I know this is a pretty common question, but the Google results don’t seem to offer a good solution and are mostly aimed at people who already know Linux.
I am looking to switch from Windows, where I have my OS and whatever big game I’m currently playing on my 128GB SSD, and everything else (games, most software, documents, ect.) on my 2TB HDD. ELI5, How would I replicate this on Linux? I’m planning on installing Mint, but am open to using Bazzite if it offers any additional tools for this sort of this.
This is a nuanced question with nuanced answers. It really depends on what you want to do and how you want to arrange your data.
Originally, partitioning and
/etc/fstabwere (and still are) used to lay out important directories such as your home directory, temporary directory, etc. You can add entries here to mount other directories to selected location in your directory tree. For example, you could make entries to mount a secondary drive and then redirect/gamesto point to that drive. It’s pretty easy to move your home directory or documents somewhere else.However, getting your software to use those directories can vary. Depending on your game launcher of choice, you’d have to figure out how to tell it to install games to your desired location. If you have a more concrete example then I might be able to detail this further.
I do use Steam a lot, and I know they have tools for it, but a bunch of my library is installers from GOG and from Devs directly, which I’m sure I’ll struggle to get working in the first place.
You can use something like Lutris and have a different Wine directory for each installed game. These can be placed anywhere on your filesystem that you like.
I’m less familiar with GOG. I do know there are a few different launchers that try to solve this and other problems for managing Windows games.
Heroic Games Launcher or Bottles for GoG and Epic games.