r/SteamFrame • u/Arkkro 1 TB • 20d ago
Software Steam Frame streaming on linux pc (works!)
I've been seeing a lot of posts from linux users and screenshots from Steam support saying that the steam frame and the dongle is only supported on Windows. While that might be the case for the current steam machine software; my Linux desktop has been able to run everything well! NVIDIA GPU & kde plasma 6 wayland, SteamRT3 client, Steam VR with legacy steam runtime, nvenc hardware encoding, steaming dongle and multilink all working. Very impressed with the latency and stability of this experience. I wanted to share my experience to all the skeptical Linux users who haven't received their frame yet, you can get it working!
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u/TurpentineEnjoyer 20d ago
Did you do anything fancy to get it working? My gaming PC is ubuntu with no dual boot so I'm kind of dreading if the streaming doesn't work.
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u/BannockHatesReddit_ 20d ago
You're a Linux user. You should be used to "works but not officially supported" troubleshooting by now
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u/TurpentineEnjoyer 20d ago
Eh, for a lot of things sure but if there are no linux drivers then I'll be shit out of luck.
The reports I'm seeing are mixed on that front. OP saying it works and didn't note any extra steps, someone earlier saying it flat out wasn;t even detected, etc.
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u/svenjamin 20d ago
there are linux drivers in 7.2+ and backported to some 6.18 kernels including SteamOs kernel. wireless/realtek/rtw89/rtw8852cu.c
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u/Coldfriction 20d ago
Looks like there's a module (driver) for it if you don't want to upgrade the kernel.
AI OverviewYes, a Linux kernel driver module for
rtw8852cu.cexists within the upstreamrtw89wireless driver framework (rtw89_8852cu).Driver Availability
- Upstream Kernel: Support for the Realtek RTL8852CU USB Wi-Fi 6/6E chipset was added to the mainline Linux kernel development tree and is incorporated into kernel versions 6.19 and 7.0–7.2+ as the
rtw89_8852cumodule.- Out-of-Tree / Backports: If your Linux distribution is using an older kernel version that doesn't natively include the built-in module yet, community driver repositories like morrownr/rtw89 maintain backported source files (
rtw8852cu.c) that can be compiled using DKMS or manual make commands. GitHub +21
u/Walks-The-Path 17d ago
I got it running after fruitless troubleshooting, just had to follow some instructions from the Linux VR Adventures discord:
- install wireless-regdb from your package manager
- reboot
- run
iw reg getin a terminal, it'll probably sayglobal: 00somewhere- run
sudo iw set <CC>where <CC> is your country code for wireless regulations. I got this code a few lines down in the previous command, where I assume the built-in wireless from my mobo is listed.Runs like a dream now
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u/JohnnyBeeGaming 20d ago
If it's working on some mainstream distros there will probably be a way to get it working on most mainstream distros.
And if you're on the waitlist you can just check on the situation after you get an email then decide if it's ready enough for you.
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u/Coldfriction 20d ago
The power of Gentoo. My favorite distro that I just can't use because of how much time it takes.
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u/tristfall 20d ago
Gentoo, the operating system for people who like watching your computer work really hard for everything.
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u/Skinnei 20d ago
I use it on my T500 laptop, where I compile it on the modded in qx9300. It takes days sometimes
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u/Coldfriction 20d ago edited 20d ago
I've installed it back in the day when it was a 3 stage process and you had to bootstrap your system and compile everything for itself and it took freaking forever. The newest installers let you jump passed all that stuff. It takes a few hours now. I just don't have the time to configure all of my USE variables and whatnot and if I'm going to just install binaries, what's the point of Gentoo? Also compiling your own kernel is cool, but I have a heck of a time makings sure I know what options I need for my system these days.
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u/IGambleNull 20d ago
What power of gentoo? I mean yeah you can select every compiler option and flag yourself but aside of that I do not see a advantage in comparison to Arch. This is a real question. I want to know what you mean. I never used Gentoo 👀
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u/Coldfriction 20d ago edited 20d ago
Gentoo is about maximum choice. It's not just compiler options. It's about absolute user freedom. The point is that the maintainers make as few choices for the user às possible. The same isn't true of Arch. Arch makes many decisions for the user. Compiler options are simply one area where Gentoo provides freedom to the user. Gentoo allows different init systems. It has sockets like functionality similar to FreeBSD. Gentoo can be made to run on more system types than most distros, including Arch.
The entire concept of Gentoo is absolute control of the user and nobody else. It is the most conformant with the FOSS, Unix, GNU, and oldscool Linux worldview distro out there.
If I want absolute control where nobody forces a decision on me, I want Gentoo.
