Thanks for the explanation. So it works similar to the system partition on windows.

Yeah, same bit. Just put everything on another drive/partition and then mount that on /home (so you get /home/user) and that’s it.

I somehow struggle a little to understand the role of distribution. When researching how to install Linux, it seemed like an important choice with lots of differences between the various distributions. Some are based on arch, some fedora or ubuntu. It seems like all need different types of packages to install software. And so on. A little ironic, that this is less a problem when running Windows executables through a compatibility layer like wine.

Distributions are essentially just a selection of the basic software required to make a system work. Things like, what version of the kernel you will start with, what init system (systemd is the current popular choice, but sysvinit is still widely used). Then there is the package manager, which is responsible for installing/updating all software on your system (you can install software without the package manager, but here there be dragons) and often a distro will include a Desktop Environment (which is, itself, another package of various software maintained by another group) like KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, XFCE, etc and some default software packages (like, LibreOffice, Firefox, or Steam).

There’s a ton of little differences between distros in how they do things. Like one distro may release a full system update periodically and that update will have been in testing for months to ensure stability (Debian). While another strives to ensure the most current version of all software is available (Arch).

Often, groups will like how one system works, let’s say Arch, but want to try something else, like adding a graphical installer, and adding some additional software and they’ll create a new distro that is built on top of the work done by the Arch distro. This is why you see them described as Arch-based(EndeavourOS) or Fedora-based(Nobara).

That being said, there is no major differences between KDE Plasma that was installed on top of Mint and KDE Plasma installed on Arch. They may have different versions which are available in their respective package repositories, but it’s the same software. Mint may not be on the same Kernel version as Nobara but they’re all using some version of the same underlying Linux kernel code. Systemd is Systemd on Bazzite, Mint or Debian, etcetc.

I’m glossing over quite a bit and there are exceptions to almost everything I’ve said but I’m just trying to give you the broad strokes.

Part of the draw of Linux is the ability to swap all of these different components around as you will. Distros are simply popular configurations/design ideas that have a community built around them.

You can keep your steam library across distros. Games are usually Windows executables, which run through WINE so they’re completely independent of the distro.

A common recommendation is to make a partition for your home directory and another for your system directory (they can be on different disks too if that’s easier). That way, if you decide to try a different distro then you will still have all of your data/games/settings/etc. If you do this, then everything will move between distros because you only need to overwrite the information on the system partition.

If you just want to keep the Steam stuff, it is typically in ~/.local/share/steam (~/ means your home directory, if you didn’t know). If you move it into that same location on your new distro then Steam will see all of your installed games.

We can’t know for sure, but if I had to make some guesses:

It could have been something as simple as Nobara using GE-Proton instead of just defaulting to Steam’s proton. You could do the same thing on Mint, just by either manually downloading the zip from Github and extracting into Steam’s compatibilitytools.d/ directory (or, as most people do, use protonup-qt to install/manage proton versions).

Also, Mint uses a different Desktop Environment than Nobara. Mint has a custom DE called Cinnamon while Nobara uses the most popular DE, KDE Plasma. So there could be differences in how Cinnamon and Plasma implement Wayland that were causing hitching.

The Kernel also was recently(-ish) updated to include NTSYNC primitives which makes Wine’s not-emulation a bit smoother in some games. Different distros update their kernels at different times (I don’t know how nobara and mint do this, one could be behind the other)

I’m glad it worked for you, it’s frustrating to have to deal with poor performance and sometimes just rolling the dice on another distro will fix everything (and also, swapping distros when you’re learning is great experience!). Learning the process of tracking down problems will serve you better in the long run, even if it is frustrating. If you get lost or don’t know where to start, make a post in this community, no question is too dumb. At worst, some people will be assholes because it’s social media in 2026 but you’ll usually find someone to get you pointed in the right direction at least.

I was teaching a friend Linux, by ways of running through the manual Arch installation process and finally got to be on the other side of the ‘Ok, now that we’ve spent a ton of time doing this the hard way, here(endeavorOS) is how you use tools to do it in 3 seconds’.

