30
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
30 points (100.0% liked)
Linux
57274 readers
437 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
TLDR: use a prefix manager instead of plain Wine
You can install them anywhere, but if you're using plain Wine, I'd suggest you instead go with something that will manage these locations for you.
Each Wine setup has what is called a "prefix", which in the simplest sense is just a folder that is setup like a Windows C:\ drive, and includes all the shared libraries and bits needed to run the game. When a program run is launched, it is locked into this prefix, so when it goes looking for files as it would on Windows, it's going to find a familiar folder structure, including installed dependencies like MS VC libraries and DirectX stuff.
Now...when you as a user are just using Wine directly, you'd generally be using the SAME prefix to install multiple games, which is hard to manage, and just clunky.
Prefix managers like Proton, Lutris, Bottles and even Heroic will make a new prefix for EACH program, making things like troubleshooting, switching runtimes, or invoking custom configs per program a LOT easier.
Oh, so I don't even need to launch with Wine necessarily? Like I noticed Heroic has an install game option, so I could change the Heroic directory to, say, /mnt/drive2/Games on my other drive, and run the game .exe from the Heroic installer?
Heroic also has an option to move games to a different directory so you can move them between drives easily after they're already installed.
Yup. Same with any other as well. If you don't want to use Steam, I think a lot of people find Lutris and Heroic simple.and functional for all levels of user, and they also include the ability to run Steam Runtimes and Proton versions pretty simply too.
All of these launchers run Wine under the hood, and are a good abstraction on top of that entire stack. Just makes it super simple to manage.
Great, appreciate the info