FOSS and the Linux community were once idealists and not a bunch of nerds without philosophical basis. To be honest, the reason Linux users are supposed to hate on Microsoft and big tech is that those companies remove choice. Those companies remove Unix way of thinking where no piece of the "machine" should do more than its basic function and the user has choice in replacing any basic function. The Linux crowd used to be extremely anti- monopoly. It'd dislike valve for the same reason it disliked Microsoft; Microsoft inserted itself as a necessary gatekeeper between users and their hardware and removed essentially all choice as to what operating system they could use or how that operating system worked and gave themselves advantage by having monopolistic leverage over desktop computing. Valve has done the same with PC gamers, it has taken choice away from them. That is anti- freedom. Valve has also added some choice to the PC Gamer by extending their software to Linux, but to someone like me, that looks a lot like Embrace Extend Extinguish that Microsoft used to give themselves more monopolistic power. Embrace an open standard anyone is free to use. Extend its functionality, and Extinguish the open standard so that Microsoft is the only real choice. Steam seems to have done that with PC Gaming quite a bit such that no competition to them can form and give gamers a choice. They are in it for the money, not the freedom.
Gentoo is more of a philosophy than it is anything else.
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u/CosmicPhoenix69 20d ago
Fucking bless man, not enough people actually talking about Linux support. I was really hoping it was just a SteamOS thing, seems like that's the case
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u/Aggravating_Plan11 20d ago
Works on steam os to ive been doing it on a steam machine its just not “supported” yet
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u/epicnicity 20d ago
Do you experience this issue on Steam Frame https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux/issues/953 ?
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u/Arkkro 1 TB 20d ago
I don't have a windows system to compare but I tried comparing standalone beat saber and streamed beat saber and I didnt see this issue.
I would recommend checking and comparing the encoding streams, see what codec, bit depth and color sampling windows is offering and figure out why nixos able to encode in that quality.
Before my steam frame arrived, I spent some time getting nvenc (hvec & av1) fully working within steam remote play. It's a great place to troubleshoot before moving onto vr streaming
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u/epicnicity 20d ago
I think on Linux specifically for Steam Link VR they use Vulkan Video for encoding, which isn’t a problem, it works fine either on Nvidia or AMD, but they don’t let you change any settings related to the encoder on SteamVR.
I have this issue only on Steam Link VR, I guess it’s not a problem for you on the Frame (maybe the stack is different than what they use for Quest), but it could also be specific to AMD gpus.
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u/Arkkro 1 TB 18d ago
Just tried remote play with my vision pro (2D game) and confirmed I'm able to stream full hdr no issues with being washed out.
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u/epicnicity 17d ago
Non-VR Steam Link is fine for me too, it seems to only happen for SteamVR on Quest I guess.
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u/Max-P 20d ago edited 20d ago
I'm stuck in SteamVR hell.
I was able to get past Unknown error 1204 by slapping env RADV_PERFTEST=video_encode DRI_PRIME=1! steam to my Steam launcher
but I ran out of battery trying to get past
SteamVR failed initialization with error code VRInitError_Compositor_UnableToCreateDevice: "Compositor unable to create graphics device (405)"
Gemini says it might have to do about my primary GPU being an RX 570 and textures from the RX Vega 64 is not compatible in VR. Maybe it's time to upgrade to a RX 9070 XT. Now sure why the GPU my display is on matters but I guess I'll try disabling the 570 just in case. Like, a Vega 64 isn't a great GPU but it still runs Cyberpunk much better than the Frame could ever hope to do, surely that's enough to run Half Life Alyx and Beat Saber. I'll try assigning the vega to seat-1 and try with a blank user in case it helps somehow.
It's 100% my GPU setup. Steam keeps trying to use the wrong GPU for encoding, even though it's using the right one for games. The RX 570 does not like HEVC. Even regular Remote Play from my laptop hard locks the GPU.
Works perfectly fine on my laptop.
I also haven't been able to get the dongle to work. It's detected, it connects to the Steam Frame but it all it gets is the autogenerated link local IPv6. Am I supposed to run DHCP on it or something? Does it need NetworkManager for Steam to realize it's there?
Yes, you're supposed to associate with its network and DHCP into it. Steam adds a "Steam Frame Wireless Adapter" connection to Network Manager and sets it up to connect to the Frame's hidden SSID. In the remote play settings on the Frame you can get the SSID and password to manually set up the connection and DHCP into it yourself.
I also had to stop NetworkManager from trying to connect to my home network on both adapters at the same time and fighting Steam.
