Steam Games on Linux

UPDATED: May 11, 2011

A few people have asked me how to copy Steam Games already downloaded in Windows to their Linux Steam installation. This also works for copying Steam game files from one location to another – just substitute folder locations as needed.

There are a few ways of doing this – but this way works for me everytime:

NOTE: this may not work if you did not install Steam in the same default folder for both of your installations – it doesn’t have to be c:/ on the Windows install… just at least /Steam for the main installation folder as far as I can tell. If you have any problems please post a comment on where your installed directories are on both Windows / Linux so I can update this How To. Thanks!

SOME PEOPLE ARE SKIPPING STEPS 1-5   –  this works too in most cases – NOTE: do not just copy the whole STEAMAPPS FOLDER OVER! Copy each of the games one at a time to avoid problems…

1) Open Steam in Linux

2) Select the game you want to install on Linux

3) Start installing / downloading it

4) Wait until the game gets to about 1%

5) Stop the download

6) Open the location of your Steam install

WINE ONLY: /home/username/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Steam/steamapps  folder in your .wine installation folder
WINETRICKS INSTALLED STEAM: /home/username/.local/share/wineprefixes/steam/drive_c/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/

You should should see your game GCF and/or NCF files there. This is why we started the download: to preload the folders and config / download files.  If you skipped steps 1-5 you will not see any game files…

7) Open the /Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common folder on your Windows partition or wherever you have your game files backed up.

8) Now on your Linux installation open the /steamapps/common Folder  - you should see your game folder there…. IF NOT it will be in /Steam/steamapps/YOURUSERNAME   - OR if you skipped steps 1-5 you will not see any game files…

9) Find the /GAMENAME folder and copy the whole /GAMENAME folder from Windows to Linux - OVERWRITING EVERYTHING that may have already been downloaded to your Linux folder…

10) Once you have finished the copying, go ahead and unpause the game download in the Steam Client. Steam will then start parsing the “downloaded” content – give it some time as it can take a few minutes for large games. You may also have to click unpause / resume a couple to times to fully scan the folder.

11) Right click the game title – select Properties > Local Files > Verify Game Cache

You should now have a copy of the game ready to run on your Linux Box. :D