Viewing topic Help: Play Steam Proton game installed on Windows partition

Help: Play Steam Proton game installed on Windows partition

TherinS Jul 20, 2019

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I bought Killing Floor 2 during Beta because I enjoyed KF1 so much and the developers said they would release a Linux version of KF2 after the Windows version. How I have learned from that kind of promise now....

The short of it:
I cannot get Steam to recognize and use the game data for KF2 which is installed on a Windows partition.

Details:
I have my hard drive partitioned into the following segments: Win 10 boot, Programs (NTFS), Ubuntu 18.04 /, /home, /swap, and 'common storage' NTFS for access to files from both Win 10 and Linux. Steam on Win10 is installing the game data to Programs and runs fine. I want the prevent installing KF2 on both Windows and Ubuntu if possible. My /home partition does not have enough space to install the game (50GB+). I realize I should backup my data from /home/Downloads and /home/Videos anyways, which are taking up a huge amount of space. This should give me enough room for KF2 to be installed on my /home partition.

Attempted fixes:
I HAVE been able to play twice from Ubuntu. I tried to use combinations of Lutris or only Steam to play, but don't recall just when Lutris was running when it worked (not that it might make a difference). When I launch Steam, Killing Floor 2 is greyed out and the option to Install is present. When I click Install, it opens a dialog to choose an install folder. When I go to the existing folder on the Programs partition and point to the existing install there, it says it cannot install to folder with data in it. If I try to make a new folder on that partition it says that the drive is read-only.

I ran "sudo mount -o remount,rw '/media/<username>/Programs'" to mount the drive and writeable, tried the same steps above and got the same results. I then tried to create a folder for a new install using Caja and got the following error:

Error creating directory /media/steveb/Programs/Programs/Steam/steamapps/common/untitled folder: No such file or directory

When I tried to create a folder on the drive using CLI (with or without sudo) I got the following error:

mkdir: cannot create directory ‘KF2-test’: No such file or directory

With the above problems, would it work to install another drive, format it EXT4, and use it to install games on? I have a couple spare drives laying around and would like pointers before I go moving drives around. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated but if simply making more room on my /home partition is going to be the least painful way to go, I can do that.

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Liam Dawe Jul 21, 2019

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Trying to run games on Linux using a Windows drive is problematic. I really would just use a normal Linux filesystem.

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TherinS Jul 24, 2019

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I was having trouble with one of my NTFS partitions getting mounted read-only (used only to share files with both Win10 and Ubuntu), and after doing several disk checks from Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04, I think the fix was to boot Win10, then reboot without opening a file explorer window. Maybe this removed the read-only bit Win10 had put on the partition.

Here are the steps I took to get in installed:
I mounted the partition in Caja, verifiying I could create a folder so it had r/w access.
Started Steam.
Killing Floor 2 was greyed out in my game list but has an "Install" button, which I click.
I pointed it the partition, created a new folder and it downloaded all the files including Proton.
I click "Play" and a small window pops up "preparing to launch", but the game does not launch.
In my game list, the game name has the words "running" followed by "0% - 0 bytes" flash beside the name and disappear in about 1 second.

I tried rebooting and when I did, the game name was greyed out again. I had already mounted the partition so I clicked "Install" again and pointed it to the existing folder. It went through a "discovering existing files" window for 30 minutes, then the game list said KF2 was "ready to play". I click play and I am met with results as detailed in the last two lines mentioned in the previous paragraph.

I have esync disabled per the ProtonDB user suggestion posts and have tried both Proton 3.16-9 and
4.2-9 with the same results.

Anyone have any ideas what to do to get it to run, and NOT run through a 30-40 minute file check?

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TherinS Jul 26, 2019

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I'm about to just give up on this one. I know it CAN play on Ubuntu 18.04 using Proton Steam, as I've done it twice, but even installed to my /home folder with all my other Linux-native games, it will not run. I downloaded the game fresh, a shader chache download happened, but when I click play it results in the same issues as mentioned in my above posts (running, syncing 0% of 0, dies).

Thanks for trying to help me but this one is a lost cause for me.

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DragonLordDoTUU Aug 20, 2019

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I had this problem (the read only issue). Apparently if windows doesn't do a full shut down (like going into hibernation or using the quick start option) it will lock all the drives it has access to.

Have you tried disabling quick startup and hibernate in your Windows 10 and then shutting down windows and booting back into linux?

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TherinS Aug 30, 2019

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I found a work around for my original problem. I installed an additional HDD (formatted EXT4) for my games instead of trying to free up space on my /home partition or trying to use the Windows partition install of the games.

1. Mount the partition/drive that contains the installed game(s)
2. Start Steam
a. I have had an issue for a few months where the Steam icon shows up in my top panel (Ubuntu 18.04) but
the UI does not start and while I can get a right-click menu from the icon, no selection does anything.
b. In this case, right-click <exit Steam> and restart Steam.

3. Steam does not see that the games are installed at this point.
a. Navigate to the /path/to/install/steamapps folder, and move /steamapps UP one level.
b. This should be instant, as the folder pointer just updates, no files are moved around.

4. Start the game install, navigating to /path/to/install and it should create a new /steamapps directory.
a. I let the .NET install finish (~500MB) but just letting Steam create the basic folder structure might be enough.
b. I let the game (Killing Floor 2) begin the install but as above, that might not be needed.

5. Exit Steam
6. Delete the new /steamapps folder
7. Drag and drop the original /steamapps folder into its original location (/path/to/install/steamapps)
8. Start Steam and it sees my installed games! Currently, Ark and Killing Floor 2.
9. Profit.

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