Spent some time to come to this and there is hacky solution.

What you should do:
1) Rename TESV.exe to Skyrim.exe
2) Rename skse_loader.exe to TESV.exe
3) Create Skyrim\Data\SKSE\skse.ini and fill it with:

After this skse will run when you start game through launcher ("The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" in steam).

I should also say that you should be aware that linux is case sensitive. I had a problem with skyui (SKSE doesn't work | SKYUI ERROR CODE 1), which I fixed by moving files from "Data/scripts" to "Data/Scripts".

Well it's broken in a new and interesting way now, having lost all ability to remember graphics settings for even 5 seconds and defaulting to a minimum size window.

That's progress of a sort.

Ok Proton beta fixes that, but there's a issue related to your fix. When I restart Steam it detects that the files are changed and downloads fresh copies. Any way to disable that?

Hmm, it doesn't happen to me. Maybe disabling steam-cloud will help? It logically shouldn't help but i have it disabled and maybe it rechecks game files when trying to download saves, who knows

Originally posted by Xunto:

I should also say that you should be aware that linux is case sensitive. I had a problem with skyui (SKSE doesn't work | SKYUI ERROR CODE 1), which I fixed by moving files from "Data/scripts" to "Data/Scripts".

BRILLIANT! Thank you so much for posting this. I was able to get SKSE and a ton of mods (including SL with FINS) working by fixing the duplicated Scripts folder and a couple of other folder duplicates like Actors.

I got SKSE working by downloading it from the official SKSE website, not from Steam, and renaming skse_loader to SkyrimLauncher as suggested above. (I tried a mod that modifies TESV but it didn't work, probably Linux issue).

(I cheated a bit to get mods working; I used MO on a Windows VM and made a merged Skyrim Data folder by copying each mod from the MO profile, overriding in the order given by MO, then copying that entire folder over on top of the Linux Skyrim Data folder.)

Originally posted by OutsideTheNormalMoralConstraints:

It installs just fine but doesn't the expected behavior (steam automatically launches it) doesn't happen, and there's no way to get proton to launch non-steam games as far as I can tell.

I've tried the answer in post #1 and it still doesn't load SKSE. What kills me is that I fixed this once and then had to reinstall Linux Mint and now I'm trying to get this working again.

Originally posted by Xunto:

Spent some time to come to this and there is hacky solution.

What you should do:
1) Rename TESV.exe to Skyrim.exe
2) Rename skse_loader.exe to TESV.exe
3) Create Skyrim\Data\SKSE\skse.ini and fill it with:

[Loader] RuntimeName=Skyrim.exe

After this skse will run when you start game through launcher ("The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" in steam).

This solution worked perfectly for me. Before that, the Skyrim UI sort of did work but all items' icons in my inventory were represented by a small square and the inventory itself took a few seconds to open. Not anymore.

https://spacebums.co.uk/post/tes_skyrim_modding_guide_linux/

Dec 2025 still work

Originally posted by Pyrrex:

Originally posted by Xunto:

Spent some time to come to this and there is hacky solution.

What you should do:
1) Rename TESV.exe to Skyrim.exe
2) Rename skse_loader.exe to TESV.exe
3) Create Skyrim\Data\SKSE\skse.ini and fill it with:

[Loader] RuntimeName=Skyrim.exe

After this skse will run when you start game through launcher ("The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" in steam).

This solution worked perfectly for me. Before that, the Skyrim UI sort of did work but all items' icons in my inventory were represented by a small square and the inventory itself took a few seconds to open. Not anymore.