Do I have to format other drives?

Welcome to the forum!

This is not how UNIX works. In a UNIX system, there is no concept of “drives” as you use them in Windows. Instead, everything is integrated into a single, unified directory hierarchy, of which certain parts can be split off onto other partitions, or even onto other computers in the network.

Applications are not regarded as separate entities but as extensions of the operating system itself. Therefore, there are designated directories (“folders”) for executables, libraries, et al. Each user account also has a designated home directory, which contains their personal configuration settings and data.

Steam is a special case because it’s essentially a GNU/Linux port of software that was initially designed for Windows and that still maintains the Windows paradigm.

GNU/Linux can read from and write to NTFS, but you do have to disable Fast Boot and Windows Hybrid Sleep, because they leave your NTFS filesystems in an open state, which the Linux kernel will see as filesystem damage, upon which it will mount those Windows filesystems as read-only.

Negative. All native software becomes integrated with and an extension of the operating system. Software installed via Steam is the only exception to that rule.

Yes, but this will be in a dedicated Steam folder — usually inside your home directory.


Further reading… :arrow_down:

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