I know there are some tools including firejail and bindtointerface on standard Linux Distros, but they don’t run in userland, so whenever the deck updates they will be overwritten.

Anyone have any ideas how to block access on a Steam Deck?

  • LoudWaterHombreEnglish
    1•9 months ago

    You can’t install applications on steam deck and there is a read only file system??? Whaaaatttt???

    Edit: I asked a friend that has a steam deck, he explained you can easily disable the read-only system, do whatever you want on a Linux system and reenable it afterwards.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      1•9 months ago

      From what i understand any changes to the system outside of the userland will be overwritten after a SteamOS update.

      • ShindigEnglish
        2•9 months ago

        That is correct. The best case is to write a script to make your desired changes, and then run it after each system update.
        My own use-case is that I have a NFS mount-point for my Steam Deck to use extra storage on my NAS. After the first time I figured out how to get it mounted, I made a script to disable read-only filesystem, make all the changes to the system, and then re-enable read-only filesystem. After every system update, I just run that script once.

        • @[email protected]OPEnglish
          1•9 months ago

          Thanks for the reply!

          I can find my way around bash, but the most advanced script I’ve personally authored it probably “Hello World.” Would you be willing to share the script from pastebin or github? IDK, I guess you could copy and paste it posted on Lemmy.

          I think I need to do exactly what you recommended, but I may need some help setting it up. So are an update, you simply run the script to get the system changes re-applied?

          • ShindigEnglish
            1•9 months ago

            This is the script. /home/deck/scripts/fstab contains my customised fstab file. Yes, after an update, I just run this script once.

            #!/bin/bash

if [ ! -f ~/.config/kdesurc ];then
  touch ~/.config/kdesurc
  echo "[super-user-command]" > ~/.config/kdesurc
  echo "super-user-command=sudo" >> ~/.config/kdesurc
fi

if [ ! -f /var/mnt/nas ];then
  sudo -c 'sudo mkdir "/var/mnt/nas"'
fi

sudo cp -a /home/deck/scripts/fstab /etc/fstab
sudo steamos-readonly disable
sudo pacman -Syy
sudo pacman-key --init
sudo pacman-key --populate
sudo pacman -S --overwrite "*" nfs-utils
sudo steamos-readonly enable
sudo mount -a