Especially since one of the best features is basically unmentioned. Turn on your steam deck and before you sign in for the first time, you can boot straight to the desktop. Just wish there was a toggle in Plasma to boot to desktop by default.
For all intents and purposes, you don’t need to log into steam to play games on the steam deck which is honestly shocking where most new hardware basically requires you to agree to sign in to begin using your device.
Looking at you Windows 11
Welcome to Linux. It works great as a media center instead of your ad-ridden smart TV as well.
We both switch years ago on our laptops when Windows 11 became the default windows. Linux Mint ftw
Love Mint, great distro!
I just threw Fedora on my laptop to see what it’s like, as I’ve only used Ubuntu and the like in the past.
I must say, Fedora 41 has been pretty great and rock solid. And it’s Hella fast and responsive compared to Windows 11.
Linux has come a long way
Wait… Could you put bigscreen on the desktop mode, configure it with all the fixings, plug in a dock to TV and get a USB/bluetooth remote?
… Shit that’s better than a mini ATX HTPC at $600 dollar for dollar since you can run away with it
From what I’ve read, yes.
Yes you can, I do that with mine a lot. The one caveat though that is a real bummer is I haven’t been able to get surround sound working on it. Something limits it to stereo output. There should be some way around it, but I haven’t found it.
There’s also a script for Android TV on the deck that’s pretty good, I didn’t test it yet but I’ll sure as hell be using that for my tv stuff
Unless you have an abundance of Dolby Vision content on your media server. That’s the only reason I need the Jellyfin app or the Kodi port for AndroidTV
SteamDeck is the best Nintendo Switch Online device ever 😉
Ironic how it’s able to play more older Nintendo titles than the official console
I was floored at how easy it was to get it to run Breath of the Wild, and then I discovered the 60fps patch for the game. Pretty quickly sold my old Switch after that.
Oof. Unless that’s the only Switch game you play, you are going to have a hard time realising that Switch emulation isn’t far developed enough yet for you to play a lot of your games without issues and just throw away your real Switch. Plus, Nintendo’s takedowns of Yuzu and Ryujinx last year massively slowed down development.
Another bonus: Many very good open source games can be added to SteamDeck by:
- Boot to desktop.
- Search the software center.
- Click install.
- Right-click the new game icon, and click “add to Steam”
- Reboot to Steam mode and enjoy.
Some suggestions: Luanti, Empty Epsilon, UnCiv, Tux Racer, most retro emulators.
I might be slightly biased, but I can also recommend OpenMW for Deck.
Are you using the controller to play it, or a mouse and keyboard?
Done both, but I’ve found I rather enjoy the mix of stick and trackpad, emulated as KB+M
Thanks! Really jonesing for some Morrowind or obkivion but my deck lives in a dock next to my TV so I’m not sure how comfortable either game will be with a wireless controller versus holding the deck.
Oblivion was released on consoles and had great controller layouts. I played it for years on PS3. Not sure if Morrowind has a similar experience.
Yea for the original Xbox, however neither PC version has those supports built in. And the mods seem to be a mediocre experience in comparison, I may just buy the Xbox/360 versions of Morrowind and Oblivion to play comfortably.
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead
Hotkey the apocalypse game would be interesting on a steam deck. I wonder if anyone has attempted to map keys to the steam deck.
Hotkey the apocalypse game
Heh. CDDA is pretty intense, but I’m a huge fan of how it handles inventory.
The inventory system is great, I tend to find myself going too deep into organizing my stuff, it’s an enjoyable system.
Yeah… There are a lot of things I really like about the game, but every time I’ve tried playing, I get outside the initial starting point (after filling my pockets with frozen meat and shit lol), it gets kind of meh imo… I do like how you can use a smart phone (or flip phone) and it can even act as a flashlight
I have heard good things about some of the mods/variations
You must not have traveled far, the game has some wild locations, military locations and labs are where you can have a lot of fun or die trying.
I didn’t get far, no. Every 3 feet, you see something move out on the corner of your eye and it completely stops everything. Over and over.
