On the Vulkan (and GLES) desktop the pointer worked - panel buttons lit up
under it - but no cursor was drawn. wlroots' wayland backend hands the
cursor to the parent compositor as a wl_pointer cursor surface, and the
app's compositor never draws those. WLR_NO_HARDWARE_CURSORS=1 makes labwc
composite it itself (device-tested on the Vulkan desktop). Still
overridable from the session environment.
The session's proot runs with -i <app uid>, and the rootfs names that uid
root, so the client calls itself root while geteuid() returns the app's
uid. The read-only retry required geteuid() == 0 and never ran: the
Proton Experimental (ARM64) update still failed with Missing file
permissions on wineopenxr.dll (2026-09-26 16:07, 2,471 read-only files).
Also recognise the client by the path it was started by: the kernel's
/proc/self/exe names proot's loader for every process in the session.
The client runs as proot's root, which the kernel does not see, and
leaves many content files read-only; an update that rewrites one was
refused (EACCES) and cancelled with "Missing file permissions"
(Proton Experimental (ARM64), wineopenxr.dll). For the client's own
processes, a refused write-open of a file the app owns now gets the
owner's write bit - on the file, or on the directory a new file goes
into - and one more try. Games and Wine keep ordinary permissions.
With Steam publicbeta 1790380355 the client spent 27 s in its post-logon
compat phase and dropped the install request the session sent 15 s after
sign-in, so a clean install never offered Proton Experimental (ARM64).
Wait for the console log's "Waiting for compat in post-logon took" (90 s
at most), then ask, up to three times a minute apart until the install
starts.
With the check reached from the client's own runs right after login, the Steam client segfaulted
within seconds, four sessions out of four; the same build without the check (test/bisect-no-launch-check)
and the last build before it both reach Big Picture. Now every run that is not a game launch -
the client's probes, app id 0 - is left exactly as before. Each check logs one line.
Steam runs its graphics probe through every registered Proton at once after login, all in
compatdata/0. Prefix system32 links point into the Proton that set it up last, and the other
Protons' Wines, running outside Proton's pfx.lock, wrote their builtin DLLs through them into that
Proton's tree (device: GE's FEX DLLs became Proton Experimental's at session start).
- bannerlator-steam-compat: both wrappers (Valve's depot launcher and the third-party
bannerlator-proton-wrap) give a tool-0 run STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH=.../compatdata/0-<tool>, and
before every other launch check the Proton's files against the app's desired.tsv and put back
anything that differs (same Proton build only), logging to reapplied.log.
- ComponentsManager writes desired.tsv plus unpacked copies of the packages in use into the
runtime after every change; the page and the drawer show 're-applied at launch'.
In touchpad mode the cursor moved but Big Picture highlighted nothing and a tap-to-click
selected nothing: the nested pointer's motion reaches wlserver as touch 0, and in Passthrough
(the touch mode Big Picture sets) a motion for a touch that is not down moves nothing, so the X
pointer stayed where it was. 0111 passes bAlwaysWarpCursor, as the other touch modes already warp.
3.16.29's Wayland backend bound only wl_pointer and wl_keyboard; touch from DroidDeck's
compositor was never read, so Steam could not be touched. 0110 binds wl_touch in the input
thread and feeds each finger to wlserver_touchdown/touchmotion/touchup, the Steam Deck
touchscreen's path, so Big Picture's Passthrough touch mode gets real touches.
Tried on device: with a session bus the client still sat on "Switching to Desktop..." and
never reached its legacy path (no "No SteamOSManager support" line, steamos-session-select not
called), so the bus was not what it waited on. Sign-in was unaffected.
This reverts commit 40fc5463f3.
Big Picture's Switch to Desktop asks SteamOS Manager over the session bus before falling back to
steamos-session-select (steamui.so). The Steam session had no session bus, the ask never
finished, and the client sat on "Switching to Desktop..."; the new stub was never called. A
bus with nothing on it answers at once, and the client takes its legacy path.
- The front end's "Steam Desktop UI" started a Steam session without -gamepadui, and the client
put itself into Big Picture under gamescope anyway. It now opens the desktop with Steam's
desktop client started in it (BL_DESKTOP_STEAM, the desktop's autostart, the same
bannerlator-steam-launch the menu's Steam entry uses).
- Big Picture's power menu "Switch to Desktop" runs steamos-session-select, which did not exist,
so it sat on "Switching to Desktop..." for ever. The new stub leaves the app a request
(session=desktop in the steam-launch file); the app ends the Steam session and starts the
desktop with Steam's desktop client open.
AutoPlace on its own left the resized window in the top-left corner; with policy="center" it
opens in the middle of the desktop. Tried in a running desktop (labwc --reconfigure).
melonDS remembers a 1x window for the front end's full-screen toggle, too small on a desktop.
A labwc window rule (only the desktop reads rc.xml) resizes it to 800x600 on open and places
it again by the desktop's centre policy.
The desktop set QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland for every program. The melonDS AppImage bundles only
Qt's xcb plugin, so from the desktop it exited at once: "Could not find the Qt platform plugin
wayland ... Available platform plugins are: xcb" (exit 127). "wayland;xcb" keeps LXQt on
Wayland and lets such an AppImage use Xwayland. Proven in a running desktop: labwc mapped
"melonDS 1.1".
The guide button's toggle returns to melonDS's saved window size. A 512x288 window (1x wide,
16:9) is stretched by gamescope to fill the panel, menu bar and cursor with it; at 2x and up
the menus stay at their real size, tiny on a handheld. Written once, with the layout.
Hybrid repeats the big screen, small, above the bottom one. Horizontal with the top screen
emphasised fills the panel's height with the top screen and centres the bottom screen in the
rest. Installs set up with Hybrid (or still on melonDS's defaults) move once.
- bannerlator-pad-defaults: new installs start on the Hybrid layout with sharp pixels; an
existing install is moved once, only where still on melonDS's defaults (marker keeps later
choices). Guide = HK_FullscreenToggle. The user's DS/DSi BIOS, firmware and NAND are found in
ROMs/nds/{bios,firmware} and filled in only where melonDS has no path.
- Front end starts melonDS with -f, at the panel's own resolution unless the user chose one.
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