I’m looking for discussion and suggestions about the best way to play games from GOG on linux.
My current method is that I’ve got GOG Galaxy installed with bottles, and then I use GOG Galaxy to install and launch the Windows games. That’s working alright so far. One downside is that won’t install Iinux versions like that, so for games that have a native linux version I have to decide if I want to install it separately, or just run the windows version with the others. So that isn’t perfect. Another minor thing I don’t like is that since I’m installing games via GOG Galaxy via Bottles via Flatpak… I end up having very little idea of where stuff is being saved. It’s difficult to find save game files for example; and if there is some junk installed or left over from something, there’s very little chance that I’m going to notice and delete it. It just feels very opaque. (I guess that’s mostly just about my personal lack of knowledge though.)
Anyway, I’m mostly just wondering how others are choosing to handle their games from GOG.
When I was first getting started, I briefly tried Lutris - but was put off by two things. The first was that it felt very complicated. I was new to Linux at the time, and I’m being asked helps of config questions about how to install which-and-what components in order to use such-and-such runners or launcher or whatever… basically just a heap of stuff that I didn’t really understand. And when I tried using a recommend ‘gold rated’ auto-setup to install something, it just froze. So that was disappointing. I decided that maybe I’d try something else.
I’ve seen Lutris recommended in a lot of places; so apparently it’s pretty good. But at the time I used it, it wasn’t really what I was looking for. I think a lot of people praise Lutris for the way it lets you have case-by-case special configurations for all sorts of things, which might allow you get some stubborn stuff working. But for me, it felt like more things I could break. I’ve got enough games that I’m happy enough to just say that if it doesn’t work then I won’t play it. So I guess Lutris wasn’t for me. [edit - Bottles also had a lot of config choices to get started; but I was lucky enough that what I picked worked first time; and I haven’t looked at the config since.]
Honestly, I can see that. I’ve just gotten used to Lutris over the years, even before Valve released Proton.
I mainly like Lutris as a tool to manage all of my games with easy ways to share common configuration steps between them. But I also see it going the way most Wine helpers went over the years. At first it works brilliantly for everyone. Then the pre-made configurations fail to work for edge cases or they fail when a game is updated. Eventually it’s easier to configure everything by hand and then you don’t need the tool anymore until the next one comes along.
But they started an initiative with Bottles, Heroic and other programs to make standardised configurations. Pair that up with Valve’s efforts in Proton and the overall rising popularity of Linux gaming and we might get better and better tools down the line until they aren’t needed anymore.