Hello Linux community,
I’m getting a 2TB pcie gen 4 SSD to replace a 1TB gen 3 SSD.
I’m going to start dual booting Linux (looking at Endeavouros because vibes), because it seems that sooner rather than later, Windows will be enshittified. I’m a beginner though in using Linux, only had a bit experience with Raspbian on a raspberry pi for a personal data server. I’m looking to game mainly on Linux, and slowly phase out Windows, eventually only for specific uses if any.
So the plan is: 2TB gen 4 - Win & Linux + general software (productivity, CAD, coding, etc.) 1TB gen 3 - Game library 2TB SATA HDD - Data, long term storage
So my goal to separate the game library is not for performance, but rather to utilize the available hardware, and organization.
Is there any downside to doing this? Are there known issues with Proton and Wine with this config? NVDIA GPU if that’s relevant.
If you guys have experience or any input please help a dude out.
I can’t comment on EndeavourOS, but your storage plan is fine. Good luck!
BTW, a lot of us would say Windows is already shit.
Can comment on EndeavourOS, use it as daily driver and i’m quite happy with it, i haven’t gamed much on it but i’ve never encountered any issues with any games (only played through proton)
I second Windows being shit, what caused me to jump ship was that i could leave for a 5 minute toilet break, come back to the computer having started an automatic update, the update then failing and bricking the computer (which happened multiple times)
I assume they’ve stopped doing that (the updates being forced and the updates breaking things) but the fact they did it at all told me what direction they wanted to go, and i did not want to go with them
Glad you’re happy with EOS, I hope it will fit me as well.
While I don’t have technical issues with Windows so far… they are obviously having a massive FOMO at the shitty cash-grab business model of many tech platforms (especially with the rumor of Win 12…) and I’m not OK with that.
Thanks for your reply! That’s reassuring.
Yes, it’s already a bit shitty, so it’s time to be an active part of the Linux community. Year of the Linux desktop amirite!
I dual boot Linux on my gaming PC and remember having issues with games installed onto an NTFS partition. I don’t remember if it was an issue with some specific software, such as Wine/Proton or Steam, just a general Linux issue (maybe symlinks?), or if I was trying to do something weird… Either way, I ended up needing to create a separate partition with a Linux filesystem for the games.
Last I checked, there isn’t any easy way to get Linux filesystem drivers on Windows, and even then, I don’t know if it would run games from there. So, if nothing else, you might end up needing storage space dedicated to installing games only for Linux.
I see, you’re probably right…I remember trying mounting ext4 drive on Windows and couldn’t get it to work. I’ll probably experiment a little with NTFS, maybe the devs have worked it out? But I’ll keep your warning in mind. Thanks for the input!
you could try using BTRFS, there is a driver for windows. NTFS support can be flakey from Linux and is in general not recommended. If you are using steam for your games library, there is a support article from valve that helps setup dual boot accessable game library. I have set that up in my dual boot system (windows 10 / Endeavour OS). It works, and also the steam sync feature works nice so game progress is shared across both OSses.
See also: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Using-a-NTFS-disk-with-Linux-and-Windows
So the article from valve is to support those who use NTFS anyway, but if I’m formatting the lib drive as BTRFS, it should be buttery smooth? (Probably not that smooth but gotta make the pun)
Thanks for the recommendation, will definitely look into this!
Yes, NTFS indeed. That is the setup I am using right now as well, because the games drive already was NTFS. For steam this works nicely.
However, for other use cases I was creating symlinks to directories on another NtFS drive in my system, and this borked some files. So that is how I found the BTRFS option. Have not tried it myself though…
EOS is probably fine. There are some distros that are better out of the box for Nvidia cards. You seem tech savvy, but if Linux is still relatively new to you, it might be a good idea to remove as much potential friction as possible.
Nobara Linux would be a good choice even if you don’t have an Nvidia card. You can always theme / modify Nobara to look like EOS as well. Nobara is Fedora modified by Glorious Eggroll who also makes Proton-GE. I can often get games to run on my Steam Deck using Proton-GE when standard Proton won’t work.
The main thing I would say is that you may run into issues if you want to run software from both OSes on the same partition. If both Windows and Linux are trying to execute or install programs on the same partition, they can end up messing with permissions for the other OS (mostly Windows messing with Linux). Reading and writing data should be fine, so intermingling storage shouldn’t be a problem, but execution can be more complex.
I see…that could probably affect a shared steam library I guess? I’m aiming to use almost exclusively though, wish me luck!
