Welcome to the staging ground for new communities! Each proposal has a description in the "Descriptions" category and a body of questions and answers in "Incubator Q&A". You can ask questions (and get answers, we hope!) right away, and start new proposals.
Comments on Can I set up a regular machine like the Steam Deck?
Post
Can I set up a regular machine like the Steam Deck? Question
The Steam Deck comes with an OS which is basically a customized Arch, plus Steam, Plasma and some extra programs.
The Steam Deck mounts most system dirs as read only, so for example it's not possible to install things with pacman. I believe it's because Valve ships updates as disc images. I don't care about replicating this part.
Otherwise, is it possible to set up something similar on a regular desktop computer? My goal is to build a game computer, connect it to the monitor in my living room, and control it mainly with a gamepad, attaching a keyboard as needed. I like how the Steam Deck (when connected to a TV and gamepad) boots straight into a Steam UI where most things are gamepad compatible, and has an option to boot into "Desktop Mode" where you can use the gamepad as a mouse and pull up an on screen keyboard. I like that it is based on Arch linux which is a practical distro.
I saw also something called SteamOS, but this seems to be something different. It's based on Debian, not Arch. Though perhaps this is a better option for using your own machine.
1 comment thread