Configure Proton for enhanced gaming

Gaming on Linux used to be a dead-zone. Then along came Valve and its ill-fated SteamOS and BOOM! From its ashes rose Steam Play – based on its Wine-powered Proton technology – and a first-world gaming experience for Linux users that can bear a walled garden. Since its inception, Steam Play has developed a rich ecosystem of third party add-ons that we thought was finally worth exploring.

For the uninitiated, Steam Play is Valve’s overall service for Linux, using the Steam software service to run both native Linux games and Windows games through Proton. Proton is a modified version of Wine developed by Valve that allows compatibility for newer DirectX games, and uses the new Vulkan graphics API for strongly increased performance.

As such, before we can continue, it’s vital to have the latest graphics drivers possible installed on your system or Steam Play titles may not run. With that out of the way, join us as we explore the Steam Play gaming scene.

Installing Steam

There are a number of methods to install Steam (it has 32-bit library dependencies that can complicate self-installs) and it’s worth checking your distro’s package manager or software store before resorting to anything needlessly difficult. Many distributions have some kind of shortcut to install Steam as painlessly as possible – it could even sit somewhere in your menu. It doesn’t matter if you get an old version because Steam will update itself anyway, so you may as well use the easiest method available.

If Steam isn’t available somehow on your system, you can download it from the website. Unfortunately, it only provides .DEB files (because everyone runs Debian. If you can’t find a package here, you can also install Steam as a Flatpak through Flathub at flathub.org: . valvesoftware.Steam