Getting my steam deck tomorrow. Already had Linux like steam deck on my laptop a while ago (didn’t work well because fuck Nvidia)
But wanted to know what you all think is important to put on a steam deck, that’s not something that’s not what duckduckgo says with the websites it has. (I worded that horribly)
What are some niche things can I could do/install/play on the steam deck that most people wouldn’t really do or think about doing?
I don’t know a lot about Linux as I wish but I know a ok ish amount. Just wanting to find anything really interesting or useful to do with my steam deck
Also anybody know any casual games I can play randomly on public transit and don’t have to sit down and play. Things that I can just easily stop. (Something like balentro kinda way you can just stop whenever)
If you plan to use yours as a laptop replacement, get Bazzite (maybe CachyOS, but I don’t have experience with their handheld version). SteamOS is great, but the major drawback for daily computing is that every update will wipe out your modifications to the core system (not your home directory). Bazzite and some others will give you a persistent system with each update.
For gaming, Hades works flawlessly. It’s easy to pick up and put down, doesn’t consume a lot of battery, and the story/gameplay are phenomenal.
Make sure to also check out RetroDeck/EmuDeck and Decky Loader to extend what your Deck can do
I disagree. You should not immediately go and replace the OS as soon as you get it.
Most modifications to the root filesystem persist through updates just fine. You simply need to add the relevant exclusions for your customizations. See the Development and Modding section here.
I have a significant amount of modifications to Steam OS, including an encrypted home partition (while excluding the steamapps subdirectory via bind mount) protected by TPM.
The only time an update breaks anything is if the kernel or initramfs updates, requiring me to re-enter the LUKS password and reenroll a new TPM protector. And this is only because they don’t support Secure Boot, so my PCR selection is limited. And I was on the Beta update channel for a while updating almost weekly without issue.
Setup Nixpkgs. Learn Home-Manager. If anything doesn’t exist on Flathub, install it through Nixpkgs instead of disabling immutability and resorting to pacman only to have it wiped after an update. And for temporary tinkering, use nix-shell.
The determinate.systems Nix installer directly supports the Steam Deck.
Never used Nixpkgs, but isn’t it a bit more advanced and not really for beginners?
Comparatively, yes. But trying to install apps or programs on the Deck if they are not on Flathub is quite a common use-case, I find. And it’s a lot more stable and less frustrating than temporarily installing packages through Pacman!
That is a lot of contradictory sets of requirements. If it is important to have on the deck then it is going to be trivially searchable online. Something that is niche that others are not really doing is going to be very subjectively interesting or useful. That makes it impossible to recommend anything without violating one of those requirements.
Instead here is some advice for finding project ideas: Look at your own interests/hobbies/things you need to do and start taking note of problems you encounter, grievances or annoyances you have or just things you think could be made/done easier. Out of those you can look at ones that you think a steam deck could help solve and from that you can start to investigate ways to use the steam deck to solve those problems. That is essentially how you find niche and interesting/useful things that are specific to you to work on. It can take time, but the more you think about it and write things down the easier it becomes to find projects to do.
Things that I can just easily stop.
Technically any non-online game will work since you can just put the steam deck to sleep with the tap of the power button when ever you want and resume later on. It takes a couple of seconds to go to sleep and so the only times it is annoying is when you are directly in the middle of some action - which is generally easy to avoid in most games if you know you are coming up to your stop.
Personally I have been playing monster hunter world like this which works quite well - especially since there is quite a bit of less action packed stuff you can do between the main story line.
I kinda meant like things you use/install recommend that not a lot of websites really mention. Some things niche that are not mentioned much. I’m really into tinkering and learning but all the websites I find online and searching reddit is all seems the same stuff.
Just something you find interesting I believe is what I’m trying to say.
A thing to do: Look up how to install Nested Desktop into Gaming Mode (a quick YouTube video will show you how to set it up in about two minutes). In short, it allows you to access most of the functionality of Desktop Mode when you need those things, without actually having to officially switch over (think of it as Gaming Mode’s Desktop Mode Emulator).
Saves you bunches of time in the switching back and forth, as it’s almost instantaneous. I use it all the time, as stuff like web browsers also work better on the Desktop side.
As for casual games you can play for short bursts and put to sleep whenever… you already mentioned Balatro, that’s a great one. I love roguelikes and deck builders for this purpose in general. Recently, I’ve been playing a ton of Cobalt Core, I’d highly recommend as a great pick up and play and quick stop.
Thanks for that. Didn’t know about nested desktop. Pretty easy to install and use, too. Just not sure how to close it properly.
YW! It shuts down either with the Steam button menu like any other app or game, or you can double click the Return to Gaming Mode icon. Either one.
My boring advice is to spend a few weeks using it as it is out of the box: just play your favorite games on it.
After a while you might get a sense of what you would like to change (if anything) and then you can research how to go about it.
For casual games on the Deck some my most played are The Binding of Isaac (most hours by far), Brotato, Deep Rock Survivor, Slay the Spire, Balatro, Dead Cells, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Shotgun King. But there are so many good choices, it really depends on your taste.
