I have both Fedora and Windows 11 installed on the same drive and I'm wondering how I can access my games on both operating systems. I've heard that getting one OS to access another's partitions can be tricky. Would it be possible to create a third partition just for games that both systems can use? By the way, I apologize for any typos—I'm a bit hungover from a birthday party yesterday!
2 Answers
Fedora uses the BTRFS file system while Windows runs on NTFS. The thing is, Windows can't read Linux volumes at all, but Linux can read NTFS. While you can technically play games off an NTFS drive in Linux, it's not the most reliable option and can cause issues. I’d recommend just installing your games separately on both partitions. If you can, getting a second SSD for Linux might be the best way to go.
I actually use an NTFS partition for my games and general files. Just install an NTFS driver on Linux and make sure to reconfigure Steam to point to the correct steamapps directory. That works pretty smoothly!
Here's a helpful link for setting that up: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Using-a-NTFS-disk-with-Linux-and-Windows.