Steam library shared between Windows & Linux

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Has anyone tried this before?  My thought process is that while the two OSes obviously need different binaries, there ought to be a lot of game files that are identical on the Windows and Linux versions, so if you had one library shared by both a Linux steam install and a Windows steam install, you could save some space by only needing to "duplicate" a few things.

 

I'm trying it now but has anyone successfully done this before?

[DrMacintosh]

Could you not theoretically make a Steam Drive and point Linux to that? The hard part would be getting the steam client on Linux to see the library as "valid." 

[ARikozuM]

Following as I'm interested. Also, wouldn't the games just download everything and cancel/disregard what isn't usable?

[NinJake]

Even though the binaries are the same.... wouldn't the "executables" (windows) be different? I thought the file extensions are different for linux.

[vanished]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

Could you not theoretically make a Steam Drive and point Linux to that? The hard part would be getting the steam client on Linux to see the library as "valid." 

What do you mean by a "Steam drive"?  I already have a dedicated SSD for all my games that's NTFS (accessible by Linux and Windows)

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Following as I'm interested. Also, wouldn't the games just download everything and cancel/disregard what isn't usable?

My hope is that, when I "verify local files" under Linux, it will see the Windows copy and download only what differs between the Windows and Linux versions, which I'm hoping and thinking won't be all that much (mainly the executables/binaries since bulk game data like music, textures, etc should be the same)

Just now, NinJake said:

Even though the binaries are the same.... wouldn't the "executables" (windows) be different? I thought the file extensions are different for linux.

See above

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, Ryan_Vickers said:

What do you mean by a "Steam drive"?  I already have a dedicated SSD for all my games that's NTFS

Thats a steam drive. 

[NinJake]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

Thats a steam drive. 

It's a NTFS drive silly

 

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

My hope is that, when I "verify local files" under Linux, it will see the Windows copy and download only what differs between the Windows and Linux versions, which I'm hoping and thinking won't be all that much (mainly the executables/binaries since bulk game data like music, textures, etc should be the same)

It should be feasible... a good test nonetheless, what distro are you testing this on?

[vanished]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

Thats a steam drive. 

ok  

 

---

 

I'm trying "Don't Starve" at the moment, and it's not looking good so far.  When I added the library under Linux, it immediately detected everything as installed (which was obviously erroneous in and of itself), but then upon verifying game files, it had to download ~580 MB (ouch!) and upon completing that, it still didn't work, claiming the update was corrupt  

Just now, NinJake said:

It should be feasible... a good test nonetheless, what distro are you testing this on?

Manjaro

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, NinJake said:

It's a NTFS drive silly

If you point steam to a drive and tell it to install your games there, it becomes a steam drive. 

 

Not sure if it was intentionally a joke or not but English does not communicate tone well. 

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

and upon completing that, it still didn't work, claiming the update was corrupt  

It makes sense though, No matter the similarities between Windows and Linux the games are not the same. If it has not been done before it is probably because doing so would not be worth it. 

 

Updates breaking is just one of the issues you would run into after a while. 

[NinJake]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

If you point steam to a drive and tell it to install your games there, it becomes a steam drive. 

 

Not sure if it was intentionally a joke or not but English does not communicate tone well. 

It was mainly sarcasm. I see what you mean by pointing both windows and linux to the same drive to store files though. I've just never heard of "steam drive" before.

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, NinJake said:

I've just never heard of "steam drive" before.

I've never really heard people refer to drives as NTFS. No point in saying the drive is formated in the old NTFS standard, everyone assumes it is anyway. 

 

I usually only say the format method when talking about more obscure ones like exFAT or HFS/+ 

[vanished]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

It makes sense though, No matter the similarities between Windows and Linux the games are not the same. If it has not been done before it is probably because doing so would not be worth it. 

 

Updates breaking is just one of the issues you would run into after a while. 

Yeah, they're different, but surely there would be a lot of content that's shared?

 

Like, each has its own binaries and libraries and that, but things like textures and sounds and so on should be identical and stored in the same location, one would think... 

