Is there a consensus on how to run Steam and games isolated from the main system? I've seen Flatpak mentioned in some Reddit post but I'm not sure how good the separation is. Everything about Flatpak sounds like an early work in progress, but I can be convinced otherwise.

I don't trust Steam or the closed source games at all. Currently I've got a second disk with a separate system for gaming, but I very rarely have the motivation to reboot. I want to game more (and spend less time on social media) but compromising my main OS is out of the question. Stuff in the home directory should be isolated from the games. Ideally no network access too, but Steam will not work in that case.

If someone has seen a ready made guide I'd be happy to read it. Any tips would be nice too.

  • Auster@lemm.ee
    ·
    1 month ago

    I'd have 4 main solutions I can think of, and that can be used together if needed:

    • VMs for running Steam and for games that MUST use Steam.
    • Emulators, wrappers and source ports for games that allow that, e.g. BSNES for running River Girls Zero, Joiplay / Artemis / EasyRPG / AquariaOSE for games that use compatible engines, etc.
    • Having a separated computer you can use 100% offline (requires sideloading games)
    • The annoying idea some users give that strays from the original question, but that I think that is valid for once - to get the games from places that openly distribute it DRM free
    • oldfart@lemm.ee
      ·
      1 month ago

      Well, DRM is not the problem here, I don't trust the games too. DRM or not, they can do what they want with my data.

      I'm not saying DRM is good but it's not in the scope of this post.