this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
34 points (97.2% liked)

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

54609 readers
418 users here now

⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others



Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Hi,

I recently built a new gaming computer and have been contemplating about the OS.

I prefer to move away from windows given obvious reasons and do like using Linux, but my experience with my steam deck has taught me that pirating games in Linux is hit or miss.

I played around with windows LTSC and honestly, seems like windows without the bloatware.

So question is, how is game pirating on Linux (in a desktop, not steam deck).

Is it as smooth as windows or should I just say fuck it and accept that my gaming computer has to stay windows for another generation?

top 29 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago

Use Bottles with the Sandbox option enabled (and sound enabled). So, native performance but without access to files outside the Wine prefix (virtual Windows folder where the game is installed) and without network access. This way, you don't have to worry about games phoning home, containing a crypto miner or ransomware.

Also, forget about FitGirl repacks on Linux, most don't unpack correctly.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 day ago (2 children)

In my experience, there is nearly no difference between windows and linux when it comes to piracy. There are a few games that linux can't run (anticheat), but generally that shouldn't be an issue for games that you would typically pirate. Linux does have a standard learning curve though, and you'll need to get familiar with Lutris or some other Wine prefix manager to manage your games. If you're dedicated to moving to linux, game piracy should not be a deciding factor.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 20 hours ago

Also you can run them in a container or a sandbox so a plus for linux

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

So I tried to get a couple games working on my steam deck that didn’t work at all. I do remember trying to run thing with wine, but just gave up and installed the game on a windows computer.

So would I just google Lutris and go from there?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Did you try Desktop Mode on the Deck? Makes things a lot easier. Haven't had much issue with things like this with my Steam Deck, but on Linux PC, I've had none. Ever. Try Bazzite, it's built for gaming.

I would just Google, "using bottles/lutris to install game on Linux" and I imagine you could find people walking through it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

Oh yeah, I really liked desktop mode.

Went a little crazy with my deck and setup things like remote play to my ps5 and a dev environment in case I wanted to do some coding on the go.

I did get some games working, but it wasn’t plug and play like windows, sounds like it just takes some tinkering which is great to hear.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

The steam deck is kinda inconvenient when any level of tinkering is required due to switching between game and desktop mode and the input if you dont attach a keyboard and mouse. Non-deck distros lose the quick settings which I really like.

Try bottles too. you may or may not find it easier than lutris. I find the dependencies easier to install. After checking if anyone has already documented what dependencies are needed (directx, dotnet, etc.), I usually start with the default wine bottles uses, then try wine-ge and tkg at least before giving up. I have yet to find a game that cant be made to work but other software can be very finicky especially once dotnet is involved.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Not sure what quick settings you mean, but have you tried Bazzite yet? I've been using it on my laptop for several months now, and it's been fantastic. Built for gaming, and it seems to already have a ton of shit set up correctly that id normally need to do myself on Arch

[–] [email protected] 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Just to complete the trio, there is also Heroic, which is similiar to lutris but in my opinion a bit nicer to configure :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

there is also Heroic, which is similiar to lutris but in my opinion a bit nicer to configure :)

Heroic defaults to an ancient version of Wine-GE. They are currently in the process to migrate to a new tech called umu-launcher which allows them to use Valve's Proton and Proton-GE directly. It's basically done, so should appear in Heroic 2.16 but if one tries Heroic today, the compatibility might be worse than Lutris or Bottles.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I'm not sure what a good written guide for manually running linux games is off the top of my head, but generally yeah you install Lutris, install the latest Proton-GE version through e.g. ProtonUp-QT, create a game entry in Lutris with a "Prefix" location dedicated to your wine prefix, pick Proton-GE as the runner, copy the game into the generated prefix, target the normal EXE, and launch it. Sometimes if a game isn't launching you'll need to use "winetricks" to install vcrun2022 and dotnet48 dependencies into the wine prefix, since each Wine prefix is sort of like a copy of windows, and windows has a handful of dependencies that games sometimes rely on. I've heard you can also just add the game as a "non-steam game" to steam, but I've not bothered as Lutris gives more control. Again I can't vouch for any specific guides, but the keywords from this post should help target a general direction to move in.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

That's way too much work than simply installing fucking windows and be done

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

Half of the instructions there are installing tools that you only install once, not every game.

And once you set up Lutris, it's pretty trivial to open .exe files with it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

How does one install pirated games (e.g. from fitgirl) on Linux?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago

What others said... I think I've even run the installer as a non-steam app through Steam using proton and that worked as well. Unless I'm misremembering.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

I used Lutris before but I do Bottles now, fitgirl worked on both fantastic for me

[–] [email protected] 16 points 19 hours ago

Open it with wine, no other tweaks.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

I used to repack games for a group in Linux pirating. Most of the time, there was no tweaking. Only the badly optimized ones like ragnarok, elden ring new dlc, etc needed some other work.

You can install games from dodi, fitgirl, online-fix, all just fine. You can also download linux repacks from jc141.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You can run the same translation layer that Steam uses for your pirated games, compatibility will be similar to what protondb reports.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago

Once installed, I think you can often even run the exe of the pirated game through Steam as a "non-steam app" using Proton

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I still dual boot with Windows for gaming, so I can't comment on the next gaming as much, but I will say that LTSC is everything that it seems to be (or not be).

Windows without any bullshit, I used it for years.

I use windows solely for ease of gaming so I haven't bothered to replace the stock, but if you do keep using Windows, LTSC is definitely the way to go.

as far as the articles going around, Linux is catching up but is not yet as effortless less as Windows for gaming specifically.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Where do you get installation media for Windows LTSC?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

From Microsoft. They actually provide ISO downloads for the 11 LTSC versions, so there's not really any reason to go grab some random one off totally-legit-software-and-totatlly-not-malware.com or whatever.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Imagine I'm an idiot, do you have a link or description for where to find those? I looked for them some time ago and found nothing. 🥹

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-11-iot-enterprise-ltsc

Keep in mind, though, that you'll still have to do some activation and KMS hackery to make them usable, but you can at least use an installer that's going to be clean.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago

Massgrave (known widely for their Windows and Office activation scripts) provides download links as well, useful if you use a VPN since Microsoft blocks you from downloading.

Directory link: https://massgrave.dev/genuine-installation-media

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I found a torrent that had windows 11 LTSC, pre activated and with office.

When I made the bootable usb, it had options where I could just opt out of the data collection and all that so it wouldn’t even show that during install.

Pretty good experience. Feels weird to say that about a Microsoft product.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago