Linux

Linux is a fully supported platform, with special attention to Steam Deck / SteamOS Gaming Mode.

Filesystem access

There’s no app sandbox on Linux — DeckCrate has your normal user file permissions.

Controller access

On SteamOS and other gaming handhelds, controllers work out of the box — there’s nothing to configure. This section is a reference for custom desktop Linux installs where a controller isn’t being detected.

On a stock desktop distro, using a gamepad without root requires your user to be in the input group:

sudo usermod -aG input "$USER"
# log out and back in for the group to take effect

If the controller hint bar never appears, check this first (groups | grep input). DeckCrate reads each controller’s button map from the kernel and resolves buttons by their semantic code, so most controllers “just work”.

Steam Deck on-screen keyboard

On SteamOS, focusing any text field — search (Y), rename (X), or new folder — summons the Steam floating on-screen keyboard so you can type without a physical keyboard.

Some dialogs, however, deliberately don’t auto-open the keyboard — for example the server entry dialog and the embedded terminal. In these, press X to bring up the on-screen keyboard when you’re ready to type. This is intentional: these surfaces can gain focus without you meaning to start typing, and a keyboard overlay popping up on its own would cover the screen and disrupt the experience.

Steam Input (remapping, paddles & gyro)

When you launch DeckCrate through Steam, it reads your controller through Steam Input — the same layer that powers per-game controller configurations in the Steam overlay. That means you can rebind any control, including back paddles, trackpads and gyro, and DeckCrate will honour it.

DeckCrate ships an action manifest describing what it can do — Open, Back, Copy, Paste, Move, Search, and so on — so those actions show up by name when you edit the controller layout in Steam. Pick or build a configuration that uses them and Steam Input takes over; the on-screen controller panel (in debug builds) shows a Steam Input row reading active when it does.

If you launch outside Steam, or your controller is on a plain gamepad template, DeckCrate simply falls back to reading the controller directly — everything keeps working exactly as it does everywhere else. Steam Input is a bonus for Steam/Deck users, never a requirement.

Steam overlay & Quick Access

In Gaming Mode, DeckCrate ignores your controller while Steam’s own panels are open — the Quick Access menu, the Steam menu and the power menu. Navigating one of them never moves the selection or fires an action in the file list behind it, and control returns the moment you close it. The button you press to dismiss a panel stays with the panel; it doesn’t also act on DeckCrate.

This holds however you launch the app and whichever controller layout you use. Outside a handheld Gaming Mode session — Desktop Mode, a regular Linux desktop, macOS or Windows — there are no such panels and nothing changes.

Network shares (SMB)

Linux mounts SMB shares through GVFS with no root prompt, but needs the GVFS SMB backend and FUSE bridge installed. See Network shares for the one-time package install and verification steps.