Any way to prevent save files being shared by different Steam users on distros that depend on steam?(SteamOS/ChimeraOS/HoloISO) (lemmy.eco.br)

submitted 9 months ago by ChristianWS@lemmy.eco.br to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.ml

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I'm thinking about making a dedicated gaming PC which is to be shared in our household. ChimeraOS/HoloISO seems the ideal solution to that... Except that games thay it means that all save files of games that don't use Steam Cloud OR write save files on Valve's recommended directory are shared between users.

Is there any tool that can recognize the current active Steam User and swap save files on the background? The other solution is to forego using HoloISO/ChimeraOS/SteamOS and install a traditional distro and make different users have different system accounts, but that sounds a nightmare to deal with due to Steam Family Sharing requiring that all steam users are logged into each system users, so the library is shared across all of them. Not to mention config files are going to be separated as well...

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[-] everett@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 months ago

I don't know anything about those distros, but if there isn't a good way to do it here's a shitty one: maintain a separate OS partition/installation for each person and have the "login screen" be the bootloader menu.

[-] ChristianWS@lemmy.eco.br 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Those distros are basically focused on offering a console like experience on Linux, as in, a machine that is hooked to a TV, has no keyboard or mouse and only method of input is a gaming controller. They all start directly into Steam Big Picture mode, and there's a single system user, all users are Steam Users. This works, but has the issues with save files I'm trying to get a solution that hopefully doesn't involve changing to a traditional distro

[-] everett@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I understood all that from your post. I'm just saying that if the distros end up being as inflexible as you've described, you may need to look for a way to get flexibility at a different level of the "stack."

You can add and launch arbitrary non-Steam games from Steam, right? Can you use Steam to launch a script that moves around files in the background and relaunches Steam? And have a named launcher to "switch" to each user?

this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024

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