This blog entry was recently posted over on [email protected]. https://blogs.gnome.org/alicem/2024/10/24/steam-deck-hid-and-libmanette-adventures/

It details how the controller on the Deck works. Maybe it can help you.

Nice! So that should also work to use the Steam Deck as a gamepad on a PC, right?

Whoever can see through WordPress’s spaghetti code must be a genius.

Plus, OP delivered a text version.

Running Doom on the N95 wasn’t hard. It didn’t even play that badly with the controls.

The keyboard situation on Wayland and especially KDE is abysmal. Through a workaround I managed to get Onboard working. But it often crashes for me when using it with touch.

The keyboard from Steam actually works best for me. But I don’t know how to pull it up without a gamepad. I’ve got a post showing how to get it working outside of the Steam Deck. I’ll try to find it and edit my comment.

All in all I actually think that Gnome is better suited for touch devices. But I just don’t like how it works overall. But maybe your girlfriend likes it.

At least on the Steam Deck it’s great. With or without Steam. In terms of compatibility it’s probably best to get an Xbox or PlayStation controller. As far as I know most off-brand controllers present themselves as Xbox controllers.

If you want to do emulation I’d recommend PlayStation controllers because some PlayStation games only work with those because of unique features like the touchpad and motion controls.

Most modern games actually show different buttons depending on whether you have a Nintendo, Microsoft or PlayStation controller. And they all have Linux drivers and also work especially well with Steam and Proton.

That is, if the laptop isn’t totally locked down by IT. But knowing school’s IT budget that probably isn’t the case.

Mass

With Oculus you will have to use ALVR. It is a two-part software with a client running on the headset and a server running as a SteamVR plugin on your PC. Setup used to be a pain in the arse but it’s gotten better. But it’s still Alpha software so things might break down the line.

Don’t expect every game to work. I tried both Batman VR (older one) and 7th Guest and they didn’t work. But most of the other games do work.

The good thing about the Meta Quest headsets is that they also work without a PC. The bad thing is that you’re at the mercy of Meta. My Quest 1 is still working quite well but no longer gets any OS updates. Normal Android stuff. Maybe the Pico 4 (or whatever their current one is) is better with that. No idea.

That said, I love the standalone headsets because you don’t have to fight with a cable with them. It’s great, especially if you have the space for room scale VR.

In terms of VR modded games they might not work on Linux. I don’t know about those Unreal games but at least Alien Isolation’s VR mod cannot work on Linux unfortunately.

Don’t expect to get any official support.

I just want the Steam and … button to also work in desktop mode. I’d hack it into the kernel driver to map them to the super key in lizard mode if I could understand it properly. Unfortunately I don’t have the energy to read the code.

Now I wonder what would happen if someone were to submit such a change to the Linux kernel. Would Valve try to fight it or work with it?

Yeah. I didn’t dare giving 100 % RAM to zram.

For the web based services the best way would be to put a webserver in front of them to forward traffic to the Docker containers based on the domain. Nginx is popular for this. Personally I use Apache because I know it better.

So Nginx would listen on ports 443 and 80 and all the Docker ports should only be available internally. You can use Let’s Encrypt to get free SSL certificates for all your domains.

[email protected]

You have become the very thing you sought to destroy!

Nice. I’m playing Alien Isolation on Proton due to input problems. Gotta check if that’s fixed with the update.

Yeah, with zram I was able to actually play Cities Skylines on my Steam Deck.

Yeah, I could really see this be super annoying. Especially when troubleshooting or if you just want to launch the vanilla game.

Damn, that would be awesome on the Deck if you could dual wield the touchpads everywhere.