Hi,
I recently built a new gaming computer and have been contemplating about the OS.
I prefer to move away from windows given obvious reasons and do like using Linux, but my experience with my steam deck has taught me that pirating games in Linux is hit or miss.
I played around with windows LTSC and honestly, seems like windows without the bloatware.
So question is, how is game pirating on Linux (in a desktop, not steam deck).
Is it as smooth as windows or should I just say fuck it and accept that my gaming computer has to stay windows for another generation?
In my experience, there is nearly no difference between windows and linux when it comes to piracy. There are a few games that linux can’t run (anticheat), but generally that shouldn’t be an issue for games that you would typically pirate. Linux does have a standard learning curve though, and you’ll need to get familiar with Lutris or some other Wine prefix manager to manage your games. If you’re dedicated to moving to linux, game piracy should not be a deciding factor.
Also you can run them in a container or a sandbox so a plus for linux
So I tried to get a couple games working on my steam deck that didn’t work at all. I do remember trying to run thing with wine, but just gave up and installed the game on a windows computer.
So would I just google Lutris and go from there?
The steam deck is kinda inconvenient when any level of tinkering is required due to switching between game and desktop mode and the input if you dont attach a keyboard and mouse. Non-deck distros lose the quick settings which I really like.
Try bottles too. you may or may not find it easier than lutris. I find the dependencies easier to install. After checking if anyone has already documented what dependencies are needed (directx, dotnet, etc.), I usually start with the default wine bottles uses, then try wine-ge and tkg at least before giving up. I have yet to find a game that cant be made to work but other software can be very finicky especially once dotnet is involved.
Not sure what quick settings you mean, but have you tried Bazzite yet? I’ve been using it on my laptop for several months now, and it’s been fantastic. Built for gaming, and it seems to already have a ton of shit set up correctly that id normally need to do myself on Arch
yeah bazzite is my daily driver on desktop and deck. you can use the htpc/deck image on non-nvidia systems to get the settigs panel (fps/hz, scaling, etc changed live) but I don’t want to have to switch between game and desktop mode on my desktop. I haven’t had much time outside of work other than my meager amount of sleeo and doomscrolling so I haven’t looked in to if the settings or overlays can be done as cleanly on desktop only images
Just to complete the trio, there is also Heroic, which is similiar to lutris but in my opinion a bit nicer to configure :)
there is also Heroic, which is similiar to lutris but in my opinion a bit nicer to configure :)
Heroic defaults to an ancient version of Wine-GE. They are currently in the process to migrate to a new tech called umu-launcher which allows them to use Valve’s Proton and Proton-GE directly. It’s basically done, so should appear in Heroic 2.16 but if one tries Heroic today, the compatibility might be worse than Lutris or Bottles.
I’m not sure what a good written guide for manually running linux games is off the top of my head, but generally yeah you install Lutris, install the latest Proton-GE version through e.g. ProtonUp-QT, create a game entry in Lutris with a “Prefix” location dedicated to your wine prefix, pick Proton-GE as the runner, copy the game into the generated prefix, target the normal EXE, and launch it. Sometimes if a game isn’t launching you’ll need to use “winetricks” to install vcrun2022 and dotnet48 dependencies into the wine prefix, since each Wine prefix is sort of like a copy of windows, and windows has a handful of dependencies that games sometimes rely on. I’ve heard you can also just add the game as a “non-steam game” to steam, but I’ve not bothered as Lutris gives more control. Again I can’t vouch for any specific guides, but the keywords from this post should help target a general direction to move in.
That’s way too much work than simply installing fucking windows and be done
Half of the instructions there are installing tools that you only install once, not every game.
And once you set up Lutris, it’s pretty trivial to open .exe files with it.
Did you try Desktop Mode on the Deck? Makes things a lot easier. Haven’t had much issue with things like this with my Steam Deck, but on Linux PC, I’ve had none. Ever. Try Bazzite, it’s built for gaming.
I would just Google, “using bottles/lutris to install game on Linux” and I imagine you could find people walking through it.
