Gaming on Linux is going through a period of important growth. Thanks to Steam and the Proton project there are thousands of playable titles, many of which of remarkable quality. In the history of the penguin, there has never been a better time for video game enthusiasts. So let's see, how to enable Steam Play, to make the most of the latest version of Proton.
Proton and Steam Play, how to install them
Steam Play is a feature of the well-known videogame distribution platform which, thanks to Proton, allows you to run games exclusively programmed for Windows, on the GNU/Linux operating system. The Proton project allows you to play Linux with games developed for Windows and is a modified version of Wine. Proton guarantees compatibility with Windows titles and introduces many improvements that make gamers happy on Linux. The latest release, Proton 5.0-6, was released about ten days ago.
As a first step, you need to install Steam. To do this, you need to go to the official page and download the platform. If you use the Nvidia drivers and, after completing the installation, the store does not start, check the error via the terminal. To do this, launch the command line program, using the Steam directive. In the event that the error found is similar to the following:
ILocalize::AddFile() failed to load file "public/steambootstrapper_english.txt".
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(0) SteamUpdateUI: An X Error occurred
X Error of failed request: BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)
install the libnvidia package, giving the instruction from the terminal:
sudo apt install libnvidia-gl-435:i386
Once the installation has been successfully completed, start the store and, after logging in, go to the account page, accessible via the steam - settings path. In this screen, click on the button change and, from the drop-down menu, select steam beta update. A click on "Ok" will ask to restart the program, to save the settings and download some updates.
Enable all the potential
Enter the settings menu again, select the Steam Play item from the left column. With a configuration set as in the next screen, you are enabling two features:
- the tick at the top enables Steam Play for the supported titles
- the checkboxes at the bottom, however, also enable all those games that can be started via Proton. This will greatly expand the stock, but with possible errors or stability problems
After saving and restarting, everything will be ready. We can find out how a game will work with Steam Play by going to the ProtonDB website. The goal of ProtonDB is to accumulate reports from other players who test various titles with Proton on Linux and provide a judgment on how a game behaves. A growing pool of tips provides modifications to allow games to run while proton continues its development. Here, by entering the game title, we will find a synthetic judgment of compatibility with proton, from "broken" to "gold", "platinum" and "native".
Proton does not update automatically. In fact, you will have to check its configuration from time to time, to update to the latest versions. You will thus have titles with less and less problems and fully functional on GNU/Linux!
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