Steam Machine after-build Update

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Hi there again! Following up with the prior blog post here. I have a few fixes for my Steam Machine build that I may have experienced some anomalies with after initially building it and installing ChimeraOS that I’ll address here. Also, the Steam Deck might get Nix package support soon, so I’ll give some thoughts on that here.

Regarding that Steam Machine that I mentioned finally building in my last update here, I've made a few fixes that seemed to be necessary.  
After the initial install, it seemed the system was experiencing some lag.

I went ahead ahead and updated the ASRock Fatality AB350 board from P6.60 to P7.00, then finished by updating to the recent P7.40 release found here. I utilized ASRock’s quick flash utility, which doesn’t require an OS to flash the BIOS, which was nice.

After updating the BIOS, and then redoing the Battle.net install utilizing Proton instead of running it through Lutris, since the steam shortcut can no longer be made utilizing that method in ChimeraOS, Diablo IV is now showing up in the Steam Big Picture mode.

In other news, I’ve been following along with a recent Nix comment made here. This gives me hope that we’ll be seeing a dedicated “/nix” directory added by default to SteamOS soon by the developers.

My Steam Deck "deckscript" has been sitting idle for a little while, due to constant changes in SteamOS from Valve wiping out any installed pacman packages. I've expanded more info on how I plan to migrate the bash script to one that mainly installs nix packages and flatpaks, plus grabbing enhancements, in the pull request here.


Here's a short little recording below, of what happened when I tried to set up the Nix package manager on the Deck via the terminal.
I'll be able to make more progress on this once that new SteamOS release comes out and gives us a predefined `/nix` directory in the future.

I’ll also be working on migrating my Fedora post-install script and the same with my Pop!_OS script over to Ansible roles or playbooks in the future, as I’m getting back on the train that was slowly learning about that. I’m mainly learning about it at night, so it may be a little while. Pull request for that is linked here.

I’ve also gone ahead and set up Syncthing between my ChimeraOS Steam Machine (that I renamed to Illyria) as well as my desktop and gabegear-named Steam Deck. This helps me sync Yuzu save data and keys, as well as aids me in creating a serverless cloud-sync between devices for Steam games that don’t support cloud saves. More info on getting setup is available at their site here.

Finishing the Steam Machine

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Heyo! I finally got all the parts together, this past weekend, to finish my older-hardware living room build for TV gaming. Click here for a full breakdown of all the parts.

Humble beginnings. This process took probably around three months to get all the parts somewhat-affordably used or free from friends.

…I might eventually end up getting custom-sleeved cables though, as this spaghetti monster of power cables is quite difficult to keep neat in this tiny case, for airflow reasons. Sadly, the CPU is currently hovering around 60-80c depending on the game that’s being played, due to its Noctua cooler being right under the PSU fan.

After building it, while quite inebriated late at night, I was honestly surprised to see everything fire up without blowing up hahaha. I’m using the vizio soundbar + subwoofer for sound through the TV and have the TV connected to it via HDMI to the AMD card. The internet is over ethernet, as I don’t want to futz with wifi attenuation issues due to the solid wall between the router and it.

I burned ChimeraOS to a USB, chose it as the boot device, and let the automated installer do its thing. On first boot-up, I signed into Steam and started installing games! My favorite part is the webUI that you can use for easily installing other games via flatpak/GOG or retro roms. I’ll add some photos of that below.

A New Year, A New Outlook

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Greetings once again! Alex here. Going for a more positive outlook on job prospects this year, despite the current state of the Tech economy. I have a few things planned in the beginning this year. I’ll likely be going on more road trips this year, as well.

In case you haven’t seen it, click here to check out my page with dedicated links to spreadsheets detailing the status of my yearly projects! Moving on…

Hope everyone’s enjoying the new calendar year with friends or loved ones! I know I did. Love my parents and my childhood friends to bits, and it was great to see them one last time before I change up my end-of-year plans going forward. Will likely drive to see them when I eventually pick up my Aptera at the end of this coming year or beginning of 2024.

