[GUIDE] Steam Deck Tips/Tricks and More!

[n3rd]

Bear with me here, this isn't just blind praise for Steam Deck.

The Steam Deck has grown into its own special name. It is far from perfect, we all know it has its fair share of gripes and woes. For example when entering Desktop Mode for the first time, unless connected to Internet, your controls will be basically non-existent, until you launch Steam from the touch screen. For example, when you only use this for GameMode it's not explicitly apparent that the WiFi5G mode toggle-on actually worsens your overall connection, or that campus/enterprise WiFi is currently bugged . For example, it's not entirely clear you can add OTHER FlatPak Repos to Discover. All these and more are from my understanding not very well known or perhaps don't get talked about enough.

However, What many don't know, is besides FlatPak/Discover, you can utilize ('sudo pacman -S <pkgname>' after setting a 'passwd') in terminal(konsole/fish), and preferably installing BTRFS-SteamOS [http//%28https]; not only will this boost/increase your overall space (looking at you 64GB/256GB users), but it will also add whats called an OverlayFS(Overlayed File System) allowing you to install things outside FlatPak without affecting the system (saved to ~/ (/home/USERNAME/)). These are just a few among several(XBGPViaEdge) [www.digitaltrends.com], several(ProtonGE) , SteamDeck Tricks(DesktopModeInGameMode) I have discovered since obtaining my device.

This will be the first of many posts I intend to make to better familiarize others with the capabilites of the SteamDeck which many may not know of, be aware of, or have even though of before.
I hope you all will appreciate this post, and I welcome any and all suggestions/questions to help add to my bigger guide I will be posting soon. It will be very similar to something like this where it will be a full (or near full) breakdown of ins-outs of innerworkings of the Valve SteamDeck. Again, I welcome any and all suggestions/tips and my DMs are open. FWIW I have a freshly finalized DesktopMode Controller Profile that utilizes most common Desktop Keybinds. I am hoping to post soon but can't get past the 10 minute mark.