SteamOS desktop and Linux apps

next010

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A very basic explanation of the SteamOS desktop mode, the desktop environment used by SteamOS is called KDE, this functions quite similar to windows and provides a wealth of settings to tweak and configure if you so desire, however with Linux there is no one GUI like in windows so you will comes across some applications that have different interfaces designed for gnome or xfce desktops and Qt being the toolkit for KDE apps.

Valve provide their own interface on top which is Steam Deck UI and the quick access menu which acts as hardware/GPU control panel among other tasks, there is no desktop GPU control panel like in windows for AMD's open source Linux GPU driver so valve's control panel is what you get.

Core OS updates come from Valve via check for software update in SteamOS settings, unlike windows you do not install drivers they are baked into the OS with new drivers being made available via updates to the OS. Is is possible to load drivers onto a Linux OS but its very technical and not something any regular user should be doing. Valve also provide a degree of anti tampering in SteamOS so system files cannot be changed making them read only.

The Discover app on the desktop also acts as an update tool for desktop components not just applications.

Storage management
This is where things are very different from windows, thankfully the KDE file manager called Dolphin (windows explorer equivalent) smooths over much of the technical not so user friendly aspects of Linux.

Think of the C:\windows folder emptied into the C: drive and that's kind of what your looking at in Linux with the root file system (rootfs in KDE Dolphin devices section), all the operating system guts are there. The actual user folder is the Home section with 'deck' being the username and for regular users you shouldn't be going anywhere beyond that.

Extra storage (USB/SD) drives are mounted as folders in the Linux file system, KDE makes this a lot simpler to see as SD cards or USB drives will show under removable devices section in KDE Dolphin.

You will see some extra partitions alongside the root file system such as efi/var/esp, I think these are Valve's boot/recovery partitions in case the system fails to boot after an update it auto reverts to prior version, the KDE desktop does not hide these partitions even though it probably should from a usability perspective.

While the Steam Deck UI has its own format storage feature the KDE desktop also comes with a partition manager, select EXT4 if formatting a drive as valve have set this to have the correct permissions to be recognised by the system.

Applications
In desktop mode applications can be installed, SteamOS supports two easy methods,
1 - Flatpaks available via Flathub website, this automates everything, install/remove and keeps the application updated, the 'Discover' app on desktop is the portal to this.
2 - Appimages available from web sites you download them from, these are standalone apps akin to running a windows.exe file.

The terminal via konsole (command line to win users) is another way to install software under SteamOS but you shouldn't need to go near this unless diving into the deep end of mods/plugins, the strain of Linux that valve uses is called arch linux, so if attempting to install something not available via the above look for arch instructions.

Steam itself is also an app store but software makers don't generally bother to make their apps available there, maybe that will change in time.

You may run into some applications distributed in other forms that are specific to other Linux distributions these are not supported by default.

Can you use SteamOS on other PC's ?
Currently Valve have no official generic PC build but that hasn't stopped others so yes via these Linux distros based off SteamOS called HoloOS and winesapos.

Games
Heroic Games Launcher - linux native app for Epic Games and GoG store fronts.

Mini Galaxy - a linux native front end for GoG Store.

Minecraft

Bottles - allows running windows apps and games on linux, from my experience is the easiest way to run windows software though watch out the flatpak version has security limits that prevent it reading some folders, this can be overridden with tool further below.

Lutris - allows running windows games on linux.

Open Source Game Clones - here you will find links to game engines remade in open source software allowing them to run native on linux, typically were talking very old games for the most part.


Emulation
Emudeck - covers almost everything, it auto installs all the emulators and creates folders on your SD card for bios/roms etc.

Retrodeck - does the same basically.

A decent wiki that shows a lot of the emulators available for specific systems and which are the best.

You can of course just install all desired emulators manually and set them up your self.


Game streaming
GeForce Now - Linux native interface for GFN of course you can just use web browser too.

Xbox Cloud - MS official workaround.

Moonlight - alternative to Valve's own local PC streaming system

Chiaki - PS4/PS5 streaming client


Web Browsers
Brave - Chrome with good adblock built in.

Librewolf - Firefox with out Mozilla, more privacy focused.


Tools
Appimage Pool - provides a repository for some app images but doesn't cover all appimages out there.

Protonup-Qt - installs alternate compatibility layers to be used beyond Valves own proton.
(heroic games has same function built in into their own app)

KDE Connect - allows sharing files between computers.
(KDE desktop supports SMB network shares so if you have those set up on PC/NAS that works just fine)

Warpinator - quickly send files from one computer to another
Linux version
Windows version

OpenRGB - allows control over RGB lighting on some products under Linux.

Flatseal - Flatpak apps ship with security restrictions for example only reading certain folders, this tool can override them.

Kdiskmark - a tool for benchmarking storage

Media Playback
Kodi - full screen player

MPV - desktop player

VLC - desktop player

Social
Discord, Element, Signal ,Telegram are all available via Discover.

Another large Steam Deck guide here you will find more stuff to browse through.

If anyone has any interesting apps post links to them.
 
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