Do you use your Deck for non-gaming purposes? If so, what do you use it for?

I use a deck to control robots at a theme park.

51

I saw someone doing this and geeked out so hard. Such a cool use of the Deck.

26

I use it as a general purpose computer. I set up an encrypted home partition by more or less following this guide: https://github.com/hirak99/steam_deck_encryption. I have a bag that nicely fits the deck, charging cable, dock, and a 60% keyboard for travel.

39

Same, I use it as my travel laptop. I like this keyboard + stand.

19
60% keyboard

Im j st im g n ng yo r typ ng loo s lik th s

18
I just picked up a 144hz USB-C 16" monitor with a magnetic cover like a tablet. Paired it with a mini tripod and designed/printed a magnetic bracket so the monitor just snaps on. Slides right into my tiny 13L pack (barely).

4
- Picture please!
  
  4

I use it as my primary PC! It's such an awesome and stable Linux experience

30

Still have SteamOS on it or some other distro?

7
- Still SteamOS. I tried bazzite since I loved it on my previous desktop I had but it was super unstable on my deck , no clue why.
  
  4
Same, I use it as a PC to learn English, browse the Internet, play music and videos, write, and manage my files.

2

My friend screenshares shows with me and we watch and talk to help me fall asleep at night ❤️ It works better on the deck than my phone

29

That's really sweet. A very good friendship!

13
Yeah, the Steam Deck is kind of the middle ground between a too big laptop and too small phone screen.

8

Ukrainians using it to control machine gun, so they dont have to expose themselves in trench warfare.

25

Can I sign up outsidee Ukraine (legally, too)? Like its only extra latency. I cant go to space but I can blow up Russian armor a gazillion miles away so thats something

1
- Warfare isn't a video game. I'm also sure they're not giving control to unvetted people.
  
  14

I have it connected to my TV so I can stream sports.

24

Ah yes, "sports", I got ya ;)

17

I use it for 3D modeling using a BT keyboard and a drawing tablet. Works great with Blender and FreeCAD both.

19

Same I have been learning blender and using it on my deck! Super cool to hear about others doing so!

Also kdenlive is a nice linux non linear video editor available on flathub/the discover app browser.

https://kdenlive.org/en/

I have been using kdenlive to browse, edit and compose gameplay videos right on the deck, it is a really nice easy experience.

4
+1

2
How does the drawing tablet work for FreeCAD? And is it one with or without a screen?

Curious on the use case.

1
- It essentially is a replacement for a mouse, I set FreeCAD to use Blender input settings since I'm used to those. It's one without a screen, just a USB that I use with a kickstand hub on my Deck. I picked it because it was cheaper then a screen style drawing tablet and it would help most with Blender for modeling organic sculpture. It was a simple plug-and-play, although the software to enable some extra features was available for Linux and was a snap to add. I experimented using it with FreeCAD and it's pretty similar to using a mouse, so I don't need both inputs taking up table space.
  
  3

I also use it as a regular old PC. I work from home (design, illustration), and do all of it on a Deck plugged into a dock.

15

So much, that I slapped Bazzite on my 2 desktop PCs, and I have been thinking about Ublue Core for my server.

5
- Thanks to Nixpkgs I've not had to worry about programs, but I sometimes miss having quicker access to DE and driver level stuff.
  
  Does Bazzite have KDE 6 and fresher Bluez setup on the Deck?
  
  2

Mine spends a lot of time docked to the television so I can torrent/stream things.

12

Though I have yet to get a Deck for myself, I'd probably use it a lot to read comics. Having used the Vita a lot for that, being able to control the comics with a physical controller was fantastic, and the far greater processing power of the Deck should also avoid pages taking a long while to load (loading Humble Bundle's ebooks in measly 512 MB of RAM is an experience).

12

This is a place where tablets, even really low-end ones, are far superior. Hard to beat not having to zoom.

5

Pron...

11

Basically everything. It's my only PC right now.

9

I use mine to run VJ software and do light shows at music events.
Since the deck is a powerful computer, and the form factor is quite compact, I find it better than laptops for the task.

7

Producing audiobooks

6

What kind of workflow does this involve on your deck?

2
- The Deck is plugged into a hub with a monitor, m+kb, and a focusrite Scarlett solo, and Reaper is the DAW I use.
  
  It's pretty much just plug and play, I may have had to finnick with the software to get the focusrite going right away but it wasn't much time at all, if any. Other than that, recording and editing as normal!
  
  3

I connect it to my projector to watch content.

6

Used mine as my main PC for half a year, doing everything from gaming (duh) to embedded development. Used RWFUS to install packages not available on flathub, but have recently started experimenting with the NIX package manager (I'm still running write-protected SteamOS).

My sister uses hers as a test and development machine for linux and Android applications.

Thought about using my SD in my model aircraft hobby, but never got around to that. Maybe I'll use it when playing around with my car with the OBD2 adapter, since i can easily connect to it from my current main rig.

5

Mostly decking about.

4

Streaming video to a TV

4

How?

1
- Desktop mode, Steam Deck Dock, and whichever streaming service through Firefox or flatpak app or whatever
  
  3
- huh? it's got a dock... just open your browser of choice and start streaming?
  
  3

I watch movies and TV shows with Kodi

4

I temporarily used it as a computer (mostly just firefox tbh) when my main computer was out of order, normally no.

3

Closest I've come is accessing the browser on desktop mode to transfer files (pretty much just games or files for games) and soon I hope to add custom boot videos. Otherwise, it's just a game player/emulator player for me.

Random question, but does anyone know a way to make it so only custom boot videos play when you select random or have we not gotten that far yet?

3

When I am travelling I use the deck and dock to order product (Libra office), Email, checking credentials of staff and watch video.

Only issue I have is the stupid jumping of frames when watching video in firefox due to not knowing how to turn of the stupid "smoothing" crap.

3

Last Weekend I installed GNU Octave in Desktop Mode to plot a mathematical curve

3

I used mine to write an openSUSE image for my laptop, and a LibreELEC image for raspi just this weekend.

2

I used it to watch anime for a month when I was away from my computer haha. It really made me want an oled monitor for my PC, but I realized they are quite expensive. I need to use my deck more in general to be honest.

2

For anyone wanting to take the deck to the next level and unlock more functionality I can warmly recommend https://bazzite.gg/

-5

Can you elaborate in which use case bazzite is better on deck than stock steamOS? Whats the difference in terms of battery life? What are the tradeoffs?

6
- Personally don't have a deck.. yet. I run Bazzite as my OS on my PC though. However, I read and see a lot of people running Bazzite on decks on forums and discord. This is also where i'd recommend going for answers such as you asked for. If I had to guess there isn't much difference when it comes to battery life - they're both running the same kernel. The reason you would want to switch, as shown on their website is to unlock the ability to run flatpak on your deck.
  
  -6
I don't know why but bazzite for me was super unstable compared to holo os for my deck

1