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u/FriarsgateCustoms 20d ago
do you have to use WayVR to see the desktop? I know it's an issue on Wayland (at least for my systems with direct displayport headsets)
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u/Stellanora64 20d ago
You should be able to use either afaik, but WayVR can be more reliable I find
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u/unabletocomput3 20d ago
Haven’t had any luck with cachyOS, though the main hurdle for me is steamVR doesn’t see any headset if I try. Remoteplay works, it seems to wants to try it with the dongle too and lists its continuously trying to connect to the dongle in the streaming list- which I figured out how to stop the constant connect and disconnect by selecting personal wpa3-personal- but it still doesn’t see the desktop and steamVR beta won’t see the headset, regardless of connection type.
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u/paysen Soon™ 20d ago
Cachyos user as well - Have you opened the ports? Someone made a good guide on reddit as well - all the info is in the Linux VR Adventures Discord.
Long story short:
sudo ufw allow 27031:27036/udpsudo ufw allow 27036:27037/tcp
sudo ufw allow 10400:10401/udp
sudo ufw reload
If it's still not working:
a) Put all the various wireless dongle stuff back to controlled by Steam/automatic/whatever.
b) sudo pacman -Syu wireless-regdb
c) reboot to make the previous change work
d) iw reg get -- this will probably say it's country 0, UNDEF
e) sudo iw reg set US (or whatever the appropriate regulatory domain for your country is - e.g. DE, GB, FR etc)
f) Dongle should now pair and connect correctly
Both were tips from the Linux VR Adventures discord - thanks to Xray_Doc and Pocketdancer and everyone else - it is now working for me.
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u/unabletocomput3 20d ago
Not at home when I saw that post but when I get home I’m gonna try it!
Edit: side note, does your desktop work while streaming too?
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u/Gamerboi9164 1 TB 20d ago
How did you get it to work? I find that when the dongle is plugged into my pc it tries to use the dongle as a wifi network and will not let anything happen
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u/Arkkro 1 TB 20d ago
Nothing special. At first I needed to build and install the kernel module get the wireless adapter to appear and then it was plug and play.
Steam fully managed it for me. I have my pc on ethernet already and I just use openrc, kde plasma and NetworkManager. I have a gut feeling it has to do with systemd over complicating network services and firewall. I would try replacing systemd networking with NetworkManager and see if it works
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u/Donutsu 20d ago edited 19d ago
i've got the wifi working correctly with stable streams, but not the dongle yet. i'm on gentoo, but don't have network manager, i just use netifrc (from the handbook) for the network config. the dongle gets detected by the kernel and given a proper device name, but that's it. steam doesn't do anything with it.
i tried bringing it up with ip link, but to no avail. i wonder what's the exact requirement for detection on the steam client.
edit: i got the dongle up and working with the frame's custom config for the dongle in remote play settings and in my gentoo with netifrc + dhcp.
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20d ago
[deleted]
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u/Coldfriction 20d ago
Correction, Valve doesn't support anything but Windows right now. An elite hacker (or an ordinary linux scrub) can just look up the chip in the dongle, find the drivers for it, and run it on Linux anyway. SteamOS is immutable, so you can't do it there, but in Linux you can check what the USB stick reports as and go find the chips drivers. Valve didn't create a USB wifi device from scratch here. From what I'm seeing, it looks like the driver is baked into kernel 7.2.
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u/BlueManifest 20d ago
On steam OS stable?
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u/Seal-pup 13d ago
Steam OS has support for the dongle baked in to the current version. Did a quick test with No Man's Sky streamed from it and it worked just fine. You just need to remember to manually start up Steam VR on the streaming host system first.
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u/BlueManifest 13d ago
You need kernal 7.2 though don’t you
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u/Seal-pup 13d ago
Kernel 7.2 is, from my understanding, due to drivers for the dongle. SteamOS has those drivers already.
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u/Typical_Theory1129 20d ago
How did you do it? I can't figure it out. WiFi streaming works but I cannot get the dongle going.
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u/skozombie 1 TB 20d ago
I didn't try for too long but couldn't get the dongle to pair with the Frame. I'll spend more time later.
I'm on Linux Mint so X11 vs Wayland may end up being an issue with display, but I doubt it'd affect hardware pairing/ connections.
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u/Unique_Confusion5251 20d ago
How did you get the pairing to work?
I try pairing it and it says "Pairing Successful" but PC streaming via the dongle still shows as unavailable even though I'm spamming the pair button. I'm on Linux kernel 7.2.7. On Steam beta and everything, Steam detects the dongle.
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u/Nerd_E7A8 20d ago
For me it was that my machine wasn't configured for my particular wifi region (various wifi channels are blocked in various countries - by default all 6GHz channels are blocked).
