Linux/Windows dualboot and Steam

[el_murdoque]

I was wondering. . . 

I'm running a dualboot system at home, Ubuntu 20.10 and Win10. 

Windows only gets booted when I want to access software that won't run in Ubuntu - so it's mostly for gaming. 

I live in a remote place with terrible Internet speed, so installing a game via Steam takes days. 

The problem here is that, as I said, the computer is running Ubuntu most of the time and when I install a game on Steam/win10, I need to reboot when I leave the computer alone to have it downloading in win10 and then reboot when I get back. 

 

So I was wondering: Might it be possible to set up a virtual machine running win10 in linux, install Steam on that machine and make it share the download folder with the native win10, so I can download for windows steam while I work in linux? 

I'd like to know if I'm running into an unsolvable problem before I buy another copy of win10. 

[Cuwee]

2 minutes ago, el_murdoque said:

I was wondering. . . 

I'm running a dualboot system at home, Ubuntu 20.10 and Win10. 

Windows only gets booted when I want to access software that won't run in Ubuntu - so it's mostly for gaming. 

I live in a remote place with terrible Internet speed, so installing a game via Steam takes days. 

The problem here is that, as I said, the computer is running Ubuntu most of the time and when I install a game on Steam/win10, I need to reboot when I leave the computer alone to have it downloading in win10 and then reboot when I get back. 

 

So I was wondering: Might it be possible to set up a virtual machine running win10 in linux, install Steam on that machine and make it share the download folder with the native win10, so I can download for windows steam while I work in linux? 

I'd like to know if I'm running into an unsolvable problem before I buy another copy of win10. 

VMware should see your windows installation and you can just boot it inside your linux. Thats how it works for me on my Mac and Windows dualboot. 

[el_murdoque]

7 minutes ago, Cuwee said:

VMware should see your windows installation and you can just boot it inside your linux. Thats how it works for me on my Mac and Windows dualboot. 

Thank you. Do you refer to the Workstation Player that's available for free? 

 

[Cuwee]

2 minutes ago, el_murdoque said:

Thank you. Do you refer to the Workstation Player that's available for free? 

 

Yes, the free version should be all you need for this application. Hopefully the linux version is just as easy.

[el_murdoque]

# sh ./VMware-Player-16.1.0-17198959.x86_64.bundle 
Extracting VMware Installer...done.
Installing VMware Player 16.1.0
    Configuring...
[######################################################################] 100%
Installation was successful.

Installing it was the easy bit.

How do I get it do recognize the Win10 installation? 

[Kilrah]

Virtualbox works as well if your Windows and Linux installs are on different drives. That may be a requirement for vmware too.

[el_murdoque]

I have Linux on a SSD and Windows on a different SSD, then there's a HDD (NTFS) that's used as storage for both. 

What I don't get is how either Virtualbox or WMware are to recognize a 'real' install of Windows to boot in the virtual device. They ask for virtual machine files. 

[Kilrah]

You can create a disk file that is a "shortcut" to directly access a real drive:

https://www.serverwatch.com/guides/using-a-physical-hard-drive-with-a-virtualbox-vm/

 

Don't know vmware much but I use it regularly on virtualbox, usually the other way (run a linux install on Win) but it works the same both ways.

[gardotd426]

Just download the games using Linux, and copy the files over to your Windows installation. 

 

Or you could add the necessary folder from Windows to your Steam Library for both Linux and Windows, and then select that location for games to install. 

 

Just create a directory in your user's home directory, like /home/<yourusername>/windows, and then add the Windows partition to your /etc/fstab and have it mounted at /home/<yourusername>/windows. Then you can run
 

sudo mount -a

or you can just reboot, and it'll be mounted. 

 

You'll then need to run:

 

sudo chown -R <yourusername>:<yourusername> /home/<yourusername>/windows

(obviously replace the <yourusername> parts)

 

Then you can add directories from there to your steam library folders in Linux, and then they'll be there when you boot Windows. 

[el_murdoque]

8 hours ago, gardotd426 said:

Just download the games using Linux, and copy the files over to your Windows installation. 

 

Or you could add the necessary folder from Windows to your Steam Library for both Linux and Windows, and then select that location for games to install. 

 

Just create a directory in your user's home directory, like /home/<yourusername>/windows, and then add the Windows partition to your /etc/fstab and have it mounted at /home/<yourusername>/windows. Then you can run
 

sudo mount -a

or you can just reboot, and it'll be mounted. 

 

You'll then need to run:

 

sudo chown -R <yourusername>:<yourusername> /home/<yourusername>/windows

(obviously replace the <yourusername> parts)

 

Then you can add directories from there to your steam library folders in Linux, and then they'll be there when you boot Windows. 

As stated earlier, I have Linux running on one SSD and Win10 on another, while there is a HDD for storage. The HDD has a Steam download folder. 

I just tried adding that folder to my Linux Steam and it worked. The games in there show up, but don't work (the whole Steam Proton thing does not work very well on my system) - but it picked up the partial download for a game I'm downloading in Windows. 

I'll let it cook for a bit and then reboot to win10 to see if the download will go on where Linux has left it off. 

 

That'd be a rather easy fix for a problem I thought much more complicated. 

 

 

[Cmin]

I would suggest partitioning a dedicated steam library because Linux doesn't care about ACLs and bit locker is a pain if you use that (make sure the filesystem is NTFS or other windows compatible). Then add that to both operating systems steam libraries. This is the most proper setup in my opinion, but its up to you.

[el_murdoque]

6 hours ago, Cmin said:

I would suggest partitioning a dedicated steam library because Linux doesn't care about ACLs and bit locker is a pain if you use that (make sure the filesystem is NTFS or other windows compatible). Then add that to both operating systems steam libraries. This is the most proper setup in my opinion, but its up to you.

 

On 2/14/2021 at 12:14 PM, el_murdoque said:

As stated earlier, I have Linux running on one SSD and Win10 on another, while there is a HDD for storage. The HDD has a Steam download folder. 

I just tried adding that folder to my Linux Steam and it worked. The games in there show up, but don't work (the whole Steam Proton thing does not work very well on my system) - but it picked up the partial download for a game I'm downloading in Windows. 

I'll let it cook for a bit and then reboot to win10 to see if the download will go on where Linux has left it off. 

 

That'd be a rather easy fix for a problem I thought much more complicated. 

 

 

 

It took a while for the download to finish, but in the end, it just worked. Windows finds the game which was downloaded via Linux and started it up without complaint. 

 

 

[Cmin]

On 2/27/2021 at 8:01 AM, el_murdoque said:

 

 

It took a while for the download to finish, but in the end, it just worked. Windows finds the game which was downloaded via Linux and started it up without complaint. 

 

 

Rock on!