So far all of my Linux gaming has been without mods, but I would like to play Grim Dawn with all of the community tools and QoL mods that make the game a great experience. Does anybody know of any good guides to get Grim Dawn and all of its mods going on Linux? Is this something that I will need to do in a sandboxed setup like Bottles?
I own GD on GOG and Steam (bought it twice to support the devs).
EDIT: I could not find a definitive guide, so I am using this post to collects instructions for the different mods into one place.
Mounts are setup in ‘/etc/fstab’ and mounting happens during boot up automatically. This makes for easy access in the terminal and GUI file managers. YOU, the user, must create a few handy folders (mount paths) in the Linux file system to keep everything neat. This also separates your explicit handy work from where temp. mounts would be automatically placed by the OS. Temp mounts happen when you inserting a USB stick or DVD disk, for example.
Mount Paths (must be mounted with exec flag and needs rwx permissions):
The NTFS partitions will be mounted and owned by the Linux root user (administrator). The ‘/my_data’ and ‘/my_data/linux_gaming’ folders should be assigned to your user account and your personal group. You will need to create the ‘/my_data’ folder at the command line by using the ‘mkdir’ command. Use the change owner command ‘chown’ to change ownership assignment. Below is an example (substitute ‘ghoultek’ with your user name):
cd /
sudo mkdir /my_data
sudo chown ghoultek:ghoultek my_data
cd /my_data
mkdir linux_gaming
sudo chown ghoultek:ghoultek linux_gaming
cd linux_gaming
mkdir lutris
mkdir steam
For rwx (read, write, execute) permissions you use the change mode command ‘chmod’ at the command line. Here is an example:
cd /my_data
sudo chmod 777 linux_gaming
cd linux_gaming
chmod 777 lutris
chmod 777 steam
For mounting with exec flag I suggest using GDisks or KDE partition manager to do the work for you because your partitions will be identified by their UUID and not the /dev/device_name_and_number as described above in the drives/partitions section. It is easy to introduce typos into /etc/fstab file even if you are extra careful. I won’t go into the details of manual editing because that could be its own How-To guide. Just know that if you don’t have the linux_gaming folder mounted with the exec flag, Steam will give you an error when you go to add it to the Steam Library. When you add it to the Steam Library you have to set it as the default so all of your games will be installed there. This is done after the mount path work is done. Here is how you get it done:
Gaming Data & Backup Folder Layout within a ‘grim_dawn’ Top Level Folder:
When you do backups of all of your data (gaming & non-gaming) you have one top level folder to grab for gaming related stuff. In windows this would be on a separate drive letter from drive-C.
Folder Paths to enter into GD Stash during config:
GD Stash Launch Script To Replace The GDS Batch File (must have u+x permission to be executable):
#/bin/bash
cd /my_data/gaming_data/grim_dawn
java -Xms1024m -Xmx1024m -jar GDStash.jar
The script is just a text file. You can put an icon on the desktop, pin an icon on the taskbar, or add an icon to your dock, that points to the script for EZ access. You are pretty much done with only a very tiny amount of work at the command line and you didn’t even break a sweat.
If you run into trouble trying to adapt the concepts in this guide to your own setup, stop. Take a deep breath and think…
If you see terms in this guide that are foreign to you, just hit the google machine (ex: ‘what is ext4 linux’). You can also look up details on commands at the command line (ex: ‘man chmod’ and ‘chown --help’). Don’t be afraid to post questions in r/Grimdawn, r/linux_gaming, r/linux, the Steam forums, and the GD official forums. If you find a mistake/error in this guide please post and I will update. Good luck. You have now entered the Linux speed way. LET THE GAMES BEGIN.
For the forsaken!.. ahem… for the penguins!