You can check it withsudo iw reg get
If this returns
country 00: DFS-UNSET
then you need to find the country code applicable to you and set it withsudo iw reg set XX
where XX is the country code.
Since both commands use sudo please look up the relevant documentation to make sure I'm not trying to prank you into exploding your system.1
u/Max-P 20d ago
For me that was Network Manager fighting with the connection. My home network wasn't bound to any particular adapter so it tried to multilink my home network instead of staying connected to the Frame.
Try manually connecting to the "Steam Frame Wireless Adapter" network.
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u/TychoOrdo 18d ago
Did you find a way to get it to pair reliably? I did manage to get it paired once manually and it happened more or less randomly before that. If I try to connect manually most of the time it doesn't find the ssid, sometimes it does but then it normally times out, not clue what is going on there.
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u/undr-expsd 19d ago
I was unable to get steamvr to recognize my headset and gave up because it was late. I'll try some of this tonight and see how it goes
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u/ghostyghost2 19d ago
I am on Endeavouros. The dongle keeps connecting/diconnecting all the time. Managed to stream Alyx once, after that the best I could get is the splash screen. Beat saber won't connect, thumper either.
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u/nauxiv Soon™ 10d ago
In case you didn't solve this already, it seems to be a problem with the country code / regdb setting. US / Canada / other FCC-following codes are forcing the dongle into a passive mode. Setting it to a country following ETSI instead of FCC (but using the same bands) seems to solve it. If you want everything to be proper you would look up which code matches your actual region's bands/power and/or set the transmit power limit. It sounds like newer kernel versions might already solve this as well.
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u/sir_bob_null Soon™ 16d ago
Sorry for the necro, but can I ask what Nvidia driver version you're using?
My system has a 5070TI and on the latest 615 driver I get absolutely horrible streaming performance. I've ruled out pretty much everything other than the driver at this point.
My hope is that it's as simple as rolling back to the 580 or 590 driver.
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u/Arkkro 1 TB 14d ago
NVIDIA driver: 615.71.09
Try just regular remote play first with hvec or av1. You can use the perf overlay on remote play and see what ur system is using for encode and also can validate encoder usage with nvidia-smi. That should give you info to troubleshoot and find root cause
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u/Jello_Hello_Fellos 20d ago
k?
But now your are stuck with an awful 2160x2160 LCD hard to read, hot, headset that thermal throttles.
what exactly did you achieve and what was the point?
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u/Kimmykix 20d ago
...why are you here? go away. Go touch grass or something.
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u/Jello_Hello_Fellos 20d ago
why are you here?
Wait, were you under the impression all subreddits were echo-chambers?
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u/Kimmykix 20d ago
Because I actually own a Steam Frame, unlike you. Your comment is not adding anything to the conversation, and is blatant hate. Do something more productive with your life, kthx. :)
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20d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Jello_Hello_Fellos 20d ago
But I know what the specs are and have used the near identical Quest3 panels which many say are actually better head to head.
Also. Why does it matter?
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u/IGambleNull 20d ago
Yeah but who the fuck wants to use a quest. Especially in this post section. We are Linux user. First) the quest is outdated spyware from facebook. Second) the frame works natively on Linux
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u/Jello_Hello_Fellos 20d ago
This wasnt about using linux. It was about why mirror it from a desktop. It nearly impossible to read properly, blurry text, poor FOV, sluggish??? what benefit is that.
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u/Velp__ 20d ago
What headset do you use?
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u/Jello_Hello_Fellos 20d ago
GXR
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u/Velp__ 20d ago
GXR
Did you buy the controllers with that too? I hear the controller tracking isn't great with it. And don't you ever wish you had a little more FOV?
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u/Jello_Hello_Fellos 20d ago
THe FOV is better than both steam frame and vision pro, as measured(be glad to provide you with data on that).
I dont play games so I couldn't tell you about the controllers sorry.
I would love to talk to you about the Micro OLED panels though which are the best in the world(yes, actually better spec wise than the Vision Pro a $4,000 device).
Let me know I can give you any details you would like,
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u/Velp__ 20d ago
The vision pro doesn't have a good fov... From what I've read the galaxy xr has the same fov as the quest 3.
I dont play games so I couldn't tell you about the controllers sorry.
I guess you're missing the whole point in the steam frame. So what do you mostly use your headset for?
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u/m4tx 1 TB 20d ago
Same here, very solid experience on Arch Linux, but I had to do some work to get it running. I've consolidated my problems (& solutions) into a post: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamFrame/comments/1wp3zbh/if_you_have_trouble_using_the_dongle_on_linux/