How to set a password for your Steam Deck user in Desktop Mode

Steam Deck's Desktop Mode allows us to fully customize our experience in the console, and to do that, we need to get root access.

In the majority of cases, we get root access by using the sudo command. This is a command that allows us to run commands as the root user.

If you try to run a command as the root user using sudo, it will ask you to enter your password. But... the deck user (the default user for Steam Deck's Desktop Mode) doesn't use the same password as our Steam account, therefore it won't work.

To solve that, we need to set a password for the deck user.

How to set a password for the deck user

1. Open the terminal app, Konsole.
2. Open the Steam Deck's keyboard by pressing STEAM + X (or use a plugged in keyboard!)
3. Type the following command and press enter:

passwd

4. You will be prompted to enter a new password, and then confirm it.

5. Done! You should be able to use sudo commands as the deck user!

Try it!

We have some tutorials and tips that require you to get root access, here are some that are great for getting started:

• Installing ArchLinux packages on the Steam Deck