Most of my games run fine on Linux Mint, but not all of them.

You’re not changing much when you’re changing distros, you may have slightly newer or older packages but we’re all running essentially the same Linux Kernel, Proton versions, etc.

You’d probably have less of a headache by trying to diagnose the games that don’t work than swapping OSs blindly and hoping that works.

If you were to swap, I’d look at something Arch-based. This way you’ll have access to the newest versions of everything (for good or ill).

^

For those looking to take the leap:

https://store.steampowered.com/steamos/download/?ver=steamdeck

Write image to USB, Boot to USB, press install from inside the live environment.

If you’re using AMD hardware you will have better luck, but it is not guaranteed to work.

Thanks for the write up, I was actually planning to launch using Heroic, just wasn’t sure if games through Wine needed the C:\ drive prefix.

It creates a virtual C:\ drive for the programs in the bottle. Externally it doesn’t matter where it is as long as your launch script/application knows where it is.

Open needs to remove french from their OS and not preserve the root (of all lies about password usage):

sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root /

(do not run this)

Yeah, that was it.

I asked my grandmother why she didn’t use Linux and she cited the fact that people were in denial about the frequency of password use in POSIX-based operating systems as her primary reason.

Just as much as you can use Windows without the command line/powershell.

The vast majority of tasks do not require it but some will and some tasks will be easier via the terminal if you take the time to read 2-3 pages of documentation.

Don’t be scared of the terminal

terminal: profanity

A thing I never knew I needed until right now, thanks!

You were perfectly clear

I deleted it when I was installing Steam games and ran out of space. A few commands later and I have another 2TB of SSD storage.

I hadn’t booted into Windows for nearly a year by that time and, in the months since, I haven’t once regretted it or wished I still had it installed.

Social Democracy is a method of operating the government.

Capitalism is a way of operating the economy.

Much of Europe’s governments are classified as a Social Democracy and they also use the capitalist economic system.

Why not both?

The boring answer is that it is more work and most FOSS developers are volunteers.

So I keep a windows partition just so I can manage a 16 year old mp3 player and radio. That has to be the worst reason to keep a Windows partition, right?

Yeah, and you can often assume that someone else has had that problem and was also enough of a nerd to fix it for us all.

https://github.com/Klar/ZuneSyncLinux

This brand of argument is basically ‘If you can’t do everything perfectly, then it is pointless to do anything especially the thing that you’re suggesting.’

You see this person in every thread on every topic where people discuss things that they can contribute their expertise to. Their message is ‘it is hopeless, your plan won’t work, give up what you’re doing, you don’t stand a chance’.

Honestly, and forgive the langue, but fuck those people. You know what your strengths are and what you’re capable of, not some faceless bot pushing violent political rhetoric who is, by its own admissions, not in the US.

If you don’t want to participate in the tech landscape as it exists today, there is absolutely nothing wrong about avoiding it entirely and building something else. Companies will not be so complacent about their position in the market if they know there’s a completely Free alternative that does everything that they charge a subscription for.

The people who are doing self-hosting today are exactly like the early adopters of the smartphone or any other technology. There’s always people trying new things and sometimes they succeed.

People who are using privacy focused approaches to personal technology, like self-hosting, are beta testing the ability to use cheap, mass produced hardware and open source software to build a product ecosystem that meets their needs. That progress is enjoyed by anybody in the future who decides they also want to leave the walled gardens of Tech Giantopia.

Yeah, exactly. You could glob with find to locate the directory, store the path in a variable and then pass that to stow.

I’m not sure what you have to do to make Firefox acknowledge the profile, but I believe it simply enumerates all of the folders in the directory and displays all that are valid (but definitely double check on that first).

Stow has no “glob for target” option, so you can’t do *.profile.

You could write a script that, when you’re deploying a stow, symlinks the profile into the right location. You’d have to remember to run it in the future so create a README file and include the instructions.