Dual-booting Debian on a Steam Deck, easily.
When I got my Steam Deck, I tried to dual-boot Debian stable on it with the official installer.
However, the installer was stretched (and in the incorrect rotation!) and it didn't look like it was going to work.
I eventually tried installing Ubuntu on it, and most things were working correctly - But there was no sound, and I couldn't use the controller as an actual controller.
At that point, I decided to just make a script that can install Debian to an SD Card and automatically fix all of the driver issues I had with it.
After cloning this repository, run the following to install deckian to /dev/sda with the username user (change it to the correct values for your use case first!):
sudo python3 -m deckian bootstrap
sudo python3 -m deckian install-desktop plasma
sudo python3 -m deckian push deckian-plasma
sudo python3 -m deckian install deckian-plasma /dev/sda --username=user
@iam_tj:matrix.org: Converted the spi-amd kernel module into a dkms module
- The built-in speaker does not work
- GNOME (and even gdm) crashes
- XFCE doesn't have a way to disable wireless (as a solution for this problem, I've added rfkill to the list of packages installed by
deckian bootstrap)
| Feature | Works? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Display | Yes | Display rotation is broken, but deckian install-desktop handles that automatically. |
| Wireless | Yes | On XFCE, you can't turn off wireless. However, you can turn it off with rfkill. |
| Audio | Partially | HDMI audio works automatically. You will need to run audiofix before headphone audio works, and the built-in speaker currently does not work at all. |
| Controller | No | The Steam Deck controller simulates a keyboard and mouse by default. Disabling that and using it as an actual controller does not work yet. |
| Desktop Environment | Works? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| KDE Plasma | Yes | KDE Plasma currently is the best DE choice for deckian, everything works really well. |
| XFCE | Yes | Wireless cannot be disabled with the GUI, but everything else works. |
| GNOME | No | GNOME crashes when it tries to load gdm. |