Here's something that could be exciting but also could be a whole lot of nothing. So keep expectations firmly in check, but work submitted for Linux kernel 6.6 show something interesting from Valve. Potentially a Steam Deck refresh or their new VR headset perhaps?
Someone in the comments of that article made a note about having a “Steam Brick” that would be a steam deck like console.
I’ve been investing a lot of time into ChimeraOS and Bazzite for universal Blue lately. I highly recommend building a small form factor PC in something like a fractal ridge with an old 5700XT (or the cheapest AMD RDNA GPU you can find really) and give it a go!
I already have a Steam Deck, but what excites me about the prospect of a new valve set-top console is a Steam Deck-like controller.
I’m definitely in the market for a new controller to use with my Steam Deck, as I almost always have it docked. But nothing seems like it has everything I want in a controller. I kinda just want a Steam Deck without the screen. I don’t want to use Bluetooth because I get poor performance in my house, probably due to wireless interference, and because it won’t wake the Steam Deck from sleep. I currently use an Xbox controller with the wireless receiver, but I hate needing to reinstall the drivers after every software update.
I want a new updated steam controller so bad, I loved the original even tho it’s widely hated, if they just fixed the small issues it had that they already fixed with steam deck controlls, I would be so happy.
Quick preface, this isn’t meant to be disrespectful or confrontational, I’m genuinely curious, but what are you playing while docked? I bought the dock and have only a tiny bit of buyer’s remorse because I feel like anything put up on the big screen is so low quality that it’s not even worth it and just either stream it from my PC to Deck or play on the PC directly. I admit I may be doing something wrong, I don’t have the time to fiddle with it to optimize.
I bought a steam deck primarily to have a PC hooked up to my TV. My main use case is watching live pirated sports streams. I tried a Raspberry Pi, and it just didn’t have enough power. It kept getting micro stutters, which made it unwatchable. I figured having a decent integrated GPU would help immensely with video decode.
And then when I got the steam deck, I installed emulators and got a bunch of roms, and now I play classic games with my wife.
And then I learned about moonlight. My gaming PC is in another room, but now I could play any game on the TV in the living room with moonlight.
So those are my three main use cases. I brought my Steam Deck on my last three trips but didn’t even open it the case. I guess I’m just not really into gaming on the go.
Do you have any image quality issues streaming from PC to dock? I always have what looks like low bitrate when doing this, even though my network is more than capable of higher bitrates.
I did some tweaking that I found online somewhere for host/client settings and since then, no not really. I’ve made sure that the host is wired in and I’m working on getting the deck dock wired in too but my house is old and not easily cat5-able. It doesn’t look GREAT most of the time but it’s pretty passable. I know you didn’t ask about undocked but with the smaller screen it definitely clears some stuff up and looks a little nicer.
I’ll do some reading up on that. I haven’t heard of that before.
I need to install the driver from an open source project that I cloned from GitHub. Does that have any impact on if I can do what you are recommending?
What you need is a file - let’s call it stick-of-joy.hook - in /etc/pacman.d/hooks:
[Trigger]Operation = Install
Operation = Upgrade
Type = Package
Target = linux
[Action]Description = Install a stick of joy
When = PostTransaction
Exec = /bin/bash -c /path/to/script
Writing this up on the go, so might have missed a syntax error or something. Make sure the script is executable - chmod +x /path/to/script.
You can test it by reinstalling the linux package - pacman -S linux.
I tried installing Bazzite on a couple different computers. It just didn’t work. The Bazzite Portal, which is supposed to come up in first boot, never did. I must have installed it 5 or 6 times.
Clicking on it in the menu did nothing. Running from the CLI makes it come up but one time it just hung on the second or third step with no option to recover (and then wouldn’t run again), and another time it ran through but failed to produce a usable system in any way (again, with no option to recover).
I like the idea but I don’t have infinite time to fiddle with it so now I’m running Ubuntu with auto-login to the gaming user account which starts Steam Big Picture automatically.
It’s as close to a console experience as I can get.
Someone in the comments of that article made a note about having a “Steam Brick” that would be a steam deck like console.
