media instead (best not use /media/<username>/ which is the domain of the automounter).

Create in a terminal the mountpoints simply as

sudo mkdir /mnt/{Steam-Storage,PopExtra}

or using any other directory names you care for. Note your Linux username "<you>" from the output of the command "whoami" and with e.g.

sudo -H gedit /etc/fstab

add two lines to the /etc/fstab file

LABEL=Steam-Storage /mnt/Steam-Storage ntfs-3g uid=<you>,gid=<you>,fmask=133,dmask=022
PARTLABEL=PopExtra /mnt/PopExtra ext4 defaults

of course replacing "<you>" in that NTFS line with the above mentioned output of "whoami". Save and exit the editor and run

sudo mount -a

and from the output of simply "mount" verify that indeed your two /dev/sdb partitions are now mounted on those respective subdirectories of /mnt. If all well reown all that's on the ext4 partition to "<you>" with

sudo chown -R $(whoami): /mnt/PopExtra

You should then be able to view/create Steam-library/ies in those locations. Once again: I advise against the NTFS partition.

There's also a general issue that the NTFS partition may mount only read-only if you have not disabled Windows' Fast Startup on that seemingly dual-boot setup. Fast Startup is a form of hibernation that may leave NTFS filesystems in a state Linux can not know about, so it by default refuses to make changes to them. If you haven't yet you should on a dual-boot disable Windows Fast Startup: https://www.asus.com/support/faq/1045548/

[Disguised Poison]

I very much agree with you against the NTFS partition. In fact, I am not interested in making it available to Linux. I am only interested in sdb3 to place Steam games, mostly.
While I was waiting for your reply I attempted to create a permanent mount point. Unfortunately I did not do it right, so now I have a mount point in dev/sdb3 called sdb. I don't see a directory called sdb3 in the dev dir though. Should I just ignore it or do something about it?

Since, like I said, I am not interested the NTFS partition, should I used the following modified command line?:

LABEL=PopExtra /mnt/PopExtra ext4-3g uid=<you>,gid=<you>,fmask=133,dmask=022

[Yujah]

It's slightly misty what you have done as to the /dev/sdb3 thing. Certainly that should not be a directory; should from "ls -l /dev/sdb3" show up as

brw-rw---- 1 root disk 9, 3 (date/time) /dev/sdb3

That is, as per that initial "b" as a block device. Anything you did with just "mkdir" you will in any case be able to undo with "rmdir".

No, it's "ext4" rather than "ext4-3g" (the NTFS type fully spelled out is "ntfs-3g"), and you do not need any of those options for ext4. I.e., the only line you'd add to /etc/fstab would be simply

PARTLABEL=PopExtra /mnt/PopExtra ext4 defaults

Don't forget the subsequent steps of "mount -a", verification per "mount", and the mentioned "chown" as provided above to give your user full rights on that filesystem.

Quick note; usually people interject at this point that you need e.g. "0 0" after that fstab line; for them; having nothing there is in fact equivalent.