So there I was, away from home, sitting in a parking lot in my car. One of the few times I actually take my Steam Deck out, I awaken it from sleep while it was in Desktop Mode. I switch to Game Mode. Then I get the fatal error as shown in the cover photo. The device kept rebooting. It wouldn’t go away until I had Internet. But I wasn’t home, and I had no way of connecting to any Wi-Fi network.

So, those GLIBC developers…they have a tendancy of breaking things related to anti-cheat (particularly EAC). So much so that even Valve’s own Pierre-Loup Griffais had complained about it, mentioning that this “contributes to damaging the idea of desktop Linux as a viable target for third-party developers.” If you’re on Arch Linux on desktop, or you’re using the Steam Deck, you might not be able to get certain games with EAC to run anymore, because both platforms updated to the latest version of GLIBC.

Small but important update out for both stable and preview branches on the Deck. SteamOS 3.4.4 (stable) fixes an update loop that could occur when doing a factory reset. 3.4.5 (preview) – in addition to adding the update loop fix – also fixes a focus issue with Forza Horizon 5.

Though this is rare, there might be a game or two in your Steam library which – even though it may have a native Linux version – will force the use of Proton when you run it. For instance, when running CrossCode, your Steam Deck (or Linux desktop) will prefer Proton over the native version, because Steam apparently thinks Proton is better. Maybe you don’t want to use Proton and play the game as is, natively.

You might have bought a MicroSD card for your Deck. Over time, however, you might notice the speeds start to slow down. In fact, they might slow down so much that they are practically useless. I’m not talking about opening up your Deck with the card still inside (cough Liam from GOL cough). Bad MicroSD cards are usually caused by one of two things: If you bought the card on Amazon, it might be a fake If you formatted the card on the Deck earlier this year (before the end of May), the Deck did a full format as opposed to a quick format, causing your card to be overwritten too much As reported on the Reddit thread, the OP bought a SanDisk 200GB Ultra MicroSDXC UHS-I on Amazon.

Small update for Cemu – the Nintendo Wii U emulator that went open-source a few months ago – is now out. Changes include: CMake find module for Wayland added to Linux version, Wayland is now optional optimized timer code for MacOS fix “c” showing up in account list for saves better motion support for supported controllers with the AppImage See the commit history since December 13th to see more info.

Couch-oriented gaming distro ChimeraOS gets an update for the month of December, just before the new year. Highlights include: improved Intel GPU driver support for the Deck UI – useful on handhelds that use Intel-based processors screen orientation and resolution fixes for AOKZOE A1 and OneXPlayer Mini Pro improved support for external NTFS drives bug fixes for AppImages and SD card auto-mounting on boot controller support for GPD Win Max 2, OXP Mini Pro, Anbernic Win600, AOKZOE A1 “Format SD Card” button in Deck UI should now work See the patch notes on GitHub.

It’s not really news at this point (that’s what happens when I’m a day late), but Steam now has a Replay feature. This gives you an overview of what your top games were for that year, top genres, the platforms you played on percentage-wise, etc. Let’s go over what I played this year. I played 75 games, 42 of which were new. Top games, ordered from most-played to least, include:

UPDATE (12/29/2022): this guide has been updated to make sure HMM runs! I also have a video. I guess many of the people who have tried adding mods to Sonic Frontiers on Deck have had trouble. And up until this point I’ve had no idea how to help troubleshoot the various issues they’ve encountered. Fortunately SolarNyan came to the rescue with an updated guide. I’ll explain their steps here with pictures and videos.

Steam Deck SteamOS 3.4 shipped to stable Tuesday’s beta Deck client update adds search tab to controller profile configuration, adds a few additional fixes JSAUX announces the ModCase – versatile utility for adding and removing accessories to your Deck. They’re also selling a transparent back plate we’ve hit 7k verified/playable titles seems like everyone and their brother sees the Deck as their hardware of the year. I guess you could also say the Deck has finally put the “Year of the Linux Desktop” joke to an end News Steam Winter sale is live from now until January 5th NVIDIA to shut down GameStream in February Epic Games to pay $520 million for “privacy violations and unwanted charges” Intel to work on a new Xe graphics driver AMD to improve “the Linux experience” when running new GPUs without proper driver support SerpentOS releases its first public ISO Guides you can play Sonic Adventure 2 in HD Interviews did an interview with an Ubuntu kernel developer.