Wait, I just switched to Linux yesterday, and the nexus download site said windows was required. I figured it just doesn’t work on linux
Because it basically doesn’t.
Their linux support for this is experimental at best, its in early alpha.
Anyway, if people want an actual linux native mod manager, that works with literally anything after a bit of set up…
LIMO.
https://github.com/limo-app/limo
Its on flathub too:
https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.limo_app.limo
It’s basically MO2, but linux native, you don’t need to run it through STL or Proton or some other way of making it work.
Just actually RTFM, and its a very powerful tool.
I don’t think it supports downloading an auto installing a whole mod collection from Nexus, but it can be set up to check Nexus for updates to individual mods, and download them.
What’s not “actually native” about the nexus app?
Limo is designed soley to work on linux.
NM is multi-platform, ie, linux is an afterthought, after Windows.
Also Limo currently ‘actually’ has more functionality with a much more broad variety of games on linux than NM does… in that it works for literally any game.
Both ‘apps’ have been in development for about the same amount of time, and Limo has delivered far more linux functionality, with far less jank and bugs, in the same timeframe, thus indicating Limo is much more serious about linux support than NM.
Just go look at the issues section of the github for each and you can see that for NM, there are tons of major problems with both the released AppImage and people trying to build from source on linux.
The Nexus folks either are not prioritizing linux, or are not very good at developing for linux, or both.
Afterthought? This iterates on the vortex app which has no Linux support. I think you’re setting the bar unrealistically high for Linux support. Sure it’s going to have more issues, because the scope is bigger, not because they’re ignoring Linux voices.
No, the bar is ‘basic functions work reliably’, that’s not too high.
I’m not saying they’re ‘ignoring linux voices’, I’m saying that they are unskilled at being linux devs, and thus what they deliver is less, actual linux functionality comes off as an afterthought.
In fairness, they do seem to be learning as they go, but they do have a ways to go.
Its really, really obvious that the people involved in the dev team have basically all their modding / mod tool development history in Windows, never bothered with linux support before, let someone else figure that out for them.
It would be cool if it was open source so more experienced Devs could participate…
Oh wait, it is GPL-3.0
I’m all for supporting native Linux development, but do we really have to have perfect be the enemy of good and call apps that release on multiple platforms not proper native and lesser? Is Firefox not proper native? Is steam not proper native?
Fact is nexus is doing one good thing and making their next app FOSS and cross platform, and for some reason that’s still not good enough because we’re so used to supporting underdogs - the tiny GitHub teams releasing groundbreaking stuff made from scraps. Can’t we just support a company when it does do the right thing?
This entire conversation stems from me pointing out there already is a linux native alternative that functions much better.
I am not making the perfect the enemy of the good.
That really only makes sense as a framing of an issue where there is … one big, semi-permanent choice or policy or something that will affect a whole lot of people.
This isn’t that, this is picking between two free alternatives.
It isn’t that its not good enough because Nexus is not an underdog.
Its that its not good enough because its not good enough.
I look forward to the Nexus Manager getting better over time, I hope that it does!
But at the current moment, it isn’t so great as a native linux app.
The nexus mods app is native. You’re thinking of Vortex, their old one.
Ironically, Vortex run through proton or wine environment that includes Vortex’s windows requirements works better than NM, so… yeah, they’re not that good yet at this whole linux thing.
Wait, Nexus isn’t getting enshittified by the new owner (yet) ?
Long time modder here, so I’ve been keeping up with this very closely. The owner (Dark0ne) really just handed control over to the people that were already running everything with him. The company (Black Tree Gaming Ltd.) is still exactly the same, they just have a new owner/parent company now (Chosen Something). And I’m sure he negotiated ahead of time that they’re limited in how much they can interfere, because I’ve seen nothing on my side indicating they plan to. (There’s no option for me to monetize my mods outside of donations or Patreon, for example.)
