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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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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!