Run Windows games on Linux with Wine and Proton, without the terminal.
A native Linux game launcher that manages your Wine and Proton prefixes, downloads runners like Proton-GE, and sets up each game with MangoHud, Gamescope, GameMode and Steam artwork.
Prefixr is a desktop app for playing Windows games on Linux. You add a game's .exe, pick a
Wine or Proton prefix and a runner, and Prefixr takes care of the rest: it creates the
prefix, launches the game through umu-launcher
the way Steam launches Proton, applies protonfixes,
installs DXVK and VKD3D-Proton for plain Wine builds, and lets you tune every game on its own.
It is built for people who want their GOG, Epic, Amazon, itch.io or standalone games next to their Steam library, without editing launch scripts. If you know Lutris, Bottles, Heroic or PortProton, Prefixr covers the same ground with a focus on prefixes: you can reuse an existing prefix from any of them as it is.
| 🎮 Game library | Grid and list views with search and sorting, icons extracted from each .exe, launch arguments and environment variables per game, desktop and app menu shortcuts. |
| 📦 Installers | Open a setup .exe with Install Prefixr from your file manager's Open With menu. The installer runs in the prefix you choose, and the shortcut it creates is offered as the game to add. |
| 🍷 Prefixes | Create new Wine/Proton prefixes or import existing ones from Steam, Lutris, Bottles or PortProton. Install dependencies with winetricks and open winecfg, regedit and Wine's other tools from the app. |
| ⬇️ Runners | Download Proton-GE, Proton-CachyOS and Wine (Kron4ek) from their GitHub releases, checksum-verified. Any Proton or Wine build you place or symlink in the runners folder shows up as well. |
| 🚀 Launching | Proton games run through umu-launcher in the Steam Linux Runtime, with an automatic UMU ID lookup for protonfixes. Wine games get DXVK, VKD3D-Proton and wine-mono set up automatically. |
| 🎛️ Per-game tuning | MangoHud with presets, GameMode, power profiles, Gamescope, vkBasalt and every PROTON_* switch your runner supports. Set them once globally, override them per game. |
| 🛒 Stores | Connect your Epic Games, GOG and Amazon Games accounts and their games show up in the library, ready to install with one click: a prefix of their own, your newest Proton, the store's cover. Epic's online games start with their login tokens. Powered by Heroic's Legendary and gogdl and Nile, downloaded on connect at pinned, checksum-verified versions. |
| 🖼️ Artwork & Steam | Covers, icons, heroes and logos from SteamGridDB. Add any game to Steam as a non-Steam game, artwork included, so it shows up in Big Picture and Game Mode on the Steam Deck. |
| ⌨️ Command line | Everything the window does is also a command: prefixr game add, prefixr prefix winetricks, prefixr runner download and more, with JSON output for scripts. An open window shows the changes right away. |
| 🧰 Everyday comfort | Tray icon with the running games and a way to stop a hung one, logs of the last 10 runs per game and prefix, a vm.max_map_count check, English and German UI. |
See the user guide for a tour of every feature.
Prefixr's command line lets an AI coding agent such as Claude Code do the tedious part for you. It can look at your game folders, add each game with the right runner and prefix, find its protonfixes match, install winetricks packages, carry over the fixes from old launch scripts or other launchers, copy your save games and pick the artwork, while you start each game from the window and say whether it works.
You: Add all games under /mnt/games/ to Prefixr. Each one has its own Wine and a
start script; give them Proton-GE instead and keep the fixes from the scripts.
Agent: prefixr runner download proton-ge
prefixr umu search "Fallout 4"
prefixr game add --name "Fallout 4" --exe ".../Fallout4.exe" --prefix ~/Games/prefixes/fallout4 \
--runner GE-Proton10-30 --umu-id 377160 --env DXVK_FRAME_RATE=58
prefixr game artwork "Fallout 4"
…
When a game doesn't start, the agent reads its log with prefixr game log <game> --print and fixes
the setup. See Setting up games with an AI agent.
Download the latest build from the releases page:
| Package | For | Install |
|---|---|---|
.AppImage |
Any distribution | chmod +x prefixr_*.AppImage && ./prefixr_*.AppImage |
.deb |
Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS | sudo apt install ./prefixr_*_amd64.deb |
.rpm |
Fedora, openSUSE, Nobara | sudo dnf install ./prefixr-*.x86_64.rpm |
On immutable distributions such as Bazzite or SteamOS, use the AppImage. If the AppImage shows a
blank window or crashes with EGL_BAD_PARAMETER, see
Troubleshooting.
To build Prefixr yourself, follow Building from source.
- Linux on x86_64 with a Vulkan-capable GPU driver (Mesa or NVIDIA)
- 32-bit graphics libraries for older games, as your distribution packages them for Steam
- Optional: Steam (to import prefixes and add games to Steam), MangoHud, GameMode, power-profiles-daemon, Gamescope and vkBasalt for the matching settings
Prefixr downloads umu-launcher, runners, DXVK, VKD3D-Proton, wine-mono and winetricks itself when they're first needed. The getting started guide walks through the first game.
The documentation is also available as a website: firsttris.github.io/prefixr.
| Guide | What's in it |
|---|---|
| Getting started | Install Prefixr and get your first game running |
| User guide | The library, prefixes, runners, per-game settings, artwork and Steam |
| Configuration & files | Where Prefixr keeps its data, command-line options, API keys |
| Command line & AI agents | Every command, JSON output, and setting up games with an AI agent |
| Troubleshooting & FAQ | Common problems and how to fix them |
| Development | Building from source, architecture, tests and releases |
Bug reports, ideas and pull requests are welcome. Please open an issue first for larger changes. The development guide explains how to set up the project, which checks CI runs, and how texts and translations work.
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🐛 Report a bug · 💡 Request a feature
License: GPL-3.0 · © Tristan Teufel and contributors
Changed versions you pass on must stay under the GPL and come with their source code; a commercial license without these obligations is available via teufel-it.de.
Prefixr is not affiliated with Valve, Steam, WineHQ, CodeWeavers or SteamGridDB.