I recently bought a Steam Deck and I have a lapdock on the way, intending to use the Deck as a dual-purpose gaming handheld and laptop replacement. So on that front, I was wondering what more experienced users could tell me about using it.

I did read through the official FAQ, and a few questions pop up. In no particular order:

  1. Is there a way to boot the Steam Deck directly into desktop mode, without going through the Steam environment first? (Strictly as a time saver)
  2. In practice, how well does sudo steamos-readonly disable and installing things from pacman work out for you? In particular, I want to use PWAs For Firefox and it requires this package in order to work. Do packages actually get wiped with SteamOS updates, as the FAQ warns?
  3. Is it possible to re-enable the read-only filesystem after installing a package, to safeguard it from accidental changes?
  4. Any other tips, tricks or warnings you’d like to share.
  • Broadfern@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    5 hours ago

    I haven’t looked into 1 but from my experience yes, 2 does wipe your changes with every OS update. Coming from another arch-based system it was my preference too but I learned the hard way. Yes it’s annoying but for an immutable distro like SteamOS it’s simpler to install via flatpak.

    If you’re using desktop mode in handheld it does take a minute for the trackpads to work because it uses steaminput, and the Steam client needs to start separately in desktop mode. Touch works immediately.

    Make sure to put your go-to file paths in Places (I think that’s what it’s called) because navigating Dolphin in handheld can also be mildly annoying.

    If you’re using a customizer like DeckyLoader holding off on updates for a week or so until there’s confirmation of stability and compatibility is advisable, but that’s more for handheld mode.

    • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      2·
      2 hours ago

      Thanks for the advice! I did already figure out the thing about the trackpads. I found the whole environment to be surprisingly usable in handheld mode, but definitely not ideal.

      Thankfully that’s not how I’m planning to use it. I ordered a lapdock (specifically this one, which is the only one I’ve found that ships to my godforsaken country) and it should arrive in a couple of weeks and be the main way I use Desktop Mode. Then I don’t need Steam input.

      If you’re using a customizer like DeckyLoader holding off on updates for a week or so until there’s confirmation of stability and compatibility is advisable, but that’s more for handheld mode.

      Can you tell me more about DeckyLoader and why I might want to use it? Or just link to a page with that info. I never looked into it, and I’m wondering what’s actually missing from vanilla SteamOS.