Full Circle Magazine FR

On April 17 2014, Canonical released Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. I like the latest in software, but at the same time I like stability, which is what Ubuntu's Long Term Support cycle is all about. So, after two years of using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, it was time for me to upgrade, and so I did. For many of us who have been using Steam to play video games, a new release means having to re-download and re-install a ton of games; which can take countless hours, possibly even days. No one wants to spend what seems like an eternity re-downloading and re-installing every game we already own before being able to pick up playing where we left off. However, fortunately for us, there is a better and faster way to transfer ALL of our installed Steam games from one hard drive to another. The basic concept of how to transfer your Steam game library from one hard drive (or partition) to another is relatively basic to understand. In a nutshell, all you've got to do is copy your library from your old location to your new one, and re-start the Steam client, which will automatically recognize your games and you can get back to playing right away.

Doing it is a different story. Although not terribly complicated, you must follow every step exactly and in the correct order. So let me explain how it's done. • First thing's first, you MUST install Steam on your new system (and if you never had the Steam client installed before, then, obviously, this guide is pointless for you). • Having installed Steam on your new system, you MUST start Steam so that it can create all of the folders & files it needs to operate. You also HAVE to sign in with the Steam account that you've been using. • Having started Steam & having signed in, you MUST now Exit Steam by going to the upper left and then selecting Steam>Exit. Simply clicking on the Close (X) button on the top right will not work because doing this doesn't really close Steam; it only closes Steam's user interface but keeps the software running in the background.

• Open the “home” folder in your old system and after it's opened press Ctrl+H on your keyboard in order to see your old “home” folder's hidden files & folders. I find it easiest to hold Ctrl down while I press H, in other words both must be pressed at the same time. Repeat this step for your new “home” folder. • Now go to the following directory in the old “home”: .local/share/steam and copy it. • Paste the copied folder to your new /home/username/.local/share/steam and wait until the entire contents of /home/username/.local/share/steam has been copied to the new location. You're almost done! • Re-start Steam and wait for the Steam client to recognize your newly copied old games. • Start playing games in your new system!

There's also a way to do everything I just described from the terminal, but I found it easier to do it using the graphic-user-interface. Not only that, but I imagine that if you would rather use the terminal, you may not even need this guide. As a reference, I used the following web page, especially Damienov's answer: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/882965239721861812/?l=polish#p2 I originally transferred my games from my old Ubuntu installation to my new one, but to be certain that the procedure I described works as efficiently as I claim, I verified it by following the steps I've suggested with a separate installation of Linux Mint. The computer I used was my custom made desktop PC consisting of an AMD FX-6100 3.3GHz CPU, an Asus M5A97-EVO motherboard, a Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 graphics card, 8GB of Kingston Hyper X RAM, and a 1TB Seagate Barracuda hard drive. The software used was Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with Unity and AMD 13.35 proprietary graphic drivers. COMPETITION: On a final note, I'd like to congratulate David and Earl on correctly answering last month's question for which they each got a Humble Indie Bundle. This month's question is the following: What do you need to do to be able to see your “home” directory's hidden folders & files? Send an email to 7bluehand@gmail.com with the answer.