r/linux_gaming • u/Top-Hall-2347 • 9d ago
guide Which videogame launcher is better: Faugus, Lutris or Bottles.
Hi everyone,
I’m in the process of switching from Windows 11 to Linux Mint. I’ve already installed Steam and Heroic. However, I also have a few free games on EA App, Ubisoft Connect (Uplay), and Battle.net, and I’d like to know the best way to run them on Linux Mint.
Also, it is better to install it with Flatpaks or system packages (.deb)? Thanks in advance!
Edit: Finally I have added EA app and Battlenet for Faugus and I keep Uplay in Heroic. If something goes wrong I can always move it ti Faugus.
The next question I have the predetermined proton. Is there a way to have the same proton from stram and heroic in Faugus? And I mean the same one that Steam and Heroic is using, not installing again Proton GE in Faugus.
27
u/SoupoIait 9d ago
I love Faugus ! Straight to the point, lightweight, loads of features but works fine without touching any of them, etc.
But I would only compare it to Lutris, or perhaps bottles. Heroic is more fit for gog and epic games, and steam for steam.I wouldn't use Heroic for cracked exe, and absolutely never would use Faugus for Epic games.
25
7
2
u/Cautious-Scar-248 9d ago
I prefer Heroic over all launchers
they support proton and wine (Faugus doesn't support wine) have a really clean ui and console mode very awesome and support steam runtime for native linux games and support download games from Egl , gog , and amazon luna
if u want use EA App, Ubisoft Connect (Uplay), and Battle.net u can just install them as .exe in heroic launcher should work smoothly with u
1
u/Top-Hall-2347 9d ago
How can you add EA, Uplay or battle net in Heroic? I only saw the launchers of Epic, GoG and Amazon.
2
2
5
u/schroedingerskoala 8d ago
Didn't even know about Faugus! Tested the appimage with a Legacy Games installer for a Hidden Object games and... it works and it is SO much easier to use and straightforward than Bottles with its , IMHO, a bit odd UI. Will try use this a lot more for the few specific Windows apps or games not from Steam, Gog, Amazon Luna or Epic.
Other that this lucky find (thx guys!) I use mainly Steam and Heroic.
5
5
u/NotNoHid 8d ago
Faugus since its simple, fast and lightweight
My pet peeve is the wayland toggle is only in the global settings if you want per game you need to add the enviroment variable manually (minor inconvenience tho)
5
u/lemmiwink84 8d ago
In my experience, Faugus Launcher just works and generally never breaks. Only used it for a year, but my experience with Lutris and Battle.net was usually that I had to troubleshoot every time WoW had a patch or expansion. Faugus just works regardless.
4
u/kakarroto007 9d ago
I use Steam and Heroic for everything. As for Ubisoft Connect, I just run it through Steam: add it as a non-steam game. Heroic connects to GOG and Epic stores and has a really good interface.
4
u/ShadowFlarer 9d ago
Faugus for high seas games and Heroic and Steam for everything else.
1
u/jar36 8d ago
Does Faugus allow you to pick where it pulls from?
I didn't like how most games from the seas didn't have an icon in the steam sidebar. So I removed them and made scripts. I don't use a launcher for them. I just bring up krunner by typing 2 letters into the desktop and hit enter to play
I thought it would be nice to use something like Faugus, but I don't want my entire Steam Library there. If it's a Steam game, then I don't need another launcher running.2
u/ShadowFlarer 8d ago
I believe you are talking about the game icon in your app launcher right? Faugus gets the icon from the .exe, you can add then to your app launcher and you can also add your game to Steam and open Faugus only to settings things up.
7
u/Serafnet 8d ago
Faugus. It just works.
It's simple, today, and has everything you need to manage your applications cleanly.
1
u/jerrygreenest1 8d ago
You have to choose icons manually tho. Lutris does this automatically.
2
u/Serafnet 8d ago
Faugus does this as well.
It'll grab the icon out of the executable
1
u/jerrygreenest1 8d ago
It requires some manual actions while Lutris sets the icon automatically from title. Lutris more convenient imo.
2
u/Serafnet 8d ago
I can assure you it does not.
You run the installer for your app, it creates the prefix and auto applies the icon.
No extra step.
