Manage Skyrim SE/AE mods via Vortex Mod Manager in Linux

skyrim-and-vortex-mod-manager-on-linux.md

Manage Skyrim SE mods via Vortex Mod Manager in Linux

The below walkthrough is for those who are running Skyrim SE via Steam Proton, and want to be able to manage mods via Vortex Mod Manager in Linux. You should be able to apply the same walkthrough to Oldrim or Fallout 4 as well. Note that with this guide you'll get an older version of Vortex (1.1.15), but IMHO it is still a better choice than Mod Manager 2. Also, you'll start Skyrim through Steam as usual, not through Vortex.

1. If you have previously added mods through the Skyrim game menu, I recommend removing them all since all mods will be managed through Vortex. Mods => Load Order => Delete All. Also, consider taking a backup up your (vanilla) Skyrim game directory.
   

# archive vanilla game (update path to suit your needs)
cd /mnt/gameData/archive
cp -a /mnt/gameData/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Skyrim\ Special\ Edition/. skyrim-se

2. Install Lutris (in my case via the Pop!_Shop, since I'm running Pop_OS)

3. Install Vortex Mod Manager. The Lutris Mod Manager page targets version 1.4.15 of the app, and the one-click install seems to be broken. Instead, you will need to do an install through the CLI using rockerbacon's vortex.yml config file. This file, which targets an earlier version of Vortex (1.1.15), can be dowloaded from here.
   
   lutris -i "$HOME/Downloads/vortex.yml"
   
   
   
   Most likely, you will need to install Vortex in the same partition as your Steam library folder(s). In my case, I chose "/mnt/gameData/Vortex". When prompted by the Lutris installer, disable your internet connection. Start Vortex Mod Manager and go to Settings => Vortex and set Update to "No automatic update". Shut down Vortex, and enable your internet connection again.
   
   

4. Add your Steam game folder(s). Start up Vortex, and go to Settings => Games => Add Search Directory. Select the Steam folder that contains your games, in my case "Z:\mnt\gameData\SteamLibrary". Click Dashboard => Scan for Missing Games. Alternatively, click Games => Scan => Scan:Full. Select the game(s) you would like to manage (Skyrim SE).
   
   

5. Add mods. When adding mods from nexusmods.com, do not use the "Vortex" button... Instead, do a manual download of the zipped archive. Then, drag and drop the file from your File Manager to the games' mods area in Vortex, and install/enable the mod from there.
   
   Another way is to right click the "Vortex" button and copy the link, click on the "Drop File(s)" area and paste in the copied nxm link into the dialog box. Thanks @Skulldugg3ry for this tip.
   
   

6. Set the load order, and apply output fix. The mod load order is calculated in the Vortex plugins area... Select Plugins => Sort Now. Note that Vortex outputs the load order in a file location that is not expected by Skyrim. To fix this, first rename the Vortex output file "plugins.txt" to "Plugins.txt" and move it to the folder Skyrim expects it to be. Then, create a symbolic link from the Vortex file location to the Skyrim file location. Note that Vortex plays nice with symbolic links, but Skyrim does not, so you do need to place the symlink in the Vortex directory and not the other way around. Thanks @Ateya9 for pointing that out.

// Update paths and <username> to suit your system
cd "/mnt/gameData/Vortex/drive_c/users/<username>/Local Settings/Application Data/Skyrim Special Edition"
mv plugins.txt "/mnt/gameData/SteamLibrary/steamapps/compatdata/489830/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/Local Settings/Application Data/Skyrim Special Edition/Plugins.txt"
ln -s "/mnt/gameData/SteamLibrary/steamapps/compatdata/489830/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/Local Settings/Application Data/Skyrim Special Edition/Plugins.txt" plugins.txt

7. Skyrim Script Extender. Many mods require SKSE64 to work. Download the latest version of SKSE for your version of Skyrim (SE/AE) from http://skse.silverlock.org/. Extract and copy all SKSE files and folders to the Skyrim SE game folder; in my case "/mnt/gameData/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Skyrim Special Edition".
   
   Rename SkyrimSELauncher.exe => SkyrimSELauncher.orig.exe
   Rename skse64_loader.exe => SkyrimSELauncher.exe.
   
   Make sure Skyrim starts when clicking on it in your Steam library. Note that a window displaying the SKSE runtime log will show. This is normal. You should see the SKSE version under the in-game System tab.
   
   

8. Sky_UI mod. If you're wanting to use the popular SkyUI mod, chances are you'll need to use a recent version of Glorious Eggroll, not the standard proton release. I'm currently using version GE-Proton7-30.

9. Happy modding!

I'm trying to get SKSE working and I've followed your directions but for some reason it isn't giving me the SKSE version number in the System tab.

Skyrim is launching fine, though it's popping a window instead of the standard starting chooser so I'm assuming something is happening correctly. Any idea?

In particular I'm trying to get Sky_UI loaded up but when installing it via Vortex it says that there isn't a detected version of skse at all!

Nevermind... I missed the bit about the custom SKSE version needed!

