Skyrim SE Linux Modding Guide

This guide is partly outdated. It is using an older version of Proton. Many of the issues are fixed by using GloriousEggroll's builds.

A nice Reddit user has made a more up to date guide here for Pop!_OS that includes Vortex Mod Manager. You should be able to follow along on most distros.

Video Guides

Part 1 - Installing Skyrim SE for Linux via Steam Play

Part 2 - Modding Skyrim SE on Linux

A simple guide to how to get up and running with mods in Skyrim SE on Linux

• Base Install
• Basic Modding
• SKSE64

Base Install

0. Make sure you have all requirements fulfilled to use Proton via Steam Play. Proton requires the latest software.
1. Enable Steam Play via Steam. You must use 3.16-4.
2. Download Skyrim SE
3. Check the game runs.
4. Download skyrim-se-audio-fix-1.0.2.zip
5. Run install_audio.sh This will patch the audio to work.
6. Base Install of Skyrim is finished. Check if everything is working as it should.
7. Enjoy the game as vanilla.

Basic Modding

1. You can simply copy mods into the data directly and active them in game via the 'mods' button in the main menu.
2. Please note that on Linux files and folders are case sensitive. Some modders use textures or Textures. Keep this in mind when installing mods. For consistancy I put everything in lower case folders. Wine/Proton/Linux doesn't seem to care just as long as everything is consistant.
3. Wrye Bash is acutally runs very well under wine can be used to install, sorting and activation of mods.
4. If you don't need or want to run any SKSE64 mods, then you good to go.

SKSE64

1. Quit Steam
2. Download skyrim-proton-1.0.2.zip
3. Extract & Run install_proton.sh
4. Restart Steam and go to Skyrim SE's properties.
5. Click the Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool. Select Proton 3.16-4 for Skyrim SE. See image. NOTE: Skyrim SE will now run with a custom local version of Proton that will work with SKSE64. You must use this version for SKSE64 modding.
6. Click Set Launch Options
7. Paste xterm && echo %command% >/dev/null NOTE: This is a little trickey to get Steam to launch xTerm when you click Play on the game. You can replace xterm with skse64_loader.exe to directly launch SKSE64 from Steam. NOTE2: You may not have xterm on your system, instead just paste whatever the name of your terminal application is. i.e. gnome-terminal, xfce4-terminal, etc.
8. Play Skyrim SE. A terminal should launch.
9. Launch the game with SKSE: ~/".steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/skyrim-proton/proton" run skse64_loader.exe
10. Once at the main menu check that SKSE is loaded: getskseversion. It should return a version number for SKSE.
11. Close Skyrim SE and xTerm should still be open. You can run all of your modding tools here. For example: ~/".steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/skyrim-proton/proton" run SSEEdit.exe or ~/".steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/skyrim-proton/proton" run Mopy/Wrye Bash.exe.

Why not 4.2-3?

• Yes it does work for the most part. But I encountered problems with the audio. Installing FAudio Builds on 4.2-3 fixed the sound problems with NPC voices, but made the audio completely cut out and not come back when going through a loading screen.
• Because we are patching Proton to get SKSE to work, running on 4.2-3 will not be stable. Every time a proton update is pushed the files need to be patch again. Running on 3.16 is a better option because there will (probably) not be any more updates.
• As far as I can tell there is no advantage to using 4.2-3 in terms of performance or compatibility.

Good To Know

• So far as I can tell all SKSE plugin mods (.dll) work as they should. Just add them as you normally would.
• Untested SkyProc. SkyProc will likely involve some trickery with java.
• Swiching Proton versions is not a good idea. It will likely cause problems because things will be reset. So only run things run one proton version. For example: ~/".steam/steam/steamapps/common/Proton 4.2/proton" run Wrye\ Bash.exe then ~/".steam/steam/steamapps/common/Proton 4.2/proton" run skse64_loader.exe not ~/".steam/steam/steamapps/common/Proton 4.2/proton" run Wrye\ Bash.exe then ~/".steam/steam/steamapps/common/Proton 3.16/proton" run skse64_loader.exe
• Sometimes Skyrim will hang on exit. You can alt + tab out and enter ctrl + c. This might help. Otherwise in most DE you will eventually get the option to force quit. There's 1 in 5 chance of this happening to me.
• At time of writing (April 2019) DynDOLOD 2.59 will not fully work under wine. It used a small program called Texconv to build the .dds textures. This program is broken under Wine. You can still use DynDOLOD, but you won't be able to generate tree LOD textures and you need to output everything in R8G8B8/R8G8B8A8. Bug with Wine described here. My convsation with sheson is here..

Tips and Tricks

• If NPC voices stop working, just re-run the install_audio.sh script.
• Audio can be buggy. In Xterm before launching the game, you can run: winetricks sound=alsa to try to switch to ALSA sound. Or winetricks sound=pulseaudio for Pulse Audio. It may differ from system to system.
• shift+ins to paste things into xterm
• Proton will spit out a massive amount of the same error: ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/USER/.steam/ubuntu12_64/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64): ignored.
• Wrye Bash plays nice with symbolic links. Meaning you can just link all your downloaded mods to Wrye Bash's Bash Installers folder.
• For me, Wrye Bash crashes when you try to click and drag plugins in your load order. You can use ctrl + up or down to move plugings around.