Steam Machine Experiences

Introduction

Here I will document my experience with the Steam Machine. Apparently I got lucky with the reservation queue, so I managed to pick one up relatively early.

Problems I encountered

Here is a list of all the Issues I ran into and the way I either fixed them, found a workaround or ignored.

Choose a different monitor when using gaming mode

This issue is not solvable so far. Steam Machine will default to using the HDMI-Port in Gaming mode. Since HDMI is used to be the secondary monitor which will be used by a different Setup (Steam Deck), not being able to switch that is sad. So far, I will keep using Desktop-Mode as a workaround, as you can freely change the primary monitor there.

Boot to Desktop-Mode by default

Here I found some commands that trigger some actions.

Enable Desktop Mode manually:

(deprecated) steamos-session-select plasma-persistent
steamosctl switch-to-desktop-mode

Enable Gaming-Mode manually:

(deprecated) steamos-session-select gamescope
steamosctl switch-to-game-mode

In order to switch default boot, change file /etc/sddm.conf.d/zz-steamos-autologin.conf change line Session=gamescope-wayland.desktop to Session=plasma.desktop.

How did I find out what to enter? a google search for the file and asking steamosctl for the entry, command was steamosctl get-default-desktop-session.

Installing yay (AUR)

This was a big hastle. I ended up having a different, better solution for the actual problem I had, but here is what was needed for AUR to work:

• Disable SteamOS’s readonly filesystem
• Update pacmans keychains and trusted sources
• install development dependencies
• clone the yay-repository, compile and install them

Here are the precise commands on how to achieve all that. To disable SteamOS readonly filesystem, use sudo steamos-readonly disable. This needs a password, so set it if not done already (using passwd). To update pacmans keychains and trusted sources run those commands: sudo pacman-key --init, sudo pacman-key --populate archlinux and sudo pacman-key --populate holo. That last one took some research. It throws errors but somehow still works. Linux can be a big mess. Next install development dependencies using sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel git. This seemed to work but didnt actually, so I needed to install some of them by hand after that command. I ran: sudo pacman -S glibc sudo pacman -S git sudo pacman -S linux-api-headers

After that, we can finally install yay. git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git, cd yay then finally compile and install with makepkg -si.

At last, verify that yay is working with yay --version or updating your system with yay using yay -Syu.

Important information for trouble you WILL run into later:

After doing a steamos system update, this whole installation WILL be nuked. So you will have to run all that again after every system update. I will try to create a script that does that for me, will test that later when an update comes out.

Special Hardware

GoXLR

Big Warning as a Disclaimer: There is Scam-Softwre, called GoXLRUtility.net. Do not download that. Instead, use the public Github repository.

My initial solution was to install AUR (found in the section above) and compile the software myself. However, I managed to find a better method described below.

Old Method: (AUR)

First of all, set a password for your user if not already done. use passwd for that.

Then you need to get yay to run, so you can install stuff from the AUR (Arch User Repository). This is handled in a different section, so follow that and come back here when done.

After doing my first attempt of compilation, I ran into a dependency error. Here is the command to get the missing dependency: sudo pacman -S speech-dispatcher as well as sudo pacman -S libspeechd. In order to install the goxlr utility, use yay -S goxlr-utility. It downloads a metric ton of stuff and compiles a metric ton of even more stuff. 630 parts of the software actually.

But after all that hastle, the software actually works! Its a lot more weird than I know it under windows, it opens as a web application on localhost, so it starts a browser when using it, but to me thats fine. My GoXLR works under linux on the Steam Machine! Thanks to the creators and the help I got on discord.

New Method (Distrobox / Distroshelf)

This Method survives software updates and uses the Webbased Software as a frontend, so you’ll be configuring the GoXLR using a Browser. The backend is covered with the old method inside a Distrobox.

Installation Steps:

1. Install DistroShelf from the Discover Store
2. Setup a Distro with library/Arch as its base image
3. Install git, yay and the Goxlr utility inside that container (as in the old method)
4. Start the goxlr-daemon in the container, leave it running
5. Export the binary from the container with distrobox-export --bin /usr/bin/goxlr-daemon
6. Add a service in systemd with its contents in ~/.config/systemd/goxlr-daemon.service
7. enable it with systemctl enable <your service name>

Thats it, this guide was created by memory, so do read through the command outputs and figure out your next steps.