 

Maybe not.  I guess I will find out lol

 

1 minute ago, NinJake said:

It was mainly sarcasm. I see what you mean by pointing both windows and linux to the same drive to store files though. I've just never heard of "steam drive" before.

Me neither  Seems kinda arbitrary

[SCHISCHKA]

i think it is possible with some games. I wonder if anti-cheat will dislike the extra linux binaries. In linux it would not be hard to generate a list of common files.

[SquintyG33Rs]

11 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Could you not theoretically make a Steam Drive and point Linux to that? The hard part would be getting the steam client on Linux to see the library as "valid." 

don't they have compleatly different file formats? you can't run an exe on linux

[NinJake]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

I've never really heard people refer to drives as NTFS. No point in saying the drive is formated in the old NTFS standard, everyone assumes it is anyway. 

 

I usually only say the format method when talking about more obscure ones like exFAT or HFS/+ 

To be fair I've never really heard anyone really point out it's NTFS or "Steam drive"... I have however heard NTFS more often than steam drive. Hence the sarcasm! Learn something new everyday.

[NinJake]

Just now, SquintyG33Rs said:

don't they have compleatly different file formats? you can't run an exe on linux

We've kind of went over this, the main hope is that after pointing the game to the source drive, windows/linux will be able to tell the differences apart and simply ignore the actual extension and look for the "goodies" (actual data)

[SCHISCHKA]

1 minute ago, SquintyG33Rs said:

don't they have compleatly different file formats? you can't run an exe on linux

the binaries will not be the same but the artwork will be identical. the artwork will be 90% of the files.

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3 minutes ago, SquintyG33Rs said:

don't they have compleatly different file formats? you can't run an exe on linux

Yes, that's why I would need to download additional files under Linux  But, hopefully not all of them, hence the point of this  

3 minutes ago, NinJake said:

To be fair I've never really heard anyone really point out it's NTFS or "Steam drive"... I have however heard NTFS more often than steam drive. Hence the sarcasm! Learn something new everyday.

Well, at least NTFS inherently means something, like saying it's FAT32 or HFS+, etc.  "Steam drive" just means you've but steam games on it.  Does that mean a drive with a lot of music is a "MP3 Drive" or something?  tbh I find that term kinda silly but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1 minute ago, SCHISCHKA said:

the binaries will not be the same but the artwork will be identical. the artwork will be 90% of the files.

That's what I'm thinking and hoping

[SCHISCHKA]

Just now, Ryan_Vickers said:

That's what I'm thinking and hoping

i would have two folders on a usb drive.

I would put something small like FTL from each operating system into seperate folders.

print out a list of files.

Make a new list of common files and different files and then you can do something smart like hide certain files from windows or generate some links in linux

[NinJake]

@Ryan_Vickers How exactly are you testing this with windows and manjaro?

 

Do you dual boot with windows on 1 drive and linux on another or are they separate partitions on the same drive?

 

Is it 3 drives with A = windows B = linux and C = "shared drive"? (game installs)

[vanished]

Just now, NinJake said:

@Ryan_Vickers How exactly are you testing this with windows and manjaro?

 

Do you dual boot with windows on 1 drive and linux on another or are they separate partitions on the same drive?

 

Is it 3 drives with A = windows B = linux and C = "shared drive"? (game installs)

I have both OSes on one drive and the games on a separate drive

[vanished]

I have a feeling this isn't going to work  

 

I've tried Don't Starve and Factorio now, and both resulted in the same large download ending in a "corrupt update".  I don't know what Steam is doing, but I don't think it's just adding the files it needs to, because if it was, it would actually work lol

 

Well, it was worth a try ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

I'm open to any more ideas if someone has some but for now I think I'll move on

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I'm open to any more ideas if someone has some but for now I think I'll move on

Can they both access NTFS? 

[vanished]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Can they both access NTFS? 

yes  

I was already quite sure it was working but just to be 100% sure I just confirmed creating a file, writing to it (saving), and deleting

Edited September 14, 2017 by Ryan_Vickers