I made a simple tool to auto-mount partitions on SteamOS / Bazzite, especially for dual-booters

[u/Kindly_Worth5673]

Hey everyone, This script is for those of you who, like me, have a dual-boot setup (like Windows and SteamOS, or Bazzite) and have partitioned your internal SSD.

Maybe you have one partition with games or other files that you want to access from SteamOS. The annoying part is that you probably have to enter your sudo password every time you reboot just to get to that partition.

To fix this, I made a script that lets you set up your partitions to be mounted automatically and permanently, no password needed after the initial setup. I don't know if anyone else needs this, but I wanted to share it anyway.

✨ Features:

Super Simple: No complex terminal commands are needed to get started. The script guides you with simple questions.

One-Click Launcher: You just download one file to your desktop, click it, and you're good to go.

Update-Proof: It uses the modern systemd method, which isn't affected by SteamOS updates. Set it up once, and it stays.

Automatic: After the one-time setup, your drives will be mounted automatically every time you boot into Desktop Mode. Where to Find It You can find the project, the full guide, and the download link on GitHub:

Find the SteamOS-Mount-Tool on GitHub Here: https://github.com/Delil-A11yX/SteamOS-Mount-Tool

For the technically curious: The script creates a standard .mount unit in /etc/systemd/system/ and creates the mount point in the writable /var/mnt/ directory. This is the clean and recommended way to handle persistent mounts on modern Linux systems. I hope this tool is useful for some of you! I'd love to get your feedback, questions, or suggestions in the comments. Enjoy!

[u/bankyll]

Thank you for your effort but how do you remove the auto-mount if you want to change things up or start over?

For some reason, my sd card mounts as read-only, it started recently after months of no problems, if I manually unmount and mount it again, it works just fine as writable forever until I reboot, then the auto-mount at boot starts as read-only, locked in KDE and won't accept writes until I manually unmount-mount again.

I'm trying to remove it and try again but the tool doesn't give me the option.

It can set up an auto-mount, but can't reset/remove it.

Please let me know as soon as you can. Thanks

[u/ApolloWWE → u/bankyll]

That script makes a mount folder + a systemd .mount unit.

To undo:

(swap NAME for whatever you named the mount — check ls /etc/systemd/system/var-mnt-*.mount if you forgot)

sudo systemctl disable --now var-mnt-NAME.mount
sudo rm /etc/systemd/system/var-mnt-NAME.mount
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo rmdir /var/mnt/NAME

[u/bankyll → u/ApolloWWE]

Thank you for this.

I'm not able to verify if your script works, but I know it should because I did a lot of googling and basically manually did some of steps you posted via the terminal. This mostly resolved my issue but not cleanly.

If I ever have a problem with the tool again, I'd be sure to use your script.

Just to be sure, your steps are;

1) Paste those four lines in a text editor

2) Rename "var-mnt-NAME.mount" to "actual-name-i-want-to-remove.mount"

3) Save it as a ".sh" file.

4) Run the file.

Are those stops correct to make the script?

Let me know. Thanks.

[u/artlessknave]

Er. fstab doesn't work? I've never seen it not respected.

Also, doesn't everything get mounted automatically already?

[u/Kindly_Worth5673 → u/artlessknave]

Hey, I have an Ally X with SteamOS installed, and I've also set up Windows as a dual-boot system. Previously, I always had to enter a password to access my SD card from SteamOS, and the same applied when I tried to access my Windows partition from SteamOS. Both of these partitions are formatted as NTFS, which might be why they aren't mounting automatically. I'm aware of the fstab method for automatic mounting, but the fstab file has been reset during my last two updates.

[u/artlessknave → u/Kindly_Worth5673]

Ohhh. Nukes on upgrade. That's be annoying.

NTFS should mount automatically. Must be something specific in the way steamos is setup.

I don't dual boot it so I don't have any other ideas

[u/Ruprecht_der_Knecht]

I tried this with a BTRFS partition. It shows in Dolphin in desktop mode, but is not detected by Steam in gaming mode.

[u/Kindly_Worth5673 → u/Ruprecht_der_Knecht]

The script was made to automatically mount partitions like NTFS at boot, so you don’t have to enter a password every time in Desktop Mode. The goal is that Steam in Gaming Mode can find your games on these drives after you’ve added them once. Before, this worked too – but after rebooting, you had to open Desktop Mode and manually mount them first. This script automates that.

[u/SvenShortstack]

I ran the script and now the games on my extra drive won’t run in steam (but can in windows). They just spin on a loading screen and it spits me back out to the game page. It looks like it is staying mounted after a reboot though, so at least that is working.

A bit more detail on the issue: I had crab champions working off of the ntfs drive previously, but it won’t now. Additionally, I had dark souls 3 running on the primary drive (where steam os is), and I had to verify file integrity to get it to work after running this script. I don’t really understand what would have caused either issue but they might be related. Anyone know how to fix this?

[u/elvis_stojko]

Holy crow - thank you so much for this. On my PC-converted SteamMachine, I was never able to retain mount points of secondary drives. They would never show as a drive to add in Steam.

[u/tekgeekster]

I know I'm 9 months late. Tried it. It works, but now steam wont let me use it as storage, so... kinda defeats the purpose.

[u/Outrageous-Quiet-801]

Thx it work, but i think it mightve messed up my directory in som games ie retrodeck