I’ve been investing a lot of time into ChimeraOS and Bazzite for universal Blue lately. I highly recommend building a small form factor PC in something like a fractal ridge with an old 5700XT (or the cheapest AMD RDNA GPU you can find really) and give it a go!
We can all steambox again if we just believe!
I already have a Steam Deck, but what excites me about the prospect of a new valve set-top console is a Steam Deck-like controller.
I’m definitely in the market for a new controller to use with my Steam Deck, as I almost always have it docked. But nothing seems like it has everything I want in a controller. I kinda just want a Steam Deck without the screen. I don’t want to use Bluetooth because I get poor performance in my house, probably due to wireless interference, and because it won’t wake the Steam Deck from sleep. I currently use an Xbox controller with the wireless receiver, but I hate needing to reinstall the drivers after every software update.
I want a new updated steam controller so bad, I loved the original even tho it’s widely hated, if they just fixed the small issues it had that they already fixed with steam deck controlls, I would be so happy.
I want a Steam Controller 2 so bad! DO IT VALVE
Quick preface, this isn’t meant to be disrespectful or confrontational, I’m genuinely curious, but what are you playing while docked? I bought the dock and have only a tiny bit of buyer’s remorse because I feel like anything put up on the big screen is so low quality that it’s not even worth it and just either stream it from my PC to Deck or play on the PC directly. I admit I may be doing something wrong, I don’t have the time to fiddle with it to optimize.
I bought a steam deck primarily to have a PC hooked up to my TV. My main use case is watching live pirated sports streams. I tried a Raspberry Pi, and it just didn’t have enough power. It kept getting micro stutters, which made it unwatchable. I figured having a decent integrated GPU would help immensely with video decode.
And then when I got the steam deck, I installed emulators and got a bunch of roms, and now I play classic games with my wife.
And then I learned about moonlight. My gaming PC is in another room, but now I could play any game on the TV in the living room with moonlight.
So those are my three main use cases. I brought my Steam Deck on my last three trips but didn’t even open it the case. I guess I’m just not really into gaming on the go.
Do you have any image quality issues streaming from PC to dock? I always have what looks like low bitrate when doing this, even though my network is more than capable of higher bitrates.
I did some tweaking that I found online somewhere for host/client settings and since then, no not really. I’ve made sure that the host is wired in and I’m working on getting the deck dock wired in too but my house is old and not easily cat5-able. It doesn’t look GREAT most of the time but it’s pretty passable. I know you didn’t ask about undocked but with the smaller screen it definitely clears some stuff up and looks a little nicer.
In regard to reinstalling drivers - look into pacman hooks. You want one for the kernel to trigger driver reinstallation.
I’ll do some reading up on that. I haven’t heard of that before.
I need to install the driver from an open source project that I cloned from GitHub. Does that have any impact on if I can do what you are recommending?
Here are the instructions I follow
From what I understand you’re running the script posted here, right?
ArchWiki link on pacman hooks;
Manpage link for hook format.
What you need is a file - let’s call it
stick-of-joy.hook- in/etc/pacman.d/hooks:[Trigger] Operation = Install Operation = Upgrade Type = Package Target = linux [Action] Description = Install a stick of joy When = PostTransaction Exec = /bin/bash -c /path/to/scriptWriting this up on the go, so might have missed a syntax error or something. Make sure the script is executable -
chmod +x /path/to/script.You can test it by reinstalling the
linuxpackage -pacman -S linux.I tried installing Bazzite on a couple different computers. It just didn’t work. The Bazzite Portal, which is supposed to come up in first boot, never did. I must have installed it 5 or 6 times.
Clicking on it in the menu did nothing. Running from the CLI makes it come up but one time it just hung on the second or third step with no option to recover (and then wouldn’t run again), and another time it ran through but failed to produce a usable system in any way (again, with no option to recover).
I like the idea but I don’t have infinite time to fiddle with it so now I’m running Ubuntu with auto-login to the gaming user account which starts Steam Big Picture automatically.
It’s as close to a console experience as I can get.
Been running ChimeraOS - though it was GamerOS when I installed it - on an Atari VCS for a while now, it does great as a low-powered couch gaming box.