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Steam data reveals PC gamers shifting from Windows to Linux
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this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2025
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Okay, I finally installed a new SSD yesterday so I could dual boot and put CachyOS on it. Played a few games and it worked surprisingly well.
But it did take quite a bit more doing than installing Windows. The USB drive wouldn't boot when made with Rufus and I don't quite get how to manage the games installed in Proton (like where is their virtual C: drive?).
I plan on migrating more of my stuff onto Linux in the coming days and will see if it can't replace Windows eventually for me.
Welcome to gaming on Linux!
They can be found in: ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata//pfx/drive_c/ For Elden Ring for example the path is: ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/1245620/pfx/drive_c/
Biggest blockers are games with invasive and unsupported anti cheat or very new games. Check https://www.protondb.com/ for the latest reports on games.
I've had a lot of success using Ventoy for my USB drive writing needs. Every steam game has it's own folder for it's virtual windows directory. You want to look in /home/your_name/.steam/steamapps/compatdata The folders are all strings of numbers, each being the ID of the respective steam game. You can find the ID for any steam game just by going in it's store page and looking at the URL. You don't usually need to mess with this though, just browse the game files in your /steam/common folder.
Yeah Ventoy did the trick for me eventually but then I ran into the next issue, namely that the instructions said to place the ISO on the drive. What I actually needed to do was to mount the ISO and to copy the files contained therein to USB.
Thanks for pointing out the folder location. That was it. Now I don't have to launch the Battle.Net installer each time I want to play Hearthstone (added it to Steam as an external game, which is not a bad idea, if a bit awkward).
Next will be how to share my Steam libraries between OSes and retain access to my (cloud) saves. Making first steps there with mounting my existing drives... but now I have to learn how to edit FSTAB... sigh.
Just putting the ISO directly into the ventoy folder on the USB should just work, it's odd that you had to mount it and drag the files. If you're trying to use games installed on one drive between windows and Linux, I do not recommend attempting that. Windows can't natively read Linux drive formats like ext4, and if you try to play games on an NTFS drive on Linux you WILL run into problems. Your cloud saves should just work normally though.
What kind of problems? I REALLY don't want to have hundreds of gigabytes in duplicate files on my system.
They just won't function properly. There are permissions problems and while some games might work, you will run into games that simply won't launch, or that have regular crashes, among other issues. I recommend installing the games you want to play on Linux there, and the ones you can't on windows.
For fstab editing, try running "mount " and check if it succeeds before rebooting, so you can still edit if there are mistakes. FYI if you do a sytax mistake in fstab the entire OS might fail to boot. If it happens don't panic, it's easy to fix: you can use the install usb drive to edit fstab on your disk and try again (no need to reinstall!)
There are also graphical tools. I never used them, but it might be easier if you are not feeling super sure on what to do: https://superuser.com/questions/346606/is-there-any-gui-tool-to-configure-etc-fstab
I also use steam to manage external launchers. It's a bit clunky, but it keeps proton updated and works quite well once it's set up.
Welcome to linux, and do ask around for help / tips if you need!