this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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Linux Gaming
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The one thing I took away from it was that the Xbox-button acts as alt tab. I WANT THE SAME FROM MY STEAM DECK IN DESKTOP MODE!
But in Desktop mode the Steam button does absolutely nothing while a game is running.
Why do you use desktop mode for a game?
I like to have other apps like a browser easily accessible with proper window management. And most of my games are non-Steam games which allow me to easily swap between desktop and gamepad bindings easily to alt tab out.
And I've found that running KDE Plasma Wayland has no visible performance impact either. No idea why they use X11 in SteamOS.
Steam os is pretty old now, compared to the Wayland readiness timeline, and proton doesn't fully support Wayland yet
Ah, but the really funny thing is how Gaming Mode works.
They start the gamescope wayland compositor which launches an XWayland session to run the Steam client in. Which will start gamescope to run the game, which will use a second XWayland session to actually run the game in.
It'll probably take at least two more years until they can get rid of X.
Oh god, why have you cursed me with such knowledge
Remote play for whatever reason works far better in desktop mode
Can't you map Alt-Tab to one of the back buttons? Or does that not work in desktop mode?
EDIT: Or if that doesn't work through steam then is there gamepad software in KDE or the Software Centre that lets the desktop map gamepad buttons?
I've had mixed results doing this. Not really sure why
That works. I'm just lazy and don't want to have to do it for every game.
I guess you could remap them in desktop mode? I haven't tried but it should be possible.
No, you cannot change the mapping of the Steam and ... buttons. They are only available to the Steam client. You cannot remap the Steam+other button combinations either.
Funnily enough when no game is running the Steam button focuses the Steam window. But that functionality is gone as soon as a game is running. Really frustrating.
That's wierd, works well enough for me? It's called guide button chord layout.
No changes to that are saved.
And it still doesn't let you rebind the Steam or ... buttons themselves.