pikdum's steam deck tools

what is this

a collection of steam deck tools and scripts to help automate some things, starting with installing vortex

hopefully temporary solution until https://github.com/Nexus-Mods/NexusMods.App is ready

install

1. right click and save as this install.desktop link
2. go to the downloads folder, move the install.desktop file to the desktop, and double click to run it

or

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pikdum/steam-deck/master/install.sh | bash -s --

vortex

after installing, you should have a shortcut on the desktop to install vortex

this will:

0. install SteamLinuxRuntime Sniper
1. install pikdum/vortex-linux
2. use ./vortex-linux to set up vortex
3. add a 'Skyrim Post-Deploy' shortcut to desktop
   • needs to be run every time after you change mods in Vortex
   • also adds a 'Fallout 4 Post-Deploy'
4. map J: to internal games and K: to sd card games
   • E: is the sd card root

after modding, run games normally through game mode rather than launching through vortex

adding a game

• will need to manually set the location, use either the J: or K: drives
  • J: is internal storage games, K: is sd card games
• vortex may pop up some warnings about: staging location, deployment method
  • if it does:
    • walk through their fixes
    • staging folder needs to be on the same drive as the game
    • suggested path works here
    • deployment method should be hardlinks
  • if it doesn't:
    • go to Settings -> Mods
    • set the Base Path to:
    • K:\vortex_mods\{GAME} if your games are on the sd card
    • J:\vortex_mods\{GAME} if your games are on the internal drive
    • press Apply
    • Deployment Method will now allow you to select Hardlink deployment
    • press Apply again

download with vortex button link handler

• might work out of the box, unless you've installed vortex before
• if it doesn't work, edit these lines in ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list ~/.config/mimeapps.list

  x-scheme-handler/nxm=vortex.desktop
  x-scheme-handler/nxm-protocol=vortex.desktop

• run update-mime-database ~/.local/share/mime/
• might need to reboot
• if still issues, make sure your browser is using the default app

what are these post-deploy shortcuts?

these are for games that need a bit extra to get things working after modding in Vortex

they automate things like:

• copying required files from Vortex's Documents folder to the game's Documents folder
  • plugins.txt, loadorder.txt, etc.
• setting up script extenders to launch through Steam

a game's post-deploy script should be ran every time after modding in vortex

Note: If you know what you're doing, could set up symlinks instead for this.
That way it only needs to be set up once, before starting modding.
Might evaluate refactoring to that approach in a v2.

how to open launcher to change settings afterwards

using Skyrim as an example:

• after running post-deploy, the game will now start SKSE instead of the launcher
• to open the launcher, install protontricks and launch the underscore-prefixed launcher .exe with it

uninstall

# remove these tools
rm -rf ~/.pikdum/
# remove vortex
rm -rf ~/.vortex-linux/
rm -rf ~/.local/share/applications/vortex.*
# manually remove desktop icons

old version uninstall

# remove steamtinkerlaunch
rm -rf ~/stl/
rm -rf ~/.config/steamtinkerlaunch/
# remove these tools
rm -rf ~/.pikdum/
rm -rf ~/.local/share/applications/pikdum-vortex.desktop