18
Run Steam from console? (programming.dev)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
15 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I finally separated some overkill hardware from my server rig (an RTX 3080 and a Ryzen 5800X3D) and put them in their own chassi. Installed Arch, again, of course. The server got a "new" Ryzen 5700G , which apparently is a repurposed laptop APU.

A few years ago, I used to fire up my desktop environment (dwm on X11) and launch Steam from a pseudo terminal.

On my reborn gaming PC, could I skip installing a desktop environment and still play games on Steam? Will it run directly from the console like - for instance - mpv does?

The purpose would be to minimize any overhead from dwm and X11. Which sounds ridiculous now that I "say" it out loud, because it's negligible, but still. My question still stands.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 4 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

You still need X11 or Wayland somehow. I would suggest something that can run in "kiosk" mode. That's essentially what you want - boot a single app and run that.

If you don't care about wayland, just install xorg-xinit (since you said Arch) and put this in ~/.xinitrc: exec steam -bigpicture

Run startx to launch it on its own. There may be other dependencies you need for steam or for games, but you don't need a whole DE.

If you want, you can even enable auto-login and then set up auto-start by adding this to your ~/.bashrc (or whatever shell you use):

if [[ -z $DISPLAY ]]; then
  startx
fi
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •