I bought a refurbished steam deck finally and am thinking about what my ahem acquisition workflow will be. This is what I’m thinking from my past experience daily driving Linux (arch btw):
For Linux native games, easy - just torrent it and/or install it and play.
For Windows:
- For game file dumps, add the .exe in Steam as a non-steam game and run it with proton.
- For setup installations (repacks etc.), run the setup.exe with wine, install to a location, then do the same as above.
For any issues with the above, try installation scripts from Lutris and review protonDB and wineHQ to troubleshoot.
Is there an easier way I’m missing?
I like using third party launchers like Bottles since you can add a steam shortcut, and easily pass --unshare=network in the launch parameters when launching to disable Internet access to the cracked games.