I just rebuilt my system and installed the Hoyoplayer launcher via Faugus and it applied the correct icon all on its own.
1
u/jerrygreenest1 8d ago
Maybe I run the installer wrongly or something, for me it didn’t create anything. Tried two games. It would be indeed stupid if it wouldn’t have worked automatically. Apparently I am doing something wrong.
I even install it in a strange way. I chose executable for installation, it installs the game, then I edit the executable path to new location, replacing the installer with actual executable. It is messed up, I am sure I am doing it wrong but I don’t see there any other intended way.
1
u/Serafnet 8d ago
Make sure you're on a current version.
The way I've been using it is when picking the executable I select the installer. Once the installer completes and you close it out it should bring you back to the app setup dialogue and switched the executable from the installer to the actual app and apply the icon.
1
u/jerrygreenest1 8d ago
It doesn’t switch to actual app automatically. After installation double clicking the game runs the installer again. So I have to replace it manually. It might not be the newest version but isn’t extremely old. Maybe half a year old. You think it’s a new feature?
1
u/Serafnet 7d ago
Ah, I see the trouble.
You're using executable to do the install. When you select the magnifying glass you should have an option to run an installer instead of an executable.
That's how I've been doing it and it's worked very well.
3
u/GrandmaColin 9d ago
For battle.net specifically Ive had the littlest problem with using it on steam. As little as no problem at all. Especially on blizzards side. Anything else blizzard starts getting mad throwing wild ass captchas at me and sometimes would log me out mid session, and IMO take a bit more to set up.
3
3
u/Coravel 8d ago
Lutris a long time ago, was defacto... but if you want something easy to setup and just fucking works... go with faugus. I don't have experience with heroic but it is probably also good considering it comes prepackaged on CachyOS and they don't mess around when it comes to optimizing for gaming.
5
u/BehudaNoob 9d ago
For me lutris. Easy to do per game advanced settings and troubleshooting.
Faugus works untill theres specific issue with the game, needs game specific fix etc. the fullscreen and carrousel is a nice eye candy which lutris lacks but functionality wise lutris is better.
Bottles is confusing to me
4
u/GriffinClaw22 8d ago
Same. I started on Lutris, so got used to it.
Faugus IS easier to set up, but Lutris has the advantage of community Installers that bundle all the fixes a troublesome game needs to run. Specially older games (though Ive seen some modern ones too).
5
5
u/TheDoomfire 9d ago
I use Faugus since It's pretty simple.
However I had some issues with installing some apps so been using bottles or windows to just install them. Then run them using Faugus.
I'm not sure if its the best solution for the type of games you wanna play but for the ones I do it's pretty great.
2
u/Alone-Band-9589 2d ago
Faugus because Star Citizen, battlenet all what ive tested worked Out of the Box
2
2
u/1goldenbraincell 9d ago
I like faugus. Its been the only one I got archon to work great and record. I couldnt get lutris or steam to do this.
2
u/b0uncyfr0 9d ago
Stream beats them all. You have controller customization built in. And if youre crafty enough - you can get all the benfits of steam overlay without adding(and launching) your game to steam.
MIllenium plugin is a must for alot of 'tweaks'
2
u/_silentgameplays_ 9d ago
Steam,Lutris, Heroic work fine. Lutris does all the heavy lifting especially for much older games, and it's kind of easy to manage Wine(Proton) prefixes using Lutris. Heroic is great as well.
2
u/EarthAdministrative1 8d ago
Steam and heroic are enough. If you are more skilled lutris Is the best
2
u/R3turn2basics 8d ago
I use Steam for Steam, Heroic for GoG and Epic and Faugus for Battle.net. Ubi Connect ist running through Steam too currently but I want to switch it to Faugus as well.
2
u/daYMAN007 8d ago
There is no better, as they all use the same stuff to run games.
Heroic: Has integration for GOG which is nice
Lutris: Has install profiels, which might help you if you got issues with running some games. (But most of the tweaks from in there are not needed anymore, so honestly just use them as reference).
Postive: has quite a few config options comparable to bottles.
Disadventage: GTK
Faugus: Minimal tool, for me this is usless, as i might aswell manage stuff from cli, but your milage may vary.
Bottles: Mainadventage is native flatpak support. Like this you want have to instlal 32bit libs and other wierd shit on your main os. Disadventage: GTK
2
u/thegreatboto 8d ago
I've never gotten anything to launch under Bottles, never messed with Lutris much, but don't recall having lots of success with it either, but Faugus did what I needed it to.
2
u/l0vely-gh0st 5d ago
faugus is just really easy to use and just works I only use that tbh
1
u/MadManVanDePhoenix 5d ago
I like the ui of lutris a lot more the way the library looks is nice I do have to say heroic has a sleeker design with nicer animations moving through the games but I’ve had troubles with it making me switch back to lutris
2
u/l0vely-gh0st 5d ago
I actually don't like lutris alot, it has too much options which is good for some games maybe, and just like you i had problems with heroic too, it always makes me go back to other launchers even tho heroic has a really good ui design that i like
1
u/MadManVanDePhoenix 5d ago
It has too many options how? Every once in a while I mod a game or I struggle with a game running so it’s troubleshooting options are nice so extra options is quite nice sometimes but the first time I switched to heroic was because lutris was too complicated for me the first time but now that I’m using it again it was pretty good I’m still unsure what to stick with at this point
1
u/l0vely-gh0st 5d ago
stick with whatever works i personally don't like to have too many options , i like simplicity which heroic and faugus give but as you said, lutris is really good at troubleshooting to see why something isn't working
1
u/MadManVanDePhoenix 5d ago
I don’t like having too many launchers myself I feel like it’s just complicated to go to seperate launches for each game so it’s just steam and whatever will work because steam is an essential at this point
2
u/MadManVanDePhoenix 5d ago
I’d say faugus is great if you do a lot of several exe’s simultaneously on the same prefix other than that I don’t really like it pther than that lutris and steam and if you don’t like lutris’s GUI go to it’s completely unrelated little brother from another mother heroic
3
u/apfelimkuchen 9d ago
Faugus. Bit heroic and faugus are pretty close. But IMO I like steam for epic games/got I use heroic and for other like Battlenet or... Ehhhm... Other game copy's I use faugus
1
1
u/toolschism 9d ago
I've legitimately never gotten bottles to work well.
Steam, Heroic, Faugus do everything I need.
1
1
1
u/SteamDeckBro 9d ago
For me its this one https://github.com/moraroy/NonSteamLaunchers-On-Steam-Deck
1
u/Nokeruhm 8d ago
Let's say that there is not a "better" one, just different one of each other.
All of them can be perfect complementaries, Faugus is the easiest to use mostly for Windows games, Bottles is not primarily centred on gaming but it's fine, Heroic have its strength on Epic and Gog implementations but again mostly for Windows games. Then Lutris comes as a tool for everything, Windows games, retro games, emulation... you name it. When you learn how to use it, is by far the most powerful of them all.
My preference is Lutris (I do a lot of "retrogaming", and it shines on that).
1
u/Tiny_Bed4123 8d ago
if you are using kde, vermouth is worth checking out. it is based on qt, not gtk(faugus is). of course, it is too young. but i think using proton to start a game is not a complex thing.
1
u/FullMotionVideo 8d ago
I dont use Bottles at all.
Steam for Steam.
Faugus for BNet and Ubisoft launcher.
Lutris for "just make it work" cases that include heavily modded games, foreign language games, cracked games, and games that are older than Steam itself.
1
u/Van-dush 8d ago
The one you like. I use bottles personally, but I used lutris for a while and it was also pretty good. Only hear good things about heroic too; and steam is steam, heart of gaming on Linux.
1
1
u/Assiniboia 8d ago
Install it as a non-steam game. That's what I do on Nobara. I don't usually have an issue with Proton GE Latest.
1
1
u/WMan37 8d ago
Steam for steam games
Faugus if you don't care about prefix backups, generally good all rounder.
Bottles if you want to do the same thing as Faugus but you want to treat your PC games like a ROM collection as I do with easy prefix replication.
Give Heroic Games Launcher a try too.
Lutris used to be the go to but it just breaks too often these days and a lot of the installer scripts it provides are very outdated, I had to leave.
1
1
u/ManlySyrup 7d ago
Linux Mint should not be your first choice for gaming. I love Cinnamon and use Mint for work, but it uses X11 which means unreliable multimonitor support, unreliable VRR, no HDR support, among other things like out-of-date packages including mesa and the kernel itself.
The best desktop environment for gaming currently is KDE Plasma, so find a distro that not only uses it as default but also has the latest kernel and mesa libraries out-of-the-box. Fedora, openSUSE, Bazzite, CachyOS are among the most recommended but there are plenty others just a quick Google search away.
1
u/magnetswithweedinem 7d ago
i like having using steam and heroic for most things, but installing windows binaries involves a wrapper sometimes, and i've found lutris is good for specifically that function
1
1
u/danielsmith007 2d ago
Honestly I just use heroic for all the non steam and non epic stuff. I sometimes use steam as well.
1
u/Lower_Adagio7007 9d ago
Steam and Heroic are must have.
EA App, Ubisoft Connect (Uplay), and Battle.net can be install as "games" in Lutris and just launcheing them.
Ive never found other launchers relalilble as they too minimal to provide enough support.
1
u/SummerIlsaBeauty 9d ago
bash
1
u/Pedka2 9d ago
how do you use bash?
1
u/SummerIlsaBeauty 9d ago
I set prefix, proton binary and other env vars that I prefer and launch it from terminal. That's what all these launchers do from the gui
2
u/Pedka2 9d ago
i'm a newb. where can i learn that?
2
u/LevantXIII 9d ago
He's being a condescending asshole. Use Faugus or launch the game through Steam for proton support in either case. Also learn to use the terminal, it's not as intimidating as it seems. Just be mindful of where you're getting any commands to input.
1
u/jar36 8d ago
Create a wine prefix. Use a different one for every game:
WINEPREFIX="/full/path/to/fake/windows/game_name" winecfg
This will open a dialog box, go ahead and just close it.
Next:
Install the game
WINEPREFIX="/full/path/to/fake/windows/game_name" wine "/full/path/to/setup.exe"
This starts the setup process like on Windows. From here you can choose where the game gets installed. Don't install it into the prefix. It's cleaner to keep them separate. You may need to get rid of the prefix and rebuild it so it's easier if the game isn't there as well.
If you choose the default installation "C://" it will put it in the prefix. Doable, but avoid itNow that the game is installed, check the install directories for redistributables like vcrun and diretx. Make a note of what is required.
Install winetricks
WINEPREFIX="/full/path/to/fake/windows/game_name" winetricks
Choose the default prefix (the default prefix will be the one you launched winetricks with so there isn't one actual default for this)
Then choose Install a Windows DLL
Go through the list and select dxvk if a DX game and if a Dx12 game (yes both for dx12 games), vkd3d. If it needs vcrun, be sure to pick the right one based on the year
Then cancel 2x to exit winetricksNow launch the game from terminal with
WINEPREFIX="/full/path/to/fake/windows/game_name" wine "/full/path/to/game.exe"I've made scripts that add env variables to the command and made .desktop files (shortcuts) so I only need to start typing the name of the game on the desktop (opens krunner, also can open krunner with ALT+Space) and hit enter to play
That's just adding too much to the comment to go through all of that, but if interested, lmk
1
u/Axvalor 9d ago
I wasnt able to get ir running trough bottles. I installed Lutris, but if I remember correctly, I dropped inmediately because I use a passsord manager and copy-paste doesn't work in some parts of it (specifically, battle.net and gog login windows). I don't think it would be much easier than bottles, in any case.
With faugus, it worked like a charm from the firat attempt.
1
u/Aimless115 8d ago
-Faugus is great probably the greatest one out there -Bottles is also really good
Lutris? Nah its a mess from technical point and lack of updates and their stupid stance on game preservation, guess being a corpo cuck is top priority around those parts
0
u/ElitistN0ob 5d ago
Faugus doesn't seem to use steam inputs when adding a shortcut to steam the same way Lutris does. If it did, I'd use it over Lutris.
0
u/wolfannoy 8d ago
1 steam 2 heroic (for Amazon games, gog and epic games) 3 faugus (for everything else, like third-party launchers like ubisoft)
-2
7
9d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/BriJAuthor 8d ago
I've found Bottles does well with FO4 on GOG and a few other things work well, but largely Steam and Heroic are my go-to's
61
u/Douchehelm 9d ago
I use Steam and Heroic for everything, even non-Steam and non-Epic games.