Oh yeah, I really liked desktop mode.
Went a little crazy with my deck and setup things like remote play to my ps5 and a dev environment in case I wanted to do some coding on the go.
I did get some games working, but it wasn’t plug and play like windows, sounds like it just takes some tinkering which is great to hear.
I used to repack games for a group in Linux pirating. Most of the time, there was no tweaking. Only the badly optimized ones like ragnarok, elden ring new dlc, etc needed some other work.
You can install games from dodi, fitgirl, online-fix, all just fine. You can also download linux repacks from jc141.
How does one install pirated games (e.g. from fitgirl) on Linux?
Open it with wine, no other tweaks.
What others said… I think I’ve even run the installer as a non-steam app through Steam using proton and that worked as well. Unless I’m misremembering.
I used Lutris before but I do Bottles now, fitgirl worked on both fantastic for me
I still dual boot with Windows for gaming, so I can’t comment on the next gaming as much, but I will say that LTSC is everything that it seems to be (or not be).
Windows without any bullshit, I used it for years.
I use windows solely for ease of gaming so I haven’t bothered to replace the stock, but if you do keep using Windows, LTSC is definitely the way to go.
as far as the articles going around, Linux is catching up but is not yet as effortless less as Windows for gaming specifically.
You can run the same translation layer that Steam uses for your pirated games, compatibility will be similar to what protondb reports.
Once installed, I think you can often even run the exe of the pirated game through Steam as a “non-steam app” using Proton
Use Bottles with the Sandbox option enabled (and sound enabled). So, native performance but without access to files outside the Wine prefix (virtual Windows folder where the game is installed) and without network access. This way, you don’t have to worry about games phoning home, containing a crypto miner or ransomware.
Also, forget about FitGirl repacks on Linux, most don’t unpack correctly.
I just installed skyrim from fitgirl using bottles. Required no tinkering.
Well, probably depends on the tools used to uncompress and compress the files. Some old releases just unpack hundreds of GB without stopping.
If it’s a steam pirated game and already extracted, you can just create a dummy steam account, add the executable as non-steam game and run proton from steam (I had good success with proton experimental).
Everything else should be run via Lutris + wine prefixes (or whatever windows subsystem emulator you chose).
It’s fairly easy when you know what you’re doing but still not as easy as you imagine on Windows itself. I would say, most game run all right? I recently played
The last of us Ivia lutris+wine prefixes. Some fps drops and 1 crash on a 5 hour session, seems pretty reasonable.However, lutris + wine prefixes are harder to get right depending the wine version installed and what graphic options you want, it can get frustrating specially if you don’t know what game needs what windows trick (directx9, vscru2015…).
I had mostly good success rate with the staging version of wine (I think that’s what proton experimental on steam is) and doing it wrong, you can go from a burning messsy non playable game to something as smooth as on Windows.
So yeah, it involves more personal implication to get it right and yes it’s still harder to play pirated games on Linux than on Windows but easier than 5 years ago!
Where do you get installation media for Windows LTSC?
From Microsoft. They actually provide ISO downloads for the 11 LTSC versions, so there’s not really any reason to go grab some random one off totally-legit-software-and-totatlly-not-malware.com or whatever.
Imagine I’m an idiot, do you have a link or description for where to find those? I looked for them some time ago and found nothing. 🥹
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-11-iot-enterprise-ltsc
Keep in mind, though, that you’ll still have to do some activation and KMS hackery to make them usable, but you can at least use an installer that’s going to be clean.
Thank you!
Massgrave (known widely for their Windows and Office activation scripts) provides download links as well, useful if you use a VPN since Microsoft blocks you from downloading.
Directory link: https://massgrave.dev/genuine-installation-media
I found a torrent that had windows 11 LTSC, pre activated and with office.
When I made the bootable usb, it had options where I could just opt out of the data collection and all that so it wouldn’t even show that during install.
Pretty good experience. Feels weird to say that about a Microsoft product.
Thanks!
