Vortex Linux Port

This is an unofficial community fork. The real project is Nexus-Mods/Vortex — maintained by Nexus Mods, Windows-only, and where you should report bugs if you're on Windows. This fork exists just to get Vortex working on Linux. For general support, feature requests, and anything that isn't a Linux-specific issue, head over there.

Linux builds (AppImage + .deb) are published as releases on this fork.

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Installing

Package	Download
AppImage (recommended)	vortex-setup.AppImage
Debian/Ubuntu .deb	vortex_amd64.deb

AppImage:

chmod +x vortex-setup.AppImage
./vortex-setup.AppImage

Ubuntu 22.04+ users: sudo apt install libfuse2 first.

Debian/Ubuntu (.deb):

sudo apt install ./vortex_amd64.deb

Arch Linux:

git clone https://github.com/atabisz/Vortex
cd Vortex/packaging/arch
makepkg -si

Needs fuse2 (sudo pacman -S fuse2). The package drops the AppImage into /usr/lib/vortex-linux/ and adds a vortex command to your PATH. NXM download links get registered automatically via the desktop entry.

Note: This one isn't on the AUR. I'm not an Arch user — the PKGBUILD is here for anyone who wants to use it, and in the hope that Nexus Mods eventually picks up the Linux port officially and handles distribution themselves.

Elevation note (.deb vs AppImage): The .deb installs a polkit rules file (/etc/polkit-1/rules.d/10-vortex.rules) that caches your admin credential for the desktop session, so elevation operations (mod deployment, symlink creation) only prompt for your password once. AppImage builds don't ship this rule — you'll be prompted every time Vortex needs elevated privileges.

What Works

As of v2.0.0-linux (2026-05-08):

• Launches on Linux — pnpm run start boots without crashing; all the native addons (bsatk, esptk, loot, vortexmt, xxhash-addon, bsdiff-node) compile and load.
• FOMOD installer — C#/.NET FOMOD installers work via native Linux binaries — no Wine needed.
• Steam/Proton game detection — Multi-root VDF scanning (native Steam + Flatpak), Proton prefix resolution, never-launched games picked up via oslist, and the {mygames} Wine path resolves correctly (compatdata/<appid>/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/Documents/My Games).
• Top game extensions work — Skyrim SE, Fallout 4, Cyberpunk 2077, Stardew Valley all confirmed working on Linux with Proton.
• NXM "Download with Manager" — Clicking download links on Nexus Mods hands off to Vortex on GNOME and KDE Plasma, in both dev and AppImage builds; KDE Plasma's kbuildsycoca6 database refresh is wired in.
• Packaged distributions — AppImage and .deb built by CI and published alongside the Windows artifacts; auto-updater works for AppImage installs.
• winapi-bindings shim — All 21 Windows registry/UAC import sites shimmed at bundle time, with zero edits to the original Windows code.
• Persistent session elevation token (.deb) — The .deb ships a polkit rules file granting AUTH_ADMIN_KEEP, so elevation operations (mod deployment, symlink creation) only ask for your password once per desktop session instead of every single time.
• Steam Deck error UX — When Vortex runs in Steam Deck Game Mode where there's no polkit agent, a clear notification tells you to switch to Desktop Mode; Vortex keeps working after you dismiss it.
• Save file transfer — You can move save files between Vortex profiles for Skyrim SE and Fallout 4 across Wine prefix paths from the save manager UI.
• Linux case-folding fs wrapper — A shared fs shim resolves the real on-disk casing for Wine prefix AppData paths before file operations, fixing Plugins.txt vs plugins.txt mismatches and similar "Windows assumed case-insensitive" bugs.
• FOMOD path normalization — FOMOD XML installers get their source paths normalised for Linux (forward-slash, lowercase), so mods that used to silently fail on case-sensitive filesystems actually install.
• CSharpScript Linux notice — Mods that use CSharpScript-based FOMOD installers (a Windows-only feature) now surface a clear, actionable notification on Linux instead of failing silently.
• chattr+F kernel casefold for mod staging — On ext4/btrfs, mod staging directories get created with chattr +F (kernel-level case folding), which sidesteps the userspace shim's race conditions on deep mod hierarchies; falls back to the shim on XFS/ZFS and anything else.

