Yeah. I’m sympathetic to the whole “technology is hard” thing, and the idea that the SteamDeck is primarily meant to be for mobile gaming.

But switching from Nintendo Switch to SteamDeck really highlighted to me how good the Nintendo engineering team is, that I never had any of these display issues with a docked Switch.

Yeah. It’s really that bad. They’ve been releasing quality of life patches, but Valve made a portable device that happens to support docking, not a device meant to be docked.

Based on your experience, I assume you have the official Steam Dock, which I find worse to use with the SteamDeck than any random USB C dongle that I have tried.

Edit: Be sure to check for updates. I recall some of the issues you mention (like the blank screen) were mentioned in SteamOS release notes this year.

The first party Steam Dock tries to do too much, and is unreliable. It frequently doesn’t correctly activate the monitor and deactivate the local screen. Other plain old USB C docks work fine.

Also, the official Steam Dock is also not compatible with most Steam Deck cases, both at the base and at the USB C port.

It’s weirdly bad for twice the price as any other option.

Luanti, of course!

I need to figure out just one more way to make a compact item sorter, then I’ll be satisfied. (Narrator: They were not.)

Another bonus: Many very good open source games can be added to SteamDeck by:

1. Boot to desktop.
2. Search the software center.
3. Click install.
4. Right-click the new game icon, and click “add to Steam”
5. Reboot to Steam mode and enjoy.

Some suggestions: Luanti, Empty Epsilon, UnCiv, Tux Racer, most retro emulators.

Great write up. Thank you!

Ooh. Thanks! That’s tempting, at least, from a games preservation perspective.

Hall effect joy cons (combined with Switch 1 game support) could have gotten a hardware purchase out of me, but I think they already missed on that?

Yeah. The Switch was incredibly compelling when I couldn’t get my hands on a SteamDeck, and before I had like six separate controllers die to joystick drift.

But now… Nintendo are the ones on the back foot. I look forward to playing with Mario again someday after Sonic teaches him how to lose gracefully and port his games to every platform.

“… Don’t count XBox and PlayStation out”

Article proceeds to list item after item of damning news for Xbox and PlayStation. Lol.

• 80% of developers target PC vs much smaller numbers targeting anything else
• SteamDeck puts up substantial numbers, when left off the survey, as a write-in comment option

If Valve re-releases a “Steam Machine” console, Microsoft and Sony can look forward to their next console sitting next to the Atari Jaguar and Nintendo Virtual Boy on museum shelves.

Edit: What Sony could do is release PlayStation hardware that runs Linux and Steam. I would pay a premium for their hardware (including their best in class controllers) running software I already trust.

2 of 2. That’s what the “Final” in the title means.

Edit: They wouldn’t have named it “Final” if they intended to make more games!

Edit 2: Final means “Last” in English. It’s a clue that this is the final chapter of the series!

“I appreciate covering my screen in fingerprints, obviously. But what really makes me happy is trying dozens of times to get my fat thumb to register on an interface designed for a mouse.”

• a quote by someone making hardware decisions at SteamDeck rival manufacturers, apparently.

Oooh. Yeah. I could justify it as a laptop expense. Heh. Maybe I’ll use that as my excuse…

I feel the same except it’s a lot of money.

This looks like an ideal version of the “SteamDeck Lite” I’ve dreamt of.

But $850.00 isn’t pocket change for me.

You’re very welcome! I’ve had that issue with VSCode. I tend to create my venv outside of VSCode and force VSCode to use it. I’ve had issues Usually because VSCode is very particular about where the venv folder can be (it really wants it in the root of the current open folder).

All that said, everyone I know with a PyCharm licence likes it better than VSVcode anyway.

Have fun! Don’t hesitate to reach out if you get stuck.

Rock and stone!

No module named pip is usually because I have Python earlier than 3.9ish and the vast majority of recipes expect Python 3.9 or later.

A virtual environment that removes access to pip certainly isn’t working as desired.

Here’s some things your outputs tell me:

• The system version of Python has a lot of stuff installed. So using a virtual environment is definitely worth the effort.
• Your activate script looks fine, on a casual read. (One of the problems we have ruled out is an empty activate file.)
• Python and pip are both installed and available on your PATH, at least before you activate the virtual environment.
• Your virtual environment is doing things - at least enough to break pip.

Having ruled out an empty activate file, I would check on what shell is running. Your activate script expects bash - a classic - but your SteamDeck terminal could default to something else.

I would also try tossing a 3 at the end of the Python and pip commands. In some situations it can help a missing command be found.

Try these:

which python
which pip
python -V
bash
which python
which pip
python -V
source .venv/bin/activate
which python
which python3
python -V
which pip
which pip3
pip3 freeze

Some questions that would help folks help you debug:

• What is the output of cat .venv/bin/activate?
• What are the results of which python both before and after running the source command?
• What are the results of python -m pip freeze both before and after running the source command?

Oh, and a Python pro tip - when a virtual environment misbehaves in any way, I’m pretty quick to rm -rf .venv and rebuild it, in case I did something I forgot about. (If I’ve run more than 5 commands and my venv isn’t behaving as expected, I figure I am way off track.)

Should such a (100 year) ban stand, players risked entirely missing the much- prophesied Year of the Linux Desktop or Mainstream Mac Gaming, almost certain to happen at some point in that span.

Lol. Harsh, but fair.

• For the way I treat my SteamDeck, a clip on screen cover was a necessity.
• A larger case with space to keep the charging cable with it, for longer gaming sessions at my siblings place.
• A tiny Bluetooth gamepad (fits in the case beside the charger) for easily adding a second player for (admittedly intimate) couch co-op.