Seen your post, and my DE is also KDE plasma. I’m not 100% sure if I have the same issue with the pointer (easy to blame it on the game after all) but I’ve been able to do a test reboot with it plugged in and not have the issues I mentioned. That said I have not tried to do anything with grub so I have no data to contribute there.

Multiple reboots, it’d looks like it’s reviving when I unplugged the puck, and when I did the next reboot without the puck it went smoothly. Nobara Linux, it’s from the Proton GE guy.

Mine arrived too, and I’m puzzled by the triggers: they’re smooth! No texture at all. Other than that no hardware issues but the puck… my system doesn’t like it, at least after the latest update. With “doesn’t like it” I mean that I tried American Truck Simulator and I couldn’t get it to run well enough to use any menu and killing it was more about doing so via Steam… that would need to be force closed too. And at reboot? It wouldn’t mount my internal drives! I think it’s the latest firmware, because I could play PowerWash Simulator without any trouble. On the bright side, if it’s firmware, it can be fixed.

Lucky you, I’m stuck trying to get past the “yes, use my wallet credit” screen :(

It was a good plan to preload it yesterday… but plans and reality. You know.

Edit: 31 minutes later, it went in! With a warning about shipping times due to high volume of orders, but it went in.

Wait, let me understand this. Is your link something official? Like, reliable? Because come on Gabe, less time on Aliexpress ordering random valves with the company card!

Ah! It’s even more visible there than on their page, leave it to me to find the hardest way lol

Also, while during gameplay it’s true that depending on the game there’s no real difference with a ssd, the speed is a matter of standard: you aren’t going to fall for a usb 2 drive boasting 1gb of speeds! But the UHS-I standard is far less known and they can make their out of standard reader, so while in practice it’s nonsense, it’s also technically correct and that’s probably the one thing keeping things from being false advertising.

(My point was that it’s important to make informed purchases, get whatever has the best price/performance for your use while being aware of that kind of marketing shenanigans)

FYI it’s 104, not 150. https://www.sandisk.com/products/memory-cards/microsd-cards/sandisk-ultra-uhs-i-microsd?sku=SDSQUNC-016G-AN6MA At the bottom: “engineered with proprietary technology to reach speeds beyond UHS-I 104MB/s, require compatible devices capable of reaching such speed.” or in other words, it does that only with their own reader.

It’s not fully comparable. Basically Microsoft, as it seems to be the default, messed things up by making the Xbox: sure, before that the computer gamepad situation was chaotic, but after, they created the de facto standard that is the Xbox controller. Is a feature on that controller? No? Well, nobody else will have it then. Back buttons are really just there for ergonomics because with a thumb over each stick you get no access to face buttons but back ones can be remapped to those. It’s cool! But also the only thing they can really do. Steam Controller/Deck? Thanks to Steam input, more or less anything you want! Mouse click? Sure. Pop up menu with a bunch of options? Obviously. The game supports Steam input? Then you can bind them to anything the game offers. As a super basic thing, you end up with a controller that has two analogs, a d-pad, “not anymore start and select”, a “home” button, 4 face buttons, two shoulder buttons, two triggers, two trackpads, a gyro and four back buttons. I have a GameSir Cyclone 2, and I’m eagerly waiting for the Steam Controller 2 as it’ll be a meaningful upgrade even if at first glance the only missing feature are the trackpads.

Similar opinion here! What I’ve noticed since the NES, is that my hands are largely symmetrical, and so the better layout depends more on the game than anything. For example, Microsoft had the advantage for a long time in racing games! Longer triggers giving better control, left stick in a spot making symmetry with the face buttons so everything goes naturally over steering, throttle, brake and whatever the face buttons do in the specific game, maybe turbo or…

Similarly, that layout favors games where camera control isn’t important (or possible) like action games, platformers and so on, focusing on movement and actions.

Now, the symmetrical sticks? They are perfect for things like fps, as the hands will be comfortably over the same spots: both thumbs on analogs, index and middle fingers over shoulder buttons and if there’s back buttons even a better alternative to face buttons!

And as mentioned in another comment, the Steam Deck has everything on the same level, making it perfect for anything. <3

I have played so much that nowadays I don’t even notice the difference in layout so much, be it the Dual Sense for games that support it or the GameSir Cyclone 2 for the rest (TMR sticks!) but what I DO notice is the not anymore start and select. Press “mystery button” to open the menu and I’m there, trying to figure out if it’s the one on the right or left side…

Somehow I never noticed that everything is nice and symmetrical until you mentioned. That… yeah, I think that’s even better than Sony’s design.

Dude got to deal with Twin Peaks, Baal… I think he’d be excused for not wanting Q too.

Dedicated N100 mini pc. It has more than enough everything…. Except for whisper and other AI stuff. That’s a silly situation where whisper takes longer than the dedicated gpu (and mind you we’re talking RX 6400, not 5090) outputs the results.

Great minds think alike

Edit: this is why you don’t meme when tired. Photon, not proton! ffs lol

PowerWash Simulator. Was included with Apple Arcade and I saw no reason not to actually try it, then I started getting into it and long story short, there’s a lot extra content on the main version, plus a lot extra paid dlc (that’ll have to wait for a sale!) and the only way to play the game is, IMO, with the gyro. Perfect match for the Deck!

Or with the person wearing a red shirt, as it’ll… act as a lightning rod of sorts.

Example of absolutely not caring about other people’s opinions, and just liking what’s enjoyable to me: once The Big Bang Theory was over, I kinda had to check out Star Trek out of curiosity. That’s how I more or less binged all of it in chronological order up to the then latest stuff (Disco and Pic S1). I’ve yet to find a Trek I don’t like. Sure, Disco has the main issue of not being episodic and that brings it down the rankings for me. Since Trek turned out to be pretty good actually, that got me to catch up on all the other things I missed when they aired, see SG1, Babylon 5, Quantum Leap, Charmed, Monk, Friends and How I Met Your Mother to name a few. And you know what? I liked them. I liked Morbius (pretty low on the list of superhero movies, but perfectly enjoyable). I liked the Enterprise theme once they sped it up, it ended up going from annoying to hilariously silly. I liked the Suicide Squad game so much that I fell into my usual trap of burning myself out, but I miss the fun banter while traversing the city. I liked the first Destiny, and don’t like the second. I like Ghost Recon Breakpoint, but not Wildlands. You do you, but I enjoy whatever I want, regardless of other people’s opinions on the matter. You’re legion? Hi Legion, I’m dad.

Deciding by oneself if something is enjoyable or not? Yeah, I can see how that’d be bad.

I have setup the wake word as Hey Jarvis, but the issues I get… it usually gets it, however I also hear it bleeping and blooping randomly so that’s fun. Then HA is running on a N100 mini computer, and I found that the smallest Whisper model I can use reliably is the medium one (I’m sure in English it’d work well even with smaller ones) and the LLM is Qwen 3 4b running on a computer with a dedicated RX 6400. As in, that’s the second gpu and it’s doing only that. The end result is that I give a command, wait a few seconds (Whisper mostly), then hopefully it works out. I imagine with a known good mic and powerful local hardware it’d be noticeably better, but.