After seeing some folks noticing a comment I made elsewhere in this instance, I thought a full post would be best. For those who don’t know, the Steam Deck has a feature called Nested Desktop, which allows fast access to Desktop mode without needing to leave Game Mode or reboot into and out of modes.
To use this, 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 almost a week ago and so far I use it most for referencing my digital game guides or searching NMS portal codes while still gaming. It’s pretty seamless and really opens up some nice options, like modding a game and being able to boot it faster while having Game mode controls available.
Someone actually made a really good guide on it about a week ago:
Damn, that’s awesome! Thank you for sharing, this is going to be very useful to me.
You don’t have access to your full home folder in *nested desktop mode though right?
Desktop mode, or do you mean nested desktop? Either way, I have not noticed that limitation.
I meant nested desktop mode.
Download a file from a webrowser in nested desktop mode and then check in normal desktop mode where the file is. Can you access/see it? Is it in the spot that webrowser normally downloads too?
I think it is just the thorough and thoughtful way Linux explicitly deals with folder permission structures, opening a nested desktop creates an enclosed workspace within the current context, you aren’t supposed to use it to go everywhere and do anything on the OS I think.
It’s fairly common to share the same home dir throughout multiple desktop environments, which is essentially what nested desktop is – just a way to launch a Plasma desktop inside an existing desktop. This isn’t like a flatpak or another isolation mechanism.
i haven’t used desktop mode since that guide was posted in the instance this week.
love it!