I know you can turn that off, but then I just end up dying lol
I was hugely impressed by how well Caves of Qud handles controller support. Definitely worth a look if you’re interested in how these types of games can maintain access to so many different functions.
I haven’t quite found a let’s play of Caves of Qud that sold me on that game. But definitely might check it out again if it works well on the steam deck.
Add anything with sonic in the name. Like SRB2:Persona.
Linux has never required you to sign up with an online account, you can always just make a local account.
You can install another distribution on it and make the desktop the default boot option! It’s not how I would use it but it’s a major selling point for me. I’m not stuck with the walled garden, even in the default OS!
Could make it Bazzite, and it would probably work just a well as SteamOS… But yeah, no reason to really do that imo
Replacing it with Bazzite is a great option if you want to do anything that SteamOS is too restrictive for without sacrificing any of the features
Edit: to be clear, SteamOS will let you do just about anything, but the way the updates work will override a decent amount of changes you make, since the OS is immutable by default and designed not to be modified.
Steam’s “immutable” system isn’t that bad. It will revert a lot of stuff during OS updates, but Stable doesn’t go through that very often. I put all of my changes into a shell script and reapply it when that happens.
Bazzite is also immutable
Yeah, I love we can do that if we want, even though I don’t do it much myself
Make sure to check out “Nested Desktop mode”, it’s a great way to have faster access while in the default Game mode
Wait what? How?
Go into desktop mode, open the menu and use the search function to look for “Nested Desktop”. Now right click and add that to Steam. When you boot into Game mode, you’ll see a new item added called Nested Desktop, which you can open to access desktop mode while still in game mode. I found out about this a week ago and so far I use it most for referencing my digital game guides or searching NMS portal codes while still gaming.
Would be cool if it had a hotkey you could hold while powering on that tells it to boot into desktop mode.
I bought my Steam Deck simply to support Linux gaming and Valve’s contribution to more open hardware and software. I wasn’t actually interested in handheld gaming.
Roughly a year later, I game about 75% on my Steam Deck vs my very expensive Linux gaming desktop. I love it so much, the convenience of pausing a game, going from my couch to my bed and resuming flawlessly is awesome.
My spouse wanted one too, so now we both can game together easily anywhere.
Get a dock and attach it to your TV hours of fun as the family watch you play
I occasionally use it as a streaming device to watch series and movies. Currently going through King of the Hill which is available on archive.org. It’s pretty comfortable with Bluetooth keyboard /mouse.
Steam deck is great. It seemingly connects the arcane nerdy and streamlined casual. Whatever is your jam and mood in the moment there is always plethora of things you can play. Almost infinite possibilities. Modded. Portable.
It’s one of the only purchases that I never really regretted. Somehow it has the wow factor each day as when it was new.
I tried to see if I like kenshi game. I don’t but it is crazy that it is comfortable on deck and rimworld, dwarf fortress and sims too. I could use a MacBook Pro smh smh ultra hyper but it is clunky and annoying cold slab of business efficiency.
Any day now and I may actually attempt to run x4 with Star Wars mod though I think that may be actually a single exception but I swear I am going to do this crazy thing. Anything to play next to your loved ones in the living room or elsewhere
It is competent too. I can play DBZ Kakarot and Ace Combat 7 at 1080p.
I got mine a couple of months ago and I wasn’t even a Steam user. I love it.
It is still just another Linux distro which doesn’t seem that locked down. I don’t own a steam deck but I imagine it should be possible to set it boot to desktop with some simple tinkering. In worst case scenario, you might be able to install another distro and get all the tweaks and apps yourself. The toggle can be done with some widgets and script ig.
You can I just wish it was accessible on the GUI.
Not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but you can add Nested Desktop as a non-Steam game and access it from Gaming Mode. Makes it so you can switch between games and Desktop without having to exit the game too. You might have to tinker with controls and the dim/sleep power settings.
Just to make sure you noticed, when you’re in “gaming mode”, you can switch to desktop mode easily by going to power menu (either by pressing the power button, or gui power button) and it’ll offer you to switch.
