Steam Deck

591 readers

8 users here now

A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.

Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.

As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title

The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.

Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
[Selling] - If you are selling your deck.

These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.

Rules:

Follow the rules of Sopuli
Posts must be related to the Steam Deck in an obvious way.
No piracy, there are other communities for that.
Discussion of emulators are allowed, but no discussion on how to illegally acquire ROMs.
This is a place of civil discussion, no trolling.
Have fun.

Link to our Matrix Space

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

Moxvallix@sopuli.xyz

codus@leby.dev

Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz

RolAIDS05@sopuli.xyz

Cool Linux programs to use in desktop mode? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by arefx@lemmy.ml to c/steamdeck@sopuli.xyz

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I used Ubuntu briefly years ago but never really dove into the world of Linux. Are there any useful or fun programs for Linux that work well in desktop mode on the deck? Thanks

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] garrett 7 points 1 year ago

There are a ton of interesting apps to use on Linux.

The Steam Deck uses Flatpaks from Flathub by default in KDE's Discover app "store".

Browse and search https://flathub.org/ to find all sorts of apps.

Are there any types of apps you're interested in or anything in particular that you're used to and want to find something similar?

You'll probably want Flatseal to adjust Flatpak app permissions (like giving apps access to more directories and such). You usually don't need this, but some apps might not support portals and may need more "holes" poked in the sandbox to access additional directories.

If you want to run VMs, then I'd suggest GNOME Boxes (just searching for "boxes" in Discover should find it. You could install a standard Linux distro inside — or even Windows if you really wanted. It's simple and straightforward, and even has Linux distro downloads from the UI (so you don't even have to hunt for an ISO to download).

If you're looking for command line stuff, then I'd suggest setting up podman and distrobox; this is more advanced, but would let you run almost everything from any distro on your Deck via containers that persist (even across Steam Deck updates): https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox/blob/main/docs/compatibility.md#install-podman-in-a-static-manner & https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2022/09/distrobox-can-open-up-the-steam-deck-to-a-whole-new-world/

If you're doing a lot of stuff on your Steam Deck in desktop mode, please remember that it's not encrypted (so anyone can copy anything you do out of it) and doesn't even have a password by default. You'd want to set up KDE Plasma's Vault and use that for sensitive documents and/or use a VM with disk encryption. Sadly, EncFS isn't included on the Deck, so you cannot use KDE Plasma Vault (without jumping through hoops), so you'd have to set up something similar in Distrobox (although probably a different program), use something similar from Flathub (again, which requires a command line program behind the scenes currently) or use a VM with encryption (which is the easiest thing to do).

If you aren't doing anything sensitive (including browsing) on desktop mode and don't want to do anything too advanced (like command line stuff), then all the many thousands of apps available from Flathub are still really astoundingly great and super easy to use. They're basically just a click away in Discover.