Installing and Running FreeBSD on a Steam Deck | linhpham.org

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Installing and Running FreeBSD on a Steam Deck

Published

11 January 2025 14:30

Tags<br>freebsdhardwaresteam-deck

After receiving my Steam Deck OLED and getting my games installed on it, my old 256 GB Steam Deck started to collect dust. I originally thought about having it permanently docked and connected to my TV as an emulation system, but I ended up falling back to the MiSTer or playing older games on original hardware.

Instead of letting it continue to collect dust, I had the idea of replacing the original SSD with a larger one and installing Bazzite on it to get a good feel of how well it works on a handheld console, much less a Steam Deck. While I waited for the new SSD to arrive, I decided have some fun: installing and using FreeBSD on a Steam Deck.

The motivation for doing so came from seeing a Steam Deck page on the FreeBSD Wiki with some information on what hardware was detected and what hardware was marked as working.

Some FreeBSD BG on Me

For over a decade, I was an ardent fan and user of FreeBSD. I ran it on servers at work, ran it on servers at home and in the cloud (rest in peace, RootBSD), helped edit and write articles for the BSD-centric site called Daemon News. I even covered the first time the Open Source Convention (OSCON) came to Portland, Oregon using an IBM ThinkPad laptop running FreeBSD. And, for a time, I even had a site called BSDNotLinux.org that featured companies that promoted or even used BSD operating systems.

Another little tidbit, the first versions of the Wait Wait Stats Page ran on FreeBSD installed on a Compaq iPaq desktop.

My use of FreeBSD would wane over the years as I started to support and manage Linux servers at work and the availability of cloud providers that provided or even minimally supported FreeBSD cloud servers thinned out.

Getting Ready to Install FreeBSD

With the Steam Deck only having a single USB Type-C port available for connect the device to power and for plugging in peripherals that will be needed to install FreeBSD (or any other operating system), I used an Anker PowerExpander (or 543) 6-in-1 USB hub. The hub has a regular USB Type-C port, a USB Type-C power that passes through USB Power Delivery to charge the Steam Deck, an HDMI port, two USB Type-A ports, and a Gigabit Ethernet adapter. You will need a USB keyboard at minimum to run commands from the command-line and a USB mouse for work within a graphical environment.

Although the official Steam Deck Dock has a similar port arrangement (with one extra USB Type-A port and a full-sized DisplayPort output), I only used it for a short amount of time to connect the Steam Deck to my TV.

Other USB hubs may work with FreeBSD, but you mileage may vary due to a smaller list of supported devices.

For the first round of installing FreeBSD on the Steam Deck, I used an IODD SATA SSD enclosure that I keep different operating system ISO images on. Unfortunately, there were intermittent issues where the virtual CD-ROM feature would drop out or time out on I/O requests. I ended up burning the FreeBSD 14.2 Install DVD 1 ISO image on a spare USB thumb drive and that worked without any issues. I didn't try Ventoy, so your mileage may vary.

I also do not have a 64 GB eMMC M.2 module that Steam used on their original base model to test out; but, I will cover using a microSD card to run FreeBSD on the Steam Deck later on.

Of course, if you do want to try to install FreeBSD (or any other operating system) on to your Steam Deck, make sure that you've saved off any data on to Steam Cloud or backup files on to a USB thumb drive or microSD card before doing anything. Installing FreeBSD on the internal drive will wipe it out and things can go wrong when running FreeBSD off of a microSD card. You have been warned.

It's Installation Time

After connecting a USB keyboard, USB boot device, the Steam Deck power cable and a network cable to the USB hub, and connecting the hub to the USB port on the Steam Deck, I powered on the Steam Deck while holding down the Volume Down button and momentarily pressing the Power button. You should see the Steam Deck logo appear on the screen and then the boot menu with a list of boot options.

FreeBSD boot menu loaded on a Steam Deck from a FreeBSD 14.2 installer ISO

Installing FreeBSD on the Internal NVMe Drive

In the boot menu, select the USB boot device with the FreeBSD installer and press the A button on the Steam Deck (or ENTER on the keyboard). After a few moments, a FreeBSD boot menu should appear on the screen and will continue on loading up the text-based installer. The text on the screen will be rotated 90 degrees counter/anti-clockwise and rotating the Steam Deck clockwise should make viewing the text easier.

During each prompt of the installer, I selected the default options for most of the items, including using the ZFS file system, entering in the appropriate network settings for...