18
Run Steam from console? (programming.dev)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 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
[-] KindaABigDyl@programming.dev 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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
[-] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

Very interesting! God I love the customizability and playfulness of Linux :)

Thanks for all the advice!

this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
18 points (95.0% liked)

Linux

63789 readers
323 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
nooter692@lemmy.ml
MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml
cypherpunks@lemmy.ml
cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz