Steam Deck

Steam Deck is another option for remote control. It is a handheld-sized desktop computer that runs Arch Linux.

Install VSCode

Install VSCode from the built-in app store. However, VSCode shells don’t work for us. We recommend directly using the terminals to run scripts.

Unlock the Filesystem

By default, Steam Deck’s filesystem is read-only.

Follow the instructions here to unlock the filesystem.

Access to USB Devices

Add the user to the uucp group by running the following command:

sudo usermod -aG uucp $USER

Access to the Joystick

We find that Steam overrides the Joystick access. Therefore, to access the joystick device from Python, you need to make sure to shut down Steam before running the scripts.

Test the Joystick by running this script:

python tests/test_joystick.py

NTP Server

For the accuracy of teleoperation and logging over network, we need to install NTP package to sync time of Jetson to Steam Deck.

Run the following commands to set it up:

sudo pacman -S ntp
sudo systemctl enable ntp

nano /etc/ntp.conf

add:

restrict <client_ip_address> mask 255.255.255.255 nomodify notrap

sudo systemctl start ntp