Preamble
Having jumped from Debian to Fedora, I needed to reinstall common apps. Luckily, most apps/drivers ship in flatpaks or Fedora’s package manager, however steamtinkerlaunch wasn’t one of them. That gives us 3 options:
- Go with a Flatpak install (easy, but requires Steam Flatpak)
- use Protonup-Qt (medium – still involves installing dependencies)
- build from source (hard – lots of custom installs)
I chose option 3 and documented the process for future reference.
Installing Dependencies
Install Hard Dependencies
Most hard dependencies should already be installed by with Fedora or your Desktop Environment except for yad, xdotool and xwininfo. Simply run dnf to install any missing dependencies.
sudo dnf install gawk bash git make procps unzip wget xdotool xprop xrandr xxd xwininfo yadInstall Optional Dependencies
You can choose to install these depending on the level of additional functionality you desire:
| Package/Program | Description | SteamTinkerLaunch Wiki Page |
|---|---|---|
| Boxtron | Steam Compatibility Tool for running DOSBox games natively. | Available. |
| GameMode | Configurable game optimization tool from Feral Interactive. | Available. |
| GameScope | Tool from Valve for running games in an isolated Xwayland instance. | Available. |
| GDB | Debugging utility for programs from GNU. | N/A |
| ImageMagick | Command line image editing suite. Used for Game Icons for Game Desktop Files. | N/A |
| jq | JSON Parser utility. Used to get updated Proton versions for Vortex, and for other things like Steam Deck compatibility rating. Installing this is highly recommended. | N/A |
| libnotify | Used to send desktop notifications. A custom notifier may be defined. See Notifier wiki page. | N/A |
| MangoHud (including MangoApp) | Vulkan and OpenGL overlay for monitoring performance metrics such as FPS, temperatures, CPU/GPU load and more. | Available. |
| net-tools | Allows for game network activity monitoring. | Available. |
| Nyrna | Utility for putting games and applications to sleep to free up resources. | Available. |
| p7zip | Command line port of 7-Zip to Unix-like systems. Required for extracting SpecialK archives. | N/A |
| pev | Extracts data from game executables. | Available. |
| ReplaySorcery | Low-overhead instant-replay solution for Linux, similar to AMD ReLive/Nvidia ShadowPlay/OBS Replay Buffer. | Available |
| rsync | Versatile file copying and backup utility. Used for backing up and restoring the steamuser folder of a Proton prefix. | Available. |
| ScummVM | Runs classic graphical adventure games and RPGs. Required for starting ScummVM games natively via Roberta. | Available. |
| strace | Diagnostic and debugging utility used for writing game logs. | Available. |
| usbutils | USB utilities library (including lsusb).Used for checking if a VR headset is present. | N/A |
| vkBasalt | Vulkan post-processing (shader) layer similar to and mostly compatible with ReShade shaders. | Available. |
| vr-video-player | Virtual reality video player for playing stereoscopic videos, regular videos and games. | N/A |
| Wine | Runs Windows applications on Unix systems. Used for running applications with system Wine and performing associated Wine configurations. | Available. |
| Winetricks | Provides workarounds for various problems with Wine. Used for installing Winetricks workarounds/verbs on Wine/Proton prefixes. | Available. |
| xdg-utils | Desktop environment application integration, such as for opening default browsers or text editors. | N/A |
Install Optional Dependencies with DNF
Some of these will be preinstalled by the Operating System or Steam. Most can be installed with Fedora’s package manager.
sudo dnf -y install gamemode gamescope gdb ImageMagick jq libnotify mangohud net-tools p7zip rsync scummvm strace usbutils vkbasalt wine winetricks xdg-utilsBoxtron and Nyrna can be installed with Flatpak. Follow the instructions here to enable Flatpak if you didn’t enable third-party repositories on setup.
boxtron (FlatHub)
flatpak install -y flathub Boxtronnyrna (FlatHub)
flatpak install -y flathub codes.merritt.Nyrnareplaysorcery – (skipped)
As mentioned in the Debian install guide, Wayland is currently unsupported on NVIDIA hardware.
pev – (skipped)
Unnecessary for most users.
vr-video-player (skipped)
As previously mentioned, I had trouble compiling from source on Debian and the app is surplus to my needs.
Install steamtinkerlaunch
Download the latest release from the github release page
- Navigate to your download folder and extract the source code
# Replace the version number with the version consistent with your download
cd ~/Downloads && tar -xf steamtinkerlaunch-12.12.tar.gz && cd steamtinkerlaunch-12.12- build and install system wide
sudo make install- run steamtinkerlaunch to generate config files
./steamtinkerlaunch- update GTK Icons
gtk-update-icon-cache- Add steamtinkerlaunch as a compatibility tool
steamtinkerlaunch compat add- Restart Steam
Using steamtinkerlaunch
- For games that run under proton, right click the game in Steam and select force compatibility. Select “Steam Tinker Launch” from the compatibility menu.
- To set Steam Tinker Launch as the default compatibility tool, open Steam > Settings > Compatibility, tick the “Enable Steam Play For All Titles” checkbox and select “Steam Tinker Launch” from the “Run other titles with:” drop-down menu.
For Linux native games, right click > properties: add steamtinkerlaunch %command% to the launch options.
Now when you launch a title you will have 2 seconds to click the main menu button to enter the tweaks page.
You can increase this delay by clicking the GAME MENU button
The default value is 2, but can be adjusted according to personal preference. I set mine to 5.
And from here you’re free to tinker ’til your heart’s content! Set a custom version of Proton, Enable common settings such as NVAPI for DLSS, Reflex and PhysX, enable ReShades, use Mod Managers, adjust performance overlays, whatever you want!
Be sure to consult the steamtinkerlaunch wiki for a more complete reference guide.
