The native Linux mod manager that never touches your game.
Eidos gives Bethesda games on Linux what Mod Organizer 2 gives them on Windows - a virtual, per-launch merged view of your mods - built from Linux primitives instead of Windows API hooking. No Wine for the manager. No files copied into the game directory. No cleanup path, because there is nothing to clean up.
Steam ──> eidos-gui %command% ──> [ private namespace ]
│ mods ⊕ game ──> what the game sees
└─ dies with the game; the install stays pristine
Status: Skyrim SE is played through Eidos daily - SKSE, script-extender preloaders, Creation Club, LOOT-sorted load orders, per-profile saves, the lot. One game family proven in real play so far; ten more are wired and waiting for testers.
- 🔒 A mount only your game can see. The merged view lives in a private mount namespace: your file manager, your backup job, a second game - none of them see it, none of them need permission for it. Kill the game, pull the power: the namespace dies with the process tree and your install is exactly as it was. There is no residue by construction.
- 🧾 One copy of the truth. Your profile owns its mod list, plugin order, INIs and saves. The plugin files and the save directory are bind-mounted over the game's own paths at launch, so even the game's own writes land in your profile. Switching profiles switches everything.
- 🐧 Fully rootless. No setuid helper, no daemon, no
sudo setcap, no/etc/fuse.confedits. One binary, one Steam launch option. - 🛡️ Guards with receipts. A crash that wrecks your plugin list is flagged against a pre-session snapshot, with a one-click restore. A capture that would wipe your load order is refused and says why.
Mods. Simple archives, FOMOD wizards, Wrye Bash BAIN packages, a manual picker for the rest - and root mods natively (script extender preloaders, ENB, Engine Fixes), with no Root Builder plugin and nothing copied into your install. Hide single files, group with separators, targeted moves, per-mod notes and categories, and an MO2 profile importer.
Plugins. The load order with LOOT sorting built in, mod indexes like the game computes them, missing-master warnings, and your DLC and Creation Club content shown as the unmanaged rows they are.
Profiles. Per-profile mod order, plugin state, INIs and saves. Saves are parsed, diffed against your current plugins - with a button that enables what a save needs - and synced back for Steam Cloud after every session.
Nexus. Connect an account and the site's "Mod Manager Download" button lands straight in your instance, with update checks against what you have installed.
Tools. xEdit, BodySlide, DynDOLOD and friends run through the merged view inside the game's Proton prefix - they see your mods, their output lands in Overwrite, and one click turns it into a real mod. Whatever runtime each one needs is fetched on request, so a missing DLL is a button rather than an afternoon.
Diagnostics. Missing masters, orphaned archives, mod-list drift, damaged plugin sets - and, after a run, what the script extender's own log says actually loaded.
| Eidos | MO2 via Wine | Fluorine-Manager | Limo / link deployers | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manager runs natively | ✅ | ❌ Windows app in Wine | ✅ (Qt port) | ✅ |
| Game dir untouched | ✅ always | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ links written into it |
| Mount visible to | the game only | the game only | the whole system | n/a |
| Crash cleanup needed | none, by design | none | stale-mount recovery | manual un-deploy |
| Root mods (ENB, preloaders) | ✅ native | plugin required | plugin required | partial |
| Privileges required | none | none | /etc/fuse.conf edit |
none |
| before | now | |
|---|---|---|
| loading a save | ~20 seconds | 6-7 seconds |
| directory reads in one session | 5.6 million | 465 thousand |
Cell changes are immediate. The gain came from asking your mods fewer questions: finding one file used to interrogate all fifty of them in turn, and listing one folder used to do it fifty times over. Neither does any more. Measured on a real instance played normally, not on a benchmark.
git clone https://github.com/Project-Colony/Eidos && cd Eidos
cargo build --release
install -m755 target/release/eidos target/release/eidos-gui ~/.local/bin/Then set your game's Steam launch option to ~/.local/bin/eidos-gui %command%
and press Play.
Arch packages and release tarballs, what you need installed first, and the CLI route: docs/guide/install.md.
The base line is all most setups need:
~/.local/bin/eidos-gui %command%
Everything else is environment variables stacked in front of it, and they combine freely:
| You want... | Put in front |
|---|---|
| DLSS with Community Shaders | PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 - without it DLSS silently never initialises; the full checklist is guide/graphics.md |
| an FPS counter on screen | DXVK_HUD=fps |
| driver-level frame interpolation, zero mods (RTX 40/50) | NVPRESENT_ENABLE_SMOOTH_MOTION=1 - never together with Community Shaders' own frame generation |
| verbose logs for a bug report | EIDOS_LOG=debug (session logs land in ~/.local/state/eidos/logs/) |
| a per-session I/O report from the mount | EIDOS_FUSE_STATS=1 |
| a different FUSE worker count | EIDOS_FUSE_THREADS=8 (default 4; 1 is the first thing to try when chasing a concurrency bug) |
The line to keep for a modern modded setup (Community Shaders, DLSS, frame generation) - this is the final command, not an example:
PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 ~/.local/bin/eidos-gui %command%
Add DXVK_HUD=fps in front while verifying the setup works, drop it once it
does.
The deeper diagnostic switches (EIDOS_FUSE_TRACE, the cache and index
bisection toggles, why EIDOS_FUSE_PASSTHROUGH is off by default) live in
guide/troubleshooting.md.
| If you want to... | |
|---|---|
| install it | guide/install.md |
| learn the CLI and the GUI | guide/usage.md |
| set up xEdit, BodySlide or DynDOLOD | guide/tools.md |
| get DLSS / frame generation working (Community Shaders) | guide/graphics.md |
| fix something that looks wrong | guide/troubleshooting.md |
| know why it is fast, and check it yourself | internals/performance.md |
| understand how it works inside | internals/architecture.md |
| build it, test it, contribute | internals/contributing.md |
| know why it exists at all | project/landscape.md |
The whole index is at docs/README.md; security policy and how to report a vulnerability at SECURITY.md.
Skyrim SE/AE - proven in real play. Wired per the shared game descriptor and looking for testers: Skyrim LE, Skyrim VR, Enderal SE, Fallout 3, Fallout NV, Fallout 4 (+ VR), Starfield, Oblivion and Morrowind (the last two mount and manage mods; their timestamp-ordered plugin lists are not managed yet).
Adding a family is one descriptor row: internals/adding-games.md.
- ModOrganizer2 and usvfs - the semantics Eidos reproduces, and the codebase its parity was studied against
- LOOT - the sorting engine, via libloot
- Fluorine-Manager, Limo and the other Linux managers - proof there is a community that wants this solved
GPL-3.0-or-later. Mod management belongs to everyone.