also,
a few notes:
Auto update is NOT implemented for the Linux version. Please update manually ASAP as updates contain security patches.
- it should be mentioned that these instructions work only in vanilla unmodified
bashshell, so NO, your favouritefishorzshisnt gonna do the job. - btw notice that its vcpkg, however we use cmake anyway, oh yk it’s a strange mix of windows and linux here and there haha, just remember that BeamMP is a volunteer project lol haha…
- IMPORTANT!!! if you want to do this on a Steam Deck and you’re on SteamOS, and you use it as a “portable linux machine” daily like me, installing the
base-develpackage and any other dependency it requires to compile theBeamMP-Launcherbinary (which, by the way, cannot be renamed, it’s hardcoded to rename itself back toBeamMP-Launcher, hope you found this cute little factoid interesting) – WILL BE FUTILE since SteamOS is a ■■■■■■ up read-only distro where YOU will have to make your ENTIRE FILESYSTEM writable/editable to install ANYTHING that isn’t a flatpak (like your chromium or ProtonUpQt, for example), okay, let alone building a native beamMP client (yes, surprise, SteamOS doesnt come with compile tools nor does it even come with a user (you have/had to set the user and password yourself!), cos it’s considered a “gaming distro” and not a workstation for you to tinker with, or so they say “uhmm actually it’s for security reasons, so that you dont install malware into your root filesystem”… ohh ■■■■ it, i made a guide for y’all how to bypass that ■■■■ alright
)
-
SO, ya wish to proceed with installing and compiling, as well as getting one step closer to using arch btw (kill me
), huh? HUUHHH??! very well. understand these risks: YOU THEN, HEREBY, UNDERSTAND ALL OF THE POSSIBLE AND UNFATHOMABLE RISKS OF BRICKING YOUR ONE AND ONLY STEAM DECK (unless you have a big family and can steal someone else’s, YOUR ATTEMPTS AT TRYING TO MAKE BEAMMP WORK ARE FINITE AND VERY MUCH NOT ENDLESS, YOU ONLY HAVE ONE CHANCE AT THIS, OKAY? okay.)!
BEFORE YOU BEGIN THOUGH – TRY NOT TO ERASE YOUR STEAM DECK’S INTERNAL DRIVE, it is very difficult to update your steam deck’s firmware OUTSIDE of steamOS. OH, that is, haha, unless you dont want to actually install anything. yeah, then just scroll to the bottom until you see the word “HOWEVER”…
–consider these requirements – we will be turning your steam deck into a stationary desktop PC (uhmm… actually it already kinda is a PC, it’s just that people bully steam deck into thinking it’s just a mobile handheld device):
(1). get/buy an external (!) SSD (& a cable to connect it with) AND a dock station AND/OR a usb-hub for your Steam Deck (w/ at least 3 USB-A ports for the periphery and general quality of life by simply having them, 1 USB-C PD for charging, OPTIONALLY with a built-in NVMe for an SSD); also optionally (!) a USB-C to USB-A adapter in case you are going periphery-less by using only track pads and on-screen touch keyboard or if you’re controlling your steam deck remotely via SSH, but be aware that you will not be able to charge your steam deck simultaneously, VERY OPTIONALLY even an HDMI cable and some fancy curved 4k monitor if you cant stand the smol 720p60fps LCD screen, you casual.
–bit of trivia: steamOS, unlike most other distro’s, is imaged as is, it occupies your WHOLE drive where it is installed on, it is impossible to shrink its partitions during AND/OR after the installation, because its recovery image is not your standard calamares gui, not to mention that the image itself is not even a live .iso. to make matters worse, steamOS reimages itself after an update anyway - all the EFI entries, for example, will be gone, therefore it is impossible to install anything alongside it on the same drive, which is why we’re getting a secondary system to tinker with on an external drive in the first place! if you DID manage to find a way to dual boot with steamOS on the same drive and not lose the image merely after an update, let us know! you’d be the first person!
