Does anybody know the best way to transfer all my files to Linux? I dabbled in it a bit, but I was a little worried I’d have to reinstall everything, considering I had to make a (relatively small) partition using my unused d drive space
Is there a way to transfer ~2TB worth of steam games, outside of uninstalling then reinstalling them?
It will be difficult, but technically possible. You’d have to ensure bitlocker is disabled on your windows drive. If you’re not sure what that is, don’t assume that means it’s not enabled. Windows does enable it by default in some cases. It encrypts your drive and you won’t be able to access it.
But in all honesty, I’d recommend just starting from scratch if steam games are what you’re most worried about. First, some of them might not work on Linux. Second, you may encounter strange issues that require redownloading much of your library anyway. Lastly, you’ll want to transfer them to a drive with a Linux file system which will take time. That’s if you even have the drive space to spare. More likely is you’ll be formatting that drive anyway to a Linux filesystem, wiping the contents anyway.
Even with slow internet, redownloading games as needed will be way easier and likely faster.
If you’re unsure what distro to go with, I recommend going with Bazzite. It’s a distro optimized for gaming and is an atomic distro. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it, just know that for most casual users, an atomic distro makes way more sense and is much less likely to break. Additionally, if you have nvidia hardware, the drivers come pre installed so it’ll work right out of the box.
Just copy C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/ to /home/yourname/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/ and Steam will recognize those games are already present when you try to download them.
Does anybody know the best way to transfer all my files to Linux? I dabbled in it a bit, but I was a little worried I’d have to reinstall everything, considering I had to make a (relatively small) partition using my unused d drive space
Is there a way to transfer ~2TB worth of steam games, outside of uninstalling then reinstalling them?
It will be difficult, but technically possible. You’d have to ensure bitlocker is disabled on your windows drive. If you’re not sure what that is, don’t assume that means it’s not enabled. Windows does enable it by default in some cases. It encrypts your drive and you won’t be able to access it.
But in all honesty, I’d recommend just starting from scratch if steam games are what you’re most worried about. First, some of them might not work on Linux. Second, you may encounter strange issues that require redownloading much of your library anyway. Lastly, you’ll want to transfer them to a drive with a Linux file system which will take time. That’s if you even have the drive space to spare. More likely is you’ll be formatting that drive anyway to a Linux filesystem, wiping the contents anyway.
Even with slow internet, redownloading games as needed will be way easier and likely faster.
If you’re unsure what distro to go with, I recommend going with Bazzite. It’s a distro optimized for gaming and is an atomic distro. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it, just know that for most casual users, an atomic distro makes way more sense and is much less likely to break. Additionally, if you have nvidia hardware, the drivers come pre installed so it’ll work right out of the box.
Just copy
C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/to/home/yourname/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/and Steam will recognize those games are already present when you try to download them.