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So, the thing that makes Steam OS so great is the fact that it is a console like experience for a PC, which means you can turn it on and everything is just instantly available to you from a controller. Zero fuss. However, it's still a PC, which means for those of you interested in going further, you can customize it with pretty much anything you can imagine that can run on Linux, which unlocks the potential of it far more than any other console will allow. Because the Steam Deck's been out for several years now, that means that people have been tinkering with this OS for a while, and there is a lot of options available to you. And even though this stuff was designed around the Steam Deck, because it's
Steam OS, it just works on any other Steam OS device, which means if you're one of the lucky few who got a Steam machine, you have all this additional customization available to you right out of the box. There's a lot of ways you can customize Steam OS, but today I want to focus on something specific to game mode, which is kind of the thing that makes Steam OS unique from other Linux distros. We're talking about Deki Loader. Deky Loader is an open- source project that allows for the side loading of plugins into Steam OS. It's essentially Steam Deck's version of Homebrew. The whole appeal of Decki loader is that everything you do with it works within the game mode.
Installation is like super easy. You just go to your desktop mode, you go to the Decki website, and then you download the installer, install it, and bada boom, you're done. Back in game mode, you're going to go to the quick access button. And now you have a little plug-in section at the bottom. From here, you can then load up the Decki store. And now you have access to tons of different plugins that you can install to customize your Steam OS experience. It is worth mentioning that Deku loader is third-party open- source software which means it is prone to breaking occasionally. Uh especially whenever Steam puts out a new update. It tends to kind of uh cause issues. They're pretty good about fixing it, but it can happen. Usually just got
to wait for them to put out an update, which you can do by clicking this button here, and then everything works fine. I did have an experience one time where it broke so badly that going to the plug-in page just caused a full screen error that I could not get away from. And the only way to fix it was to hard reset the Steam Deck. Uh, this turned out to be an easier fix than I thought though. I basically just had to go back to desktop mode, reinstall Decki, and then everything worked fine. I didn't even need to reinstall my plugins. It just worked. So, while this thing is designed to be a fairly smooth experience, uh you're still entering the realm of open-source customization, so hiccups
will happen. So, what can you actually download on this thing? A lot. We have things ranging from alarm clocks, animation changers, sideloading, custom sound effects, battery tracker, keyboard changer. I'm not going to touch on everything because there is a lot and also I haven't tested all of it, but I do want to highlight a few plugins that I use pretty much all the time and I think are worth checking out as a sort of good way to get you started with what Deki Loader is capable of and then you can kind of go from there and see what interests you. The one I use by far the most is called Steam Grid DB. So, for those of you not aware, Steam Grid DB is this excellent resource online that
gathers alternative cover and key art for all your Steam games. Sometimes you just don't like the way a cover looks or there isn't a cover on Steam and it just kind of makes your library look a little ugly and you want to improve that. Now, the way you would normally need to do this is you would go into desktop mode, load up Steam Grid DB on a browser, download the assets you want, and then in Steam, you click on the game, go to the customization page, and then manually update all of your images. It's kind of a huge pain. Steam Grid DB on Deck Loader allows you to do all of this with a touch of a button from game mode. You just go over to a game, click the options button, and now there is a new option called change
artwork. And now you have a bunch of options to change the cover, which they call capsule. There's the wide capsule, which is the thing that shows up on the front page. The hero art is your background image, logo, icon. You get the point. This is incredibly useful, especially if you're somebody who likes to sideloadad a lot of non- Steam applications like myself. Now, it's really easy to just quickly change the artwork on a game without needing to waste a bunch of time. Something you might not know is that Steam actually allows for the support of animated images. There's all these really cool animated covers that you can get for some of your games. I really like this one for Cyberpunk in particular. Heck, you can even
do it for the logo. Honestly, it looks pretty sick. One thing to keep in mind is that animated images do take a second to load in. Also, they can be a little bit of a resource hog, especially if you have too many on your library at once, and that can actually kind of slow things down, especially on the Steam Deck. So, like don't go hog wild and just put like make every cover animated. Just, you know, like do a couple just like, you know, for fun, like a little select few. Another great way to customize your Steam library is through Tabmaster. This lets you actually customize the different tabs in game mode, which is kind of crazy that you can't just do that by default. You can create brand new tabs, which you can set up
using all sorts of uh different filters and customization to get it exactly how you want it. You can also reorganize your tabs. You can even hide tabs that you're not very interested in. I always like to hide the soundtrack tab because uh when am I going to listen to a soundtrack on my Steam Deck? I'm just not going to do that. I rather just remove that and have a much cleaner looking setup. When it comes to compatibility on Steam OS, there is Steam's verification system, which is pretty decent at providing a sort of like tople glance of like, hey, is this thing going to run on my Steam Deck? But it's pretty limited when it comes to actually giving you any sort of specifics. And sometimes it's just straight up wrong. For years, it has
