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Decky Loader, get easy Steam Deck Plugins and make colours POP!

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Did you know you can extend the Steam Deck with various plugins? I’m going to show you how to do it, and some of what’s available using Decky Loader. This was mentioned by me some time ago but it has come a very long way since then.

This allows you to browse, download and install plugins for the Steam Deck with an interface built into the Quick Access Menu (the three dot button on Steam Deck). In my video below, I'll show how to install it and demo a few of the plugins, with vibrantDeck being something quite amazing, at least to my eyes but it is not something everyone will like. The screen on the Deck really does look quite dull without using it now.

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Text Guide:

  • Go into the Steam Deck Settings.
  • Under System -> System Settings toggle Enable Developer Mode
  • Scroll the sidebar all the way down and click on Developer
  • Under Miscellaneous, enable CEF Remote Debugging
  • Confirm dialog and wait for system reboot
  • Click on the STEAM button and select Power -> Switch to Desktop
  • Make sure you have a password set with the "passwd" command in terminal to install it (YouTube Guide).
    It won't show a password being entered as a security measure but it is working.
  • Open a terminal ("Konsole" is the pre-installed terminal application) and paste the following command into it:
    • For the latest release (recommended for all users):
      • curl -L https://github.com/SteamDeckHomebrew/decky-loader/raw/main/dist/install_release.sh | sh

After that you can just boot into Gaming Mode, and the plugin menu will be available in the Quick Access Menu as shown in the video above. You can also turn off Developer Mode once it's installed, as I tested it working just fine.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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8 comments

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TrainDoc Oct 10, 2022
Already commented on the youtube video but I'm happy to see Decky Loader here. I've been a small part of the many official and non official contributors these past few months while we toiled away. I joined the team right before the port to react spun up (that effort was lead by Johnny and AAGaming) and I worked on the uploading to the store CI, the wiki along with WerWolv and various odds and ends, mostly focus coordinating effort.

If y'all have any questions please feel free.
I start work pretty early so I might not get to them until later.
scirocco Oct 10, 2022
Unable to get it to work on holoiso for some reason the icon to access it never shows up in gamepadui.
Zlopez Oct 10, 2022
  • Supporter Plus
As a security oriented guy, I always feel sad to see `curl` with `sh` as recommended way of installation. But I can understand that this is probably the only way to get applications without UI to Steam Deck. It would be nice if Valve introduced something like `rpm-ostree`, so people could actually layer packages from arch repositories.
TrainDoc Oct 10, 2022
Quoting: sciroccoUnable to get it to work on holoiso for some reason the icon to access it never shows up in gamepadui.
We don't support holoiso atm. We'd like to but we can't split our focus too much.
elmapul Oct 10, 2022
if increassing saturation make the default look, look boring...
then reduce it may make the default look better?

anyway, i was going to say that, this goes against the way developers/artists envisioned their product so im not a big fan, art belong to artists, everything else is fanart/fanfic, but when it comes to details like color accuracy, unless you are targeting an specific device like nintendo ds, you know that the colors will look diferent at the player monitor, and configurable colors were a thing since the air tv time before video games were a thing.
fabertawe Oct 10, 2022
Great to see the ecosystem around the Deck taking off *thumbsup*

Personally I don't like the over saturation but it's great there's the option for those that do. For instance, I took a while tinkering, de-saturating my TV picture to try and get it natural looking. Even the "natural" default was way too colourful!
Greymane Oct 11, 2022
I really hope vibrant is integrated into the Steam UI. Not a fan of Decky as have had some issues with it. I know it isn't their fault, but getting it integrated would be cleaner.
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