–also, if you’re wondering “why SSD and not a microSD - its so much easier!!!” - you can go ahead and close this tab. of course i thought about this. but i thought this was UNIVERSALLY ■■■■■■■ KNOWN that they’re extremely ■■■■■■■ slow (10x), they’re a piece of ■■■■, unreliable as ■■■■ and fragile (these last for a year AT BEST - ever owned a professional camera?). seriously, just shut the ■■■■ up and get an SSD. ■■■■, thank you. anyway…
(2). connect keyboard (and optionally A singular (1) mouse IF there will be space after the second step - ■■■■, i really have to mention the quantity of mice to connect to these people… yeah, connect ■■■■■■■ 6.9 mice, you ■■■■■■■■),
– of course, at this point, if you know how to and/or haven’t already, use SSH.
–WARNING: hot swapping (aka hot plugging) on SOME dock stations could temporarily disable ALL OF YOUR PERIPHERY!!! this is enough to potentially cause corruption with flash- and external- drives. DO NOT disconnect, connect or reconnect ANYTHING while installing, burning or otherwise making ANY changes to your drives. this includes (un)-plugging the charger! PROCEED WITH EVEN MORE CAUTION.
(3). connect usb flash drive (leaving the last remaining port for the keyboard, so use the track pad as mouse. if your distro of choice does not include trackpad/touchscreen drivers in live mode, rest in pepperoni. guess you’re gonna have to uno reverse it by plugging only the mouse and using the on-screen keyboard. if you dont even have an on-screen keyboard, then it’s time for you to learn how to connect to your steam deck via SSH and remote control that ■■■■■),
(4). burn your .iso of choice (see list below) onto said flash drive (if you only have one flash drive but also want to copy some other files, you can use Ventoy, that can both be used as a boot loader with different .iso’s and as a storage device); hopefully you DO know how to do things by now - im not gonna explain everything!
(5). connect your external (!) SSD (unless your dock/hub has a built-in one),
(6). shutdown,
(7). when it is off, keep holding the “volume down ‘–’” button and press the power button ONCE (1 time) until it beeps,
(8). when it beeps, go to boot manager and pick your new bootable drive with your live .iso,
(9). proceed with installation onto your external (!) drive - do not confuse your internal steam deck’s nvme drive with your steamOS on it with your internal nvme drive of a usb hub! just follow your distro’s installation instructions…
–DO NOT accidentally or deliberately rewrite/wipe steamOS in the installation process, it is needed for firmware updates!!! (at least)
*ALSO because it’s mildly infuriating getting it back in case you brick your steam deck completely. here’s why (READ THIS IF YOU ■■■■■■ UP, COMPLETELY BRICKED YOUR STEAM DECK, CRYING AND PANICKING): now that you probably understand that steamOS has a very aggressive approach to imaging, it gets even worse than that - its recovery image block size is 128 megabytes (link to instructions), which means you HAVE to use an external drive like an SSD or a VERY FAST (and expensive!) flash drive that you probably dont have or want to sacrifice, otherwise it’ll basically freeze or not boot at all… thankfully and hopefully by step 1 you should have already caught 'em all. now, for this you have to use another computer. once you’ve burnt the recovery steamOS image onto your external drive, plug that in to your SD and boot off of it, then choose what recovery option suits best for you - INSTALL ONTO YOUR INTERNAL STEAM DECK’S DRIVE! once you got your steamOS back, fancy trying all this again? i thought so, let’s get back into it:
(10). now you should (hopefully) have two working systems to choose from in the boot menu: SteamOS and your desired distro or its linux boot loader!
(PSA: oh, by the way, haha, say goodbye to your beloved “gaming mode” because that ■■■■ just wont work with beamNG and beamMP. first and foremost, native beamNG is an X11 application, probably a crazy shocker if you didnt know this factoid. it basically means that this game only works in 1% of cases, because LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE is NOT using deprecated and outdated technology, so is the gaming mode, which uses wayland window system… oh, how i wanna see the look on your face when you’re gonna be all like “b-b-b-but what’s all this!!! it’s j-j-just 1 pixel… why do i get a black screen??? somebody heeeelp!!!” second, gaming mode wont work with beamMP, be it via proton or run natively, because… of the aforementioned problem. to learn more, google “wayland” and “x window system” and document any differences)
(11). and finally, YOU ■■■■■■■ DID IT!!!
