Really bummed your experience has been like that! :(
In my humble experience, I’ve gotten almost everything new and old to run via Steam, or my GoG games to run via Heroic. Vermintide 2, Metro: Exodus, Enter the Gungeon, X-COM 2, BattleTech, MechWarrior 5, I even got old stuff like Sims 2 working flawlessly via Bottles.
Trying to install stuff like you would on Windows by running installers manually seems to not be so great though…could that have been it perhaps?
Using front-ends that manage Proton / WINE for you makes the process so much easier.
I ditched Windows entirely because Vermintide kept BSODing my Win10 install, and it wouldn’t even let me “refresh” the OS. Fully doing work and play on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed these days and the only thing I’m REALLY missing is VR.
I knew I had whole folders of indie games that are just a folder with an executable, so I trialed those with Lutris. It needed a huge setup form just to run one of them, and when I finished, it wouldn’t run and gave no errors.
Having that as my experience for, as I said, a whole folder of games, wasn’t really in my interest. It takes too long for the community to say “Hey, I got Assassin’s Creed running! Just use Proton 8.13 beta, and add these 8 command line options”
In my experience with standalone EXE installers and Lutris, the problem is often that Lutris just guesses wrong the name of the game executable after installation is done or can’t even guess it.
Personally, every single time I had a problem of installing a game with Lutris from an EXE installer and when starting it afterwards the game goes to “Running” (see the left top list) and then quickly ends with no error, it’s Lutris having guessed the game launch EXE incorrectly.
Having started with using Lutris’ GoG integration first (were an install script generally takes care of all that) and only later moved to standalone EXE installers, I can see how one would lose hope on the whole thing if they started with the installers since so far for me almost all of such installations failed to give me something that just runs without tweaks afterwards, and for almost all of them the problem was Lutris picking up the wrong launch EXE or even having no launch EXE at all (which gives you a small and easy to miss warning in the Lutris install log at the end of installation).
If you still can, go and check in the game configuration in Lutris for one of those games (it will be in a tab with only a handful of option, not in the last tab with a ton of obscure options) if the launch EXE is present and correct.
The version of Lutris I installed used a file opening GUI to select the exact EXE to run. I was using simple unzipped folders, not installers.
Even if the fault of the game in question ends up being simple:
It’s not fun to correct that fault on every single game I run
It could be a slightly different fault on every single game
I am fine with one-time setup configuration for my OS to get preferences right, devices working, and settle myself to my steady workflow. I am not okay with doing laborious one-time setup for every single game I ever try.
Oh yeah, it’s still not at the same level of ease of use as Windows.
It’s massivelly better if compared to the old days in Linux and, curiously, it’s easier for those who in Windows were never “sophisticated” user that did not relly on store frontends to manage the installation for them, but if you’re the kind of user of Windows that does actually know what folders and executable files are, it’s more complex to get going than in Linux.
Curiously in my experience even Linux native games are way more complex to get working in Linux that the Windows equivalent are in Windows (or even Linux: I have at least one game were the Windows version installs almost flawlessly in Linux whilst the Linux version is a “missing library” nightmare), unless they’re recent enough that they come in something like Snap or Flatpack)
If you’re using Steam, they use a native Linux client and a custom Proton that has all the settings and presets for their game library.
Everything I bought on Steam works for me under Linux Mint. And almost all my older games, like “Deus Ex” or “Giants: Citizen Kabuto” I can run directly under Wine with the default settings.
I get that, and I like it. When it works. (Hitman 3, which I know works under certain distros/Linux hardware, did not load levels for me on Linux Mint 22) Even on Bazzite, Helldivers 2 needed command line args to avoid a white border around the game in fullscreen.
Plus, much as I like Steam, I like competition, and I buy games off of other stores pretty often. Some of those stores just give you a zip file to download in your web browser.
Really bummed your experience has been like that! :(
In my humble experience, I’ve gotten almost everything new and old to run via Steam, or my GoG games to run via Heroic. Vermintide 2, Metro: Exodus, Enter the Gungeon, X-COM 2, BattleTech, MechWarrior 5, I even got old stuff like Sims 2 working flawlessly via Bottles.
Trying to install stuff like you would on Windows by running installers manually seems to not be so great though…could that have been it perhaps?
Using front-ends that manage Proton / WINE for you makes the process so much easier.
I ditched Windows entirely because Vermintide kept BSODing my Win10 install, and it wouldn’t even let me “refresh” the OS. Fully doing work and play on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed these days and the only thing I’m REALLY missing is VR.
I knew I had whole folders of indie games that are just a folder with an executable, so I trialed those with Lutris. It needed a huge setup form just to run one of them, and when I finished, it wouldn’t run and gave no errors.
Having that as my experience for, as I said, a whole folder of games, wasn’t really in my interest. It takes too long for the community to say “Hey, I got Assassin’s Creed running! Just use Proton 8.13 beta, and add these 8 command line options”
In my experience with standalone EXE installers and Lutris, the problem is often that Lutris just guesses wrong the name of the game executable after installation is done or can’t even guess it.
Personally, every single time I had a problem of installing a game with Lutris from an EXE installer and when starting it afterwards the game goes to “Running” (see the left top list) and then quickly ends with no error, it’s Lutris having guessed the game launch EXE incorrectly.
Having started with using Lutris’ GoG integration first (were an install script generally takes care of all that) and only later moved to standalone EXE installers, I can see how one would lose hope on the whole thing if they started with the installers since so far for me almost all of such installations failed to give me something that just runs without tweaks afterwards, and for almost all of them the problem was Lutris picking up the wrong launch EXE or even having no launch EXE at all (which gives you a small and easy to miss warning in the Lutris install log at the end of installation).
If you still can, go and check in the game configuration in Lutris for one of those games (it will be in a tab with only a handful of option, not in the last tab with a ton of obscure options) if the launch EXE is present and correct.
The version of Lutris I installed used a file opening GUI to select the exact EXE to run. I was using simple unzipped folders, not installers.
Even if the fault of the game in question ends up being simple:
I am fine with one-time setup configuration for my OS to get preferences right, devices working, and settle myself to my steady workflow. I am not okay with doing laborious one-time setup for every single game I ever try.
Oh yeah, it’s still not at the same level of ease of use as Windows.
It’s massivelly better if compared to the old days in Linux and, curiously, it’s easier for those who in Windows were never “sophisticated” user that did not relly on store frontends to manage the installation for them, but if you’re the kind of user of Windows that does actually know what folders and executable files are, it’s more complex to get going
thanin Linux.Curiously in my experience even Linux native games are way more complex to get working in Linux that the Windows equivalent are in Windows (or even Linux: I have at least one game were the Windows version installs almost flawlessly in Linux whilst the Linux version is a “missing library” nightmare), unless they’re recent enough that they come in something like Snap or Flatpack)
If you’re using Steam, they use a native Linux client and a custom Proton that has all the settings and presets for their game library.
Everything I bought on Steam works for me under Linux Mint. And almost all my older games, like “Deus Ex” or “Giants: Citizen Kabuto” I can run directly under Wine with the default settings.
I get that, and I like it. When it works. (Hitman 3, which I know works under certain distros/Linux hardware, did not load levels for me on Linux Mint 22) Even on Bazzite, Helldivers 2 needed command line args to avoid a white border around the game in fullscreen.
Plus, much as I like Steam, I like competition, and I buy games off of other stores pretty often. Some of those stores just give you a zip file to download in your web browser.