I guess I do have a question. If I install Sky_UI and enable it the game fails to start. Did you have to do anything special? I've got 6.14-GE-2 in use. It's showing that I've got SKSE working too.

Hi @tykeal, thanks for checking out the gist. When you're loading the game through SKSE the window displaying the runtime log is normal, I see that as well. And seeing the SKSE version on the in-game system tab means it did load ok. If you have the correct version loaded, it should say SKSE64 2.0.16 rel 6.

As far as SkyUI is concerned, other than using Eggroll I did not have to do anything special for it to load. My version of Eggroll, 6.12-GE-1, is different from yours though, so that may be something you want to try. I'm also loading the latest version of SkyUI, currently 5.2.

Another thing to experiment with is obviously load order. If it helps, here's a copy of my Plugins.txt so you can see a load order that works for me.

If you have no success with the above, one option is to use an older version of SkyUI. I've read that version 2.2 is the latest version that has no dependencies on SKSE. Although made for Oldrim, it still works for Skyrim SE. It won't have all the features of version 5.2, but it is still better than vanilla.

One final note. I was trying to install Sky_UI (vanilla Skyrim) not the Sky_UI_SE (Special Edition) version :-/

Hi @attusan,
Just letting you know; the entry you made on protondb a few weeks ago is linking to this gist, but to the version before any revisions were made.

Regarding the load order/plugins files; Skyrim does not like loading them via symlinks. You might want to emphasize that the files vortex creates need to be copied to the folder that Skyrim expects, and then the symlinks should be created in vortex's folder. I had unintentionally tried the other way around figuring it was fine, which it turns out wasn't haha.

Thanks for the guide!

Hi @Ateya9. I spotted my gist linking error right after posting, but ProtonDB took three weeks or so before they accepted the update. I guess they thought the content was too similar.

Thanks much for pointing out the symlink issue. I've updated the gist so hopefully it is more clear now where to place them.

its working great, thank you for this @attusan

Hi @attusan, kudos on the effort! I am trying to get this working without luck. When running the Lutris script, at some point it asks me to disconnect from the internet and I pull the ethernet cord off the hub switch. I continue the installation, with finishes normally and Vortex is spun. I finish the procedures detailed in step 3 of this guide and when trying to spin Vortex on after re plugging the ethernet cable to the hub switch, Vortex will not start.
I am running Manjaro with kernel 5.18.17-1 at the time of writing this.
While trying to start it from Lutris, I get the following:

Hi I'm having similar issue and I also am using Manjaro with kernel 5.15.60-1. I don't get the same popup but when I try to start up Vortex it appears to start as it says it is running but it never starts and goes back to play. The sad part is I did this have all of this working 2 years ago and at least 50 or so Mods including Script Extender all working nicely. I was going to do another play through so I decided to change the mods up and thats when I ran into troubles with Vortex and tried to uninstall and reinstall.

Hi @gtludwig @sambo60. After seeing your posts I tried to install Vortex on a new system again. When doing the default Vortex install, you now get version 1.4.15 of the app, and I'm seeing the exact same behavior as you do -- I'm not able to restart the app after a seemingly successful install. However, if you instead use rockerbacon's vortex.yml config, which targets version 1.1.15, I got it working just fine.

Download the vortex.yml file from here and do a lutris install using the CLI:

lutris -i "$HOME/Downloads/vortex.yml"

I've updated the gist with the new directions and added some screenshots as well. Hopefully this helps!

Thanks. I just saw this but I got this to work using steamtinker launch as well so good to know we have options. I got the script extender and have started modding Skyrim AE. So far so good it is working. Just have to me
Make sure The mods work with AE. I may try a enb Later to see if i can get that to work but I haven’t seen much out there that says an enb will work. From Here

Thanks for the instructions. They worked pretty much perfectly on my Linux Mint 20.2
The only thing that tripped me up slightly is that Vortex wouldn't initially install and exited with:

Initial process has exited (return code: 32512)
All processes have quit
Exit with return code 32512

Looking at the logs, this was being caused by the following lines (164/165) in vortex-symlinks.sh:

xdg-mime default vortex-downloads-handler.desktop x-scheme-handler/nxm
xdg-mime default vortex-downloads-handler.desktop x-scheme-handler/nxm-protocol

I commented those out and ran the command manually:

xdg-mime default vortex-downloads-handler.desktop x-scheme-handler/nxm
xdg-mime default vortex-downloads-handler.desktop x-scheme-handler/nxm-protocol

Then I re-ran the installer, making sure that it didn't download the vortex-symlinks.sh file again, rather during the install I selected "cache" and located the file manually.

I got all of this from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/ufl5tk/comment/idqfacv/?context=3

The version linked from the Lutris site under Vortex Mod Manager seems to work fine now. An easy workaround to the Add to Vortex button not working is to right click the button in the browser and copy the link, then click on Downloads in Vortex and click the area at the bottom where you drop files - it will pop up a box that you can paste the copied nxm link into, and it will start the download.

Thanks @Skulldugg3ry for the tip!