As someone trying to move to Linux this year, what issues are there? I’ve heard this before, but I never see an explanation on what makes it difficult.

I only use DODI when there is no Fitgirl release. DODI torrents are always behind spam/scam link gates and the installer is horrible. In the DODI installer to start it for some reason you have to press the up arrow or something. Just… why? It’s like he saw that feature on his phone lock screen and decided to add it without asking himself what purpose it serves. The installer is also totally broken if you have changed windows scaling so every time I want to use it I have to go into the properties and disable scaling.

If you can afford it

IsThereAnyDeal

IsThereAnyDeal (isthereanydeal.com)

Might be a better option, or least send the devs some support while using repacks. It’s sort of like a thrift store when you find something you really wanted maybe a game you didn’t even know of, and it means a lot more because it feels like finding a treasure.

I actually didn’t know that the whole point of fitgirl was for compression, I’ve been blessed with massive hard drives. I think I took my 4tb ssd for granted. Not everyone has even an extra $5 .

Proton can handle the game files but not the installer. So you have to install in wine and it’s a hassle. I install the games on my windows pc, zip them and then transfer them to my deck.

It’s harder to use on Linux, and lower-performance devices. I would prefer prefer having dumps of the pre-installed game folder to use on a steam deck, for example.

Note plenty FitGirl repacks are lossless; as in, she isn’t taking less important files out of the game, she’s compressing it better. 90GB→35GB seems accurate; you often see ~1/3 of the original size, like this. And it shows plenty game devs

1. do an extremely bad job at basic tasks like compression.
2. give no flying fucks about players, who might have really slow connections.

And then those same developers get amazed at the fact FitGirl is so popular. “Maybe we’re doing something wrong? …nah.”

I have zero trust installing pirated software, especially when they go out of their way to break it when using wine on Linux or running it in a vm.

Proton can handle the game files but not the installer. So you have to install in wine and it’s a hassle. I install the games on my windows pc, zip them and then transfer them to my deck.

I wouldn’t really say that. The kind of extreme compression Fitgirl does comes with the tradeoff of really long decompression times. Depending on which games, nearly 45 minutes (with a 7800x3D)

Some games lack compression but I would not want those long install times by default, if you have a speedy internet connection they usually take longer to install than to download. Don’t get me wrong, for people with really slow internet those repacks are a godsend but they are not “better” on every aspect.

What’s your process for running the unpacker executable? Maybe it depends on the game, but I set up a wineprefix through Lutris and always seem to run into issues getting it to complete properly without any unpacking errors.

I’ve had a lot less of a desire to pirate games after moving to Linux full time a few years ago. But FitGirl has been the one reliable place for public torrents, compaed to chancing it on the third Google Link or scrolling through the Russian CS-Rin-Rulette forum to find links.

Huh? I add the installer to steam, use proton and install. No problem.

Why would you ever use google to find torrents?

It’s harder to use on Linux, and lower-performance devices. I would prefer prefer having dumps of the pre-installed game folder to use on a steam deck, for example.

If you can afford it

IsThereAnyDeal

IsThereAnyDeal (isthereanydeal.com)

Might be a better option, or least send the devs some support while using repacks. It’s sort of like a thrift store when you find something you really wanted maybe a game you didn’t even know of, and it means a lot more because it feels like finding a treasure.

I actually didn’t know that the whole point of fitgirl was for compression, I’ve been blessed with massive hard drives. I think I took my 4tb ssd for granted. Not everyone has even an extra $5 .

Steam gets around this problem by doing the decompressing on the fly as you download. Go check out your CPU usage next time you install a game.

Edit: I think this is also why it defaults to not downloading while you game. Steam doesn’t want you to have a bad experience from the decompression.

It was 5-10 years ago, not too hard to find and a little before Google intentionally made things harder to find. I’ve used many public and private trackers, but it’s just that these days my interest in movies has disappeared almost completely, and I’m happy with most of the games I have.

Note plenty FitGirl repacks are lossless; as in, she isn’t taking less important files out of the game, she’s compressing it better. 90GB→35GB seems accurate; you often see ~1/3 of the original size, like this. And it shows plenty game devs

1. do an extremely bad job at basic tasks like compression.
2. give no flying fucks about players, who might have really slow connections.

And then those same developers get amazed at the fact FitGirl is so popular. “Maybe we’re doing something wrong? …nah.”

More like check your hdd. Steam goes like this for me download, download, download, pause downloading to extract and smash my hdd, download, download, downloand.