What Doesn't Work

Feature	Status	Notes
Save game viewer/parser (Skyrim SE, Fallout 4)	Untested	gamebryo-savegame compiles on Linux (build issues got sorted in v3.0) but hasn't actually been exercised at runtime. Save transfer between profiles does work — see What Works above.
Elevated privilege operations (AppImage)	Degraded	AppImage builds don't ship the polkit rules file — you'll get prompted on every elevation call. Use the .deb if you want session-scoped credential caching.
NXM via Steam Browser overlay (Steam Deck)	Unknown	The WebKit overlay's xdg-open behaviour isn't documented anywhere; needs hardware access plus a chat with both Valve and the Nexus Mods web team.
AppImage delta auto-updates on SteamOS	Not implemented	Haven't checked how electron-updater behaves on SteamOS's immutable filesystem yet.
GOG / itch.io / Heroic Launcher games	Not supported	Steam/Proton only for now.
Flathub / Flatpak distribution	Planned	AppImage works today; Flathub submission is on the list, using the same permission model as Lutris.

Installing runtime libraries into Proton prefixes

Many games and mods require additional Windows libraries — most commonly Microsoft's Visual C++ Redistributable — installed inside the game's Proton prefix. These aren't part of Proton's default Wine environment, so mods that depend on them will fail to load with cryptic errors (e.g., SKSE reporting couldn't load plugin (000003E6)).

Install with protontricks (recommended):

# Example: Skyrim SE (App ID 489830)
protontricks-launch --appid 489830 ~/Downloads/VC_redist.x64.exe

Replace the app ID with your game's Steam ID. Download the redistributable from Microsoft: https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe

Manual alternative (no protontricks):

WINEPREFIX=~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/<appid>/pfx \
  ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/"Proton - Experimental"/files/bin/wine64 \
  ~/Downloads/VC_redist.x64.exe

Adjust the Proton path to match whichever version the game is using.

Roadmap

The full development plan is in VORTEX-LINUX.md.

Recently shipped

• v2.0.0-linux (2026-05-08) — First tagged Linux release of the fork. chattr+F kernel casefold for mod staging (ext4/btrfs); upstream-rebase automation (daily CI merges the latest upstream tags); upstream-merge survival work (named skip-on-windows.mjs / skip-on-linux.mjs guards, LOOT case-sensitivity fix, testPathTransfer platform guard, nodeExternals allowlist for winapi-bindings); CI hardening (pnpm-bundled gyp_main.py chmod, src/main packaging dist → build sync, fork-gated fingerprint-* workflows); post-merge playbook published.
• v1.16.9 (2026-04-09) — FOMOD source path normalisation for Linux, CSharpScript Linux notice, vortex-api declarations updated.
• v1.16.8 (2026-04-07) — Persistent elevation token (.deb), Steam Deck Game Mode error UX, save file transfer across Wine prefix paths, Linux case-folding fs wrapper.

Up next

• Hardware testing for elevation, save transfer, and NXM on real devices.
• First-run onboarding wizard with Linux-native path detection.
• Flathub submission.
• Heroic Launcher, GOG, and itch.io game detection.

Building from Source

Ubuntu/Debian build prerequisites:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y git python3 make g++ cmake libfontconfig1-dev liblz4-dev zlib1g-dev
curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
. "$HOME/.cargo/env"

These are for the native Node addons that get built during pnpm install on Linux. libfontconfig1-dev is needed by font-scanner, liblz4-dev by the Gamebryo-related native modules, and Rust is needed because libloot is built from source during install.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.3/install.sh | bash
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && . "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"
nvm install 22.22.0
npm install -g pnpm@10.33.0
pnpm install
pnpm run build:all
pnpm run start

build:all has to run before start — it compiles the TypeScript bundles, builds the extension packages, and pulls down the DuckDB extensions and CSS assets. pnpm run build on its own only compiles TypeScript and won't get you a launchable app.

Known-good toolchain on Ubuntu:

• node v22.22.0
• pnpm 10.33.0
• python3 3.12.x preferred

If your distro ships Python 3.13+ instead of 3.12, a few legacy node-gyp consumers in this repo still expect distutils. Create a user-local shim once and export it before pnpm install / pnpm run build:all:

python3 -m venv "$HOME/.local/share/vortex-node-gyp-python"
"$HOME/.local/share/vortex-node-gyp-python/bin/pip" install setuptools
export npm_config_python="$HOME/.local/share/vortex-node-gyp-python/bin/python"

See AGENTS.md for the full dev setup.

Upstream project

All credit for Vortex goes to the Nexus Mods team and contributors at Nexus-Mods/Vortex.

• Official download (Windows)
• Upstream source
• Official wiki
• Support forum / Discord

License

GPL-3.0 — same as upstream. See LICENSE.md.