On the topic of projects, soon I may be doing a write-up in a blog post or dedicated project page on the Miyoo Mini after mine arrives. I’ll be doing more Steam Deck write-ups as well. This year I’ll also be building an AM5-based open-air desktop in the Streacom DA6 XL as well, and that might be my last desktop build for quite a while. Soon I’ll have an Ayn Loki 8 GB model with a 6600U on the way that I scored for cheap, and I’ll test out running HoloISO on there, after configuring BIOS options to be efficient with battery life.

In the last bit of news for this new year, check out my Linux Gaming reflection that I posted on Medium as a follow-up to my 2020 reflection. Things have changed quite a bit since the Deck was released! Above you’ll see me continuing to relive my childhood as I play through Pikmin 2 on my Deck. OS 3.4 is quite smooth, by the way. Love the initiative Valve is taking to support this machine.

Also, as always, here are some cool things I’ve read around the internet recently:

Projects update; Steam Deck as a Laptop, T440p Refurbishing

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Hello there friendos! Recently I was going through the tech I have in my storage, and found a NexDock Touch! Niceu! Next, I thought why not use this with the Steam Deck to make it a laptop for work? Also, thinking of finishing up my refurbishing of a T440p soon.

I’ve always been a hardware junkie, so I love messing with new tech combos.

Once I jumped the Deck over to Desktop Mode, I went ahead and plugged in my NexDock Touch. I sat the Deck on the couch cushion next to me, and just the NexDock Touch as a laptop interface for the Deck’s Desktop Mode! Then, I went ahead and made a little one-time-run script that you could run from Konsole on the deck. I named it deckscript since I’m not good at names haha.

In the image above, you’ll see me installing openSUSE Tumbleweed here in a VM via the Boxes flatpak to check it out. That said, I mainly worked on that deckscript from Konsole on the Deck.

As you can see above, I’m now working on this from a desktop hub from jsaux that has my Deck plugged in. I’m doing further work on the deckscript and have also opened an issue to see if I can resolve the missing headers that are required for getting yay installed on Steam Deck, further enabling you to install stuff from the AUR. You know, packages you might use if using the Deck for work, like Slack.

In the case that the above asciinema embed doesn’t work, I’ve linked this sentence to head to my asciinema page. Made a recording of a first attempt to grab yay. Further information can be found on issue 1 for the deckscript. If any of you reading this would like to help out, I welcome all pull requests! Happy hacking on your Decks!

My Journey With Gaming on Linux in 2020

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Having used various Linux distros on and off since around Fedora Core 2, I started using Linux daily around Q4 2018. 2020 man, what a year for Linux gaming!

I remember back when Valve first worked with various community members to get Proton (SteamPlay) up and running to the point that you could play Windows games on Linux with a fairly button-press solution…then came the GloriousEggroll community releases in years to come, following Valve’s official releases (5.13) with big changes to how containerizing games are handled etc. Needless to say, a lot has happened in the WINE, Proton and Lutris worlds since I first started slowly moving all my games to a Linux install in 2018.

A few friends, such as my buddy Jason, have been posting about gaming on Linux in 2020. These publications inspired me to write my own post about my experiences this year. Believe it or not, excepting Genshin Impact and one other, I haven’t had to use Windows to play any games this year! Such a freeing feeling.

I’ll go into a little more detail on the playability and ease of getting into the games I’ve been playing on Linux this year. I’ll make sure each title name is clickable to send peeps to the associated storefronts or websites as well.

Note that I’ve been running all of these on Fedora 33 on an original Corsair One Pro with 16gb RAM, 1tb SSD, 7th gen Core i7 and GTX 1080 as well as my Thinkpad P51 with 48gb of RAM, Core i7 7th gen and Quadro M1200 4GB.

  • Starcraft II

    • Install Lutris, run the install script, sign into Battle.net afterwards to install it and you’re good to go! Runs fine on my Corsair One Pro and Thinkpad P51

  • Minecraft Java

    • I just install the flatpak that Mojang apparently contributes to, sign in and play the game from there! Flawless on the C1P and Thinkpad.

