Steam Machine Hearth Install

Initial setup of Hearth my new Steam Machine, October 2026.

So it turns out the Steam Machine doesn’t support display over USB-C like the Steam Deck does. So I can’t use the VisionTek VT2900 kvm switch.

I plugged in my second HDMI port and keyboard, mouse, and Yeti Nano mic directly into the Steam Machine, along with the USB-A to USB-C steam puck for the Steam Controller I also got.

Power on, basic setup. I ejected the 256GB SD card I have in my Steam Deck, it hasn’t shown or mounted yet, need to troubleshoot later.

OK, turns out a known issue Lexar microSD’s don’t get read properly

Various firmware updates and installs. Switched over into Desktop mode, and setup SSH.

You need to set a password with passwd before you can sudo or do anything else on the commandline.

Then, enable ssh sudo systemctl enable sshd --now. You can configure ssh, add your keys, and disable password login at `sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Went to install Tailscale and got an error which points to deck tailscale. Used that, tailscale is installed.

Homebrew works on SteamOS to get things installed.

Other apps

• Bitwarden install via KDE Discover, as well as the others on this list
• Nocturne - connected to my Navidrome install
• Signal - say no to plaintext, have it use kwallet
• Chrome - at some point I have to try other browsers
• Discord
• Paseo - this is just so great for working with agents, and I’ve got my whole Letta, Umans architecture set up, with Hausgeist on hearth. This took quite a while but is very much worth it, and I’ve got Paseo running across phone, this Steam Machine, my desktop Blue Dragon, and a VM on BYOC
• Gear Leveler - App Image manager, it made Paseo be like a real app
• Zed
• Obsidian