claimed that Skyrim is unsupported on the Steam Deck, which I guess in some sense is technically true, but you can run the game just fine. If you're looking for something a little more in-depth, this is where Proton DB badges comes in. This provides an open-source verification system that is applied directly onto the game's page. So, even though Valve claims that Skyrim is unsupported here on Proton DB, it gets a nice little gold batch which says, "Hey, this thing works pretty well on the Steam Deck." And because users can leave comments, a lot of them will actually dive into specifics about what worked about it, what didn't work about it, as well as offering tweaks to actually help
you out if there's some little settings you need to change to make the game run. Right now, Proton DB badges is something you're going to use exclusively for the Steam Deck, not really the Steam machine. But as the Steam Machine comes out and more people get their hands on it, I expect Proton DB to get a tab for the Steam Machine. But even if a game runs often you have to tweak these settings to get it just right, which is probably like the biggest thing about Steam OS and that I would like to see kind of evolve and change over time. Right now, a lot of that is on the developer side where sometimes they'll be like Cyberpunk and offer a Steam Deck setting, but a lot of games don't do
that and it's kind of up to the users to go ahead and tweak it like you know you would on a PC. This is where Deck Settings comes in. Deck Settings provides a resource where users can upload their specs for how to get a game running as best you can. They'll detail what compatibility tool you need, what performance settings on the Steam Deck you need to set up, as well as settings in the game itself, sometimes even if there's a mod you should install. Deck settings is pretty cool, but is pretty dependent on its users uploading the settings for you. And sometimes you click on a game and there just isn't anything. So, if you're using deck settings and you're playing a game, uh, go ahead and upload those
settings to help other people out. Like with Proton DB badges, this thing is pretty much just for the Steam Deck at the moment, but again, hopefully with the Steam Machine, uh, there will be people who start uploading Steam Machine specs as well. I'd also point out that a limitation of deck settings is that it only works for games that are on Steam itself. If you're trying to play a game that uh you have to launch through a third-party application like say Allen Wake 2 on Epic, uh you can't find anything for that on tech settings. So, you're going to have to look elsewhere to find out that information. Speaking of thirdparty storefronts, if you're looking to play any of your games that
you don't have on your Steam library, typically you have to go to the desktop settings and uh install third-party launchers like Ubisoft Connect or Epic Games. It's not as complicated as it seems and there's actually some really great resources. Heroic Game Launcher is an excellent native application that lets you access Epic Gogg and Amazon games all from one launcher. It's super convenient and easy, but you still have to do it through the desktop. If you want to access some of these shops through game mode, there is Junkr. It's pretty much exactly what you think it is. You just access the junk store and the plugins, set up your Epic Games account, and then you have access to all your games ready
to install from game mode, which is pretty damn cool. However, there are some limitations to Junk Store on Decki Loader. The Decki Loader version only comes with support for Epic Games. If you want GOG, you have to pay an additional $6. Now, there is a Junk store pro version which has access to all sorts of additional storefronts. This version comes with a 7-day free trial, but if you want the full thing, you have to pay $40. I imagine that Sticker Shock might be a little surprising for people to expect plugins like this to just be free, but this is a small project made by uh two people, and I don't think it's unreasonable for them to expect to be
paid for the amount of work that goes into making something like this. If you just care about Epic Games Store, then don't worry, the Decki version is free. And if you really are bothered by the price, you can still always just go to the desktop and use something like Heroic Game Launcher for free. The final plugin I want to touch on is CSS loader. This plugin will open its own separate storefront page for downloading different themes and customizations to Steam OS's UI. There is so much customization here that frankly it could be its own separate video. You can tweak everything from the way box art looks.
You can hide certain elements on the home front. You can change the colors on everything. There are so many little tweaks that you can install and each of these can be applied individually or you can stack them together. Mix and match them however you like. Honestly, the options are kind of endless. The whole thing can be pretty overwhelming, especially for a beginner. But the nice thing is that people actually do put their own profiles up on CSS loader. So, if you don't want to put in all the work, you can just find a profile that somebody else made that you like and then load it up. Using CSS loader really is the ultimate way to customize your Steam OS experience. And that covers the plugins that I think
are absolutely essential to check out for Deky Loader. Like I said, there are well over a hundred different plugins you can check out that can do all sorts of things. So, go ahead and just dive in and see what strikes your fancy. If you got any Decki Loader plugins that you recommend, go ahead and throw those down in the comments. And if you enjoyed this video and want to see more videos about like Steam OS and uh the different things you can do with it, uh let me know. Throw some recommendations in. I'm actually planning on doing a larger video around the Steam Machine where I use only it for a month and take all my consoles and my Windows PC and I just put them in a closet and I'm just
using the Steam Machine. So stay subscribed for that. Uh and have a wonderful day.
