I love my deck because
- it can play Steam games fairly well
- it can play emulated game really well
- but most importantly it’s a linux computer, I can browse the web, watch a movie, even be productive on it, and I sometimes don’t even need to plug in a mouse and keyboard or an external screen !
But I was wondering what kind of uses other people have with it, as a non gaming machine?
Sometimes my wife likes to steamlink my desktop on the tv. In that case I hit my kvm button to switch over to my deck and use it as a backup desktop.
Renoise music tracker DAW.
Love a tracker! I saw people running dirtywave M8 headless on a steam deck. Needs a teensy connected and some packages/config, nearly tried it myself but got a preorder for a M8 instead.
I’d be interested to know if you use any bindings/plugins for Renoise with steamdeck controls.
I use a headless M8 and run https://derkyjadex.github.io/M8WebDisplay/ in Edge (with launch options for game mode). But I didn’t really put in the effort to try and make Renoise work without a keyboard/mouse.
Thanks for a brilliant idea! Jamming sessions with deck would be awesome !
Same! I’ve been slowly building a pretty solid custom controller setup for it too. Oh, and found a tiny M-Audio USB keyboard from a flea market, also great with the Deck.
Did you ever make the custom mapping available on Steam?
With a Dock and my Steam Controller it’s a fantastic media PC.
With a Dock and my Steam Controller it’s a fantastic media PC.
Sadly it sucked last time I tried it to run Jellyfin Media Player :(
Weird, it works flawlessly for me. But I’ve only tried it in desktop mode. I find gamescope mode isn’t great for non games, even Firefox scales wierdly in gamescope mode.
I have it plugged into my TV via dock and use it to watch illegal video streams from sketchy websites that don’t have apps. Most often they are live sports streams.
Could you point me in the direction of these sketchy websites? My wife watches a lot of sports and I am looking for a way to stop paying for cable. Most things I have found are very unreliable though.
Sportsurge.net is what I’ve been using for a long time. Goes without saying, but use an adblocker.
HTPC
I’ve used it for work during a trip (I do not own a laptop). I’ve also used it to help a few students doing a bioinformatics class, as most of the tools we use are Linux programs accessed via SSH into a cluster server.
I once saw a video of soldiers in Ukraine using it to control some drones. Truly a versatile machine.
To watch YouTube on my"smart tv" and to watch pirated TV shows and movies.
How to watch YouTube on Steam Deck? Via Desktop Mode?
I use an app called FreeTube, I believe it uses Piped in some way and integrates SponsorBlock and DeArrow. You can install it through Discover and then add it to your Steam Library and use it in game mode (works best with the Web browser Steam Input config).
Go into desktop mode and add Firefox as a non steam game. Then you can access it from gaming mode.
I travel a lot for work with a not very big weight allowance so it has replaced my laptop as my daily machine.
I game on it, use it for discord and dndbeyond to play dnd at work, have jellyfin on it to stream media to my phone+ar glasses, and use it to access my home server to deal with downloads and my main jellyfin server.
It’s an awesome tool.You can use the box to collect cats in.
Steam Cat
It’s amazing for traveling with. I’ve found that streaming devices like a Chromecast or Roku are hit or miss at most hotels/motels, but the Steam Deck in desktop mode with a USB hub and HDMI cable works basically anywhere.
I also keep some movies and shows downloaded just in case the Wi-Fi particularly sucks wherever I am.
I use my Steam Deck for producing audiobooks, set up a little closet space and soundtreated it, set up a mic with a Focusrite and I use Reaper on the Steam Deck.
Works great, bit small but I’m not doing music production so I don’t need a larger screen for the moment.
Best part is, it’s all via USB-C Anker Dock, so I just unplug it and the whole set up is perfectly in place still. Sans Deck :D
I recently started trying run stable diffusion on my deck CPU. It’s slow, but probably my fastest option as I’m very new to PC gaming and the deck is probably my most powerful computer for now.
Check my recent post history lol.
That’s actually kinda amazing…
Updating? Charging?
I have mine plugged into my TV, with a wireless controller and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I spend most of my time in the desktop mode
I use it to:
- play steam games on the deck directly
- stream games at high settings form my PC to my TV via Steam link and Moonlight (I find Moonlight works better for me)
- browse the Web via Firefox
- stream video from my PC via jellyfin
- watch YouTube via Freetube
- watch streaming services via Web browser
- unhook it to occasionally play games in bed on a lazy Sunday morning
It works great as an all in one device. I don’t really use the smart features on my TV or my Fire stick anymore - I don’t need to see all the shitty advertising or use their compromised UIs that try to sell me shit.
Honestly, the Steam Deck is one of the best devices I’ve bought in years.
Which makes it all the more sad that 4% is the current peak of Linux Desktop usage. Now with Proton we could all be living so much better digital lives. I recently set up Nobara and it’s an absolute marvel. I was never a Fedora guy, but I think I’ll come around to this out-of-the-box fully gaming-capable experience.