YOU’RE WINNER!!! congratu-■■■■■■■-lations!!! you’re amazing and not a lazy piece of ■■■■■■■ ■■■■, yay and hooray and ■■■■. 
ahh, right, anyway, you may now proceed with the rest of the guide to compile this ■■■■■■■ beamMP launcher. oh and dont forget what i said literally in the first paragraph of this long ■■■ post though haha 
-
here’s some out-of-the-box Steam Deck distro’s that worked for me (not in order, im just separating the links with numbers. anyway, my fav is definitely NixOS. its just soooo ■■■■■■■ gay, i love it. i think you should try it if you love spending over 6 hours doing nothing, like following these instructions):
(1) CachyOS Handheld Edition (arch, optimised 4 gamers, blah blah blah),
(2) Bazzite (fedora, can update firmware like steamOS (?), also for gamers),
(3) EndeavourOS (at least it’s not Manjaro, copium… has steam deck drivers),
(4) NixOS (independent, as a challenge, and there is a steam deck community – NOTE: you will be unable to build / compile ANYTHING, this system is DECLARATIVE! EDIT: oh nevermind. i gave it a try. you will need to read this: Running dynamically linked executables so basically you can use ‘nix-ld’ or steam-run’s FHS thing).
(5) OR just read this i guess – NOTE: 2 year old or more posts are to be considered OUTDATED information! (yes, you can install windows, but 10, not 11, the latter will be the ■■■■■■■ end of you (EDIT: get an LTSC edition at this point, guys). no, srsly, 11 is way slower and less secure even if you apply all kinds of anti-spyware anti-bloatware nukes, i ■■■■■■■ tried. my experience with beamNG on minimal win10 on steam deck was… not good. so forget about 11, alright. it’s as if the amd drivers for vulkan are outdated or dont work at all. well, at least that is true for the LCD model. sure, directx12 will work, but its STILL way way worse than with vulkan on linux. beamNG on windows via directx11 on steam deck is certainly better than running beamNG via proton or wine, which some of yall STILL do for some ■■■■■■■ reason… trust me, native linux vulkan experience - in a heartbeat, without a question the BEST experience - just remember to enable the shader pre-caching in steam options, VERY IMPORTANT, if you didnt know what makes vulkan so fast, that is… long story short, use it for anything but beamNG. i use it for mapping! cyberpunk performs literally THE SAME as on linux btw ^^ macOS tho, i dont actually know. i have macbooks, i play beamMP on my macs, but you just dont want a ■■■■■■■ hackintosh on a steam deck, no. like, why. if you’re that masochistic just try nixOS -
HOWEVER!!! IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO INSTALL A SECOND SYSTEM, THEN RISK IT FOR THE BISCUIT EVEN MORE WITH THESE GUIDES THAT (TEMPORARILY) MODIFY STEAMOS – you just need to create a user:
(1) this simple guide for SD,
(2) this github SteamOS issue,
(3) this alternative reddit tutorial,
(4) this userspace (!) guide for SD.
- (why yes, you DO have to do ALL OF THAT if you want your beamMP on your brand new steam deck, what did YOU expect? this isn’t beamMP’s fault, so im just as pissed as you are. ■■■■■■■ hell… oh ■■■■ off, you got what you got, alright, this isnt official instructions, THEY’RE MINE. a tl;dr? ok, well, you’ll have to dual boot, off you go)
4. ATTENTION!!! even after you’ve built the launcher binary, it STILL requires compilator libraries to be installed – if one were to delete/lose base-devel after the compilation AND/OR share a binary to another computer that doesnt have base-devel (for example, a Steam Deck), or even download a pre-compiled binary of BeamMP-Launcher from somewhere off the internet, you will still NOT be able to launch it (devs, you need to include such libraries inside the binary and/or link them! shameful, honestly…)
5. in case you are having a problem with your screen blinking or flickering (NOT screen tearing!) with a black screen, i rambled about it here: