Need help? Here’s how to get it.

WORK IN PROGRESS. SUGGESTIONS WELCOME!

Tech-support requests should be useful to others: those who might run into the same problem as well as those who might be able to help.

Finding help online:

• Getting started with Linux replaces the linux_gaming wiki. (It may not be up to date on everything.)
• ProtonDB provides “crowdsourced Linux and Steam Deck game compatibility reports”.
• r/linuxquestions and r/linux4noobs, while not specifically gaming-related, are dedicated tech support subreddits, unlike r/linux_gaming.

Stuff we’ll probably need to know:

• What exactly did you do, and how, and with what version of what?
• Were you using Lutris, Steam, Heroic, Bottles, Wine…?
• Are any of those Flatpaks, Snap packages, AppImages rather than packages native to your Linux distribution?
• Provide information about your system. When in doubt, you can use the output of inxi -xxACGS. (You might have to install inxi first; it should be in your distribution’s repositories.)

Getting logs:

• If you run a game/application from a terminal, it may output useful error or warning messages there. Please copy/paste those. For example, you can run Steam from a terminal with steam and GOG games with ./start.sh from within their installation directory.
• Lutris: Game logs can be viewed via the pop-out menu on the “Play” button at the bottom.
• Lutris will output additional debug information when run with -d, i.e., lutris -d.
• Proton: Set the environment variable PROTON_LOG=1 to create per-game logs in your home directory. You can enable this for individual games only via its Steam launch options: PROTON_LOG=1 %command%.

Formatting and readability:

• Screenshots are best taken with a screenshot application, not a phone. Pressing the “PrintScreen” key should do the trick on the bigger desktop environments.
• Format terminal output (as well as actual code) as “code” by inserting four spaces as the beginning of each line.
• Enclose individual commands, e.g. the inxi -xxACGS above, in backticks (grave accents): `inxi -xxACGS`

Unformatted example:

Audio: Device-1: AMD Navi 10 HDMI Audio driver: N/A Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel Device-3: Logitech C920 PRO HD Webcam type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo Device-4: BEHRINGER UMC404HD 192k type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio Device-5: USB MIDI Interface type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio Device-6: Roland A-Series type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio Sound Server: ALSA v: k6.4.12-arch1-1

Formatted example:

Audio:     Device-1: AMD Navi 10 HDMI Audio driver: N/A 
           Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Device-3: Logitech C920 PRO HD Webcam type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo 
           Device-4: BEHRINGER UMC404HD 192k type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio 
           Device-5: USB MIDI Interface type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio 
           Device-6: Roland A-Series type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k6.4.12-arch1-1 

I think you can see the difference it makes! Formatting output as code also prevents characters like \ or * from being misinterpreted as reddit formatting markup.

Please flair your tech support post as “tech support”, and re-flair it as “answered!” if you don’t need any further assistance (or it’s turned out to be a lost cause).