    • Note that you can also install the Technic Launcher, if you want to play modded installs of Minecraft etc, you just have to download the .jar and then open it in terminal with “java -jar TechnicLauncher.jar” and it will install. Note if you want a desktop shortcut, see here.

  • Oblivion

    • I have the GOTY version of Oblivion from a huge sale on GOG, so I just sign into my GOG account on Lutris, run the install script and I’m good to go! Alternatively, I’ve heard some people enjoy using the community-built Minigalaxy client to install GOG games.

  • Risk of Rain 2

    • This is probably one of my favorite games that released this year. I was looking forward to this and Borderlands 3, but since I’ve had too many glitches and hangs in Borderlands 3 I’ve given up on it and have mainly been playing this. This is a PERFECT 3D roguelike in my opinion!

    • Once you enable SteamPlay (Proton) for all titles in the Settings menu of Steam, you just install this title and you’re good to go! I highly recommend a nvidia 10xx series/Vega 64 or higher GPU for this title though, as it can get pretty heavy when you have a ton of enemies on your screen! The best part of how fun and replayable this title is, is that it’s a one-click install once you have SteamPlay enabled! Just see all the positive Linux feedback on it here!

  • Astroneer

    • Another fun exploration/crafting title on Steam! This game ran for me fine before Valve released Proton 5.13 for some reason, so I’ve been using an older version of Proton from GloriousEggroll that has this game running fine! I just extracted the .tar file with “tar -xvf” and then moved the extracted folder to ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/ and restarted Steam. Maybe in 2021 I’ll see a Proton release that has it running fine again with no need for older versions!

    • Note that after restarting steam, as of the date of this post, you have to go into game properties and force the older Proton version to get it running.

  • Littlewood

    • This game has a native release for Linux on Steam! Just install and run with no issues! This felt like a fun, peaceful mashup between Stardew Valley, Legend of Zelda and Terraria.

  • Veloren

    • Yet another Linux-native game! This game, which is still in active development, can be installed via Airshipper/flatpak/snap or other methods as listed on their install page! I’ve been using the flatpak with no issues at all. Note that this is a lovely, open source title! It kind of feels like older Legend of Zelda games meet a Minecraft graphics style.

    • Note that while an account is required to keep your save data consistent in the game, they don’t track or mine any of your data, as they wouldn’t want that either.

  • Empire Earth II

    • An oldie but goodie! I have this through GOG so I mainly just run the installer, follow the steps and jump into a game! I’ve also had LAN games with my buddies work fine.

    • Alternatively, I’ve heard some people enjoy using the community-built Minigalaxy client to install GOG games like this one as well.

  • Halo: The Master Chief Collection

    • I have this through Steam as well! I’m once again using the older version of Proton from GloriousEggroll, extracted and moved to the ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/ directory. This had some problems on 5.13 or newer for me for some reason. I love jumping into some classic Halo 3 and Reach games, though!

    • Note that, for multiplayer, you’ll have to choose to disable EAC when opening the game…as of the time of this writing, you can only play private games with friends. Also you’ll need a Microsoft account to sign in on first launch.

  • Satisfactory

    • Another title through Steam, once again using the older version of Proton from GloriousEggroll, extracted and moved to the ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/ directory. Runs fine! This game definitely requires a beefy GPU for the textures and the like though, so I’ve only been able to run this on my C1P, as the Thinkpad suffers from loading all the textures.

    • Though this game initially released on Epic Games, I have some problems with the way they run their company, so I waited for release on Steam. You can use your Steam account to “sign into epic games” and play this game on launch.

  • Void Bastards

  • Battlefield 2142 (via Reclamation Project)

    • This game has recently been re-awakened by the community! I’m so happy to see one of my earlier ahead-of-its-time first person shooters get some support from the community! I have no idea how to get this running on Linux yet, so stay tuned for news on that! I might need to install it via the Origin launcher using a CD key purchased off a third-party site….and then add some stuff via the Reclamation project…