Steam Deck

15053 readers

230 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

[email protected]

[Discussion] Using my Steam deck as a mini PC ? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been considering getting a mini PC for my living room, basically only to watch online videos without ads or watch locally stored videos.

Since I have a Steam deck available that I already often dock to my screen for gaming, could I use it instead of buying a new computer?

My main concern is the impact this would have on the battery if it's plugged in for long periods of time, does it bypass the battery when it's plugged in and the battery is full ? Will other components be impacted?

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I would say it's great but would strongly recommend using Bazzite over steam OS even on the deck.

My biggest gripe with the steam deck is that it's not well equipped to handle user packages in the same way OSTree is. Bazzite solves this while still mostly adhering to the design principles of steam os, so I feel it's actually better than the stock operating system.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

it's not well equipped to handle user packages in the same way OSTree is

Can you elaborate?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Sure.

Valve's operating system is read only and, when steam decides to update, any root level file changes will be lost between updates. This is partly good because the system will always be recoverable and update reliably, but comes with the downside that users have to take extra steps to install some base level packages (things like tailscale, syncthing etc. There's always work arounds, but it's not a guarantee that these work arounds will continue to work on new updates.)

OSTree is also a read only file system utility that allows packages to be layered, so users can install their own packages. When the operating system updates, these packages are rebased and preserved on the next update so user level changes can be preserved.

There's more to this than that, but basically steam os is dependent on valve updating packages and generally leave all extensions either hand off or need to work around root filesystem. Ostree/silverblue/bazzite allow user modification by having a slightly more sophisticated updating process.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

I've installed all sorts of things on SteamOS without "extra steps".

I can't say the same for Bazzite.