Now that my Steam Deck LCD has been relieved of his duties as a daily driver desktop PC, I finally went ahead and replaced the Delta fan with a Huaying one. It turned out to be relatively easy to do ; and lo and behold, it is indeed quieter.

Recent adopters may or may not know there was a medium-sized kerfuffle about disparities in noise profiles of early Steam Deck units. It was proved and narrowed down to a difference between 2 fan models (see Gamers Nexus detailed analysis).

Obviously the one I got was a "bad" one, emitting a high pitched noise when running at full speed. I did not find it unbearable but it was still not ideal, particularly when using the SD in quiet environments.

Took me 2 years to get to the point where I figured it was an acceptable risk to attempt the replacement. How many of you did the same and kicked the Delta out of your unit ?

"Mars Express" est un film d'animation français de science-fiction sorti en 2023. C'est le premier du genre depuis "Kaena, la prophétie" (2001) selon son réalisateur, Jérémie Périn.

J'étais passé à côté lors de sa sortie en salle en fin d'année dernière, en raison d'une flemme caractérisée d'aller crapahuter au cinéma. Le film est maintenant disponible en streaming et j'ai pu rattraper le coup. Sans aller crier au chef d’œuvre, j'ai vraiment apprécié ce film et je le recommande vivement à tous les amateurs de SF.

Et puis, "c'est français, c'est la police française."

Well, shit. Unfortunate news from the Vinegar Discord: Roblox will block Wine in future releases.

This is going to end my "Steam Deck as a primary desktop PC for my kid" experiment.

TL;DR: watch the 2 minutes video for the fix.

Story time !

It's been a hot minute (~1year) since I needed/wanted to tinker with my Steam Deck. It's currently living its best life paired with the official dock as a desktop PC for my kid (e.g. YouTube and Roblox dedicated machine). So yeah, I went and forgot the sudo password I set back then, and I unhelpfully did not save it in Keepass or anything.

Today I put in the work to reset it... Here goes my journey.

1. Try out every password variants of mine I can think of for 20 minutes. FAIL.
2. Google it, stumble on some real stupid "solutions" promoted to the top of the results. FFS Google.
3. Lots of YT videos seem to agree that recovery media is the way to go. Seems overkill. Cannot we get a root shell at startup or something ?
4. Find an alternative method that looks suuuper risky (tinkers with the recovery partition) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYBpEysFMDM]. Nope not going to try that one.
5. Go back to /r/SteamDeck (been a while) again the consensus is to use recovery media. Ok ok, recovery media it is !
6. Follow instructions at https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/1B71-EDF2-EB6D-2BB3 and make a bootable USB drive. Easy Peasy.
7. Muck about for a while with the dock's USB ports because the drive is too large or the ports are too close together. FFS Valve.
8. Boot successfully on the recovery media, and start the 3 commands-long procedure.

sudo ~/tools/repair_device.sh chroot
rm -f /var/lib/overlays/etc/upper/passwd
rm -f /var/lib/overlays/etc/upper/shadow

9. First command fails, which is a shame since the others cannot work if this one does not. Fuck.
10. Back to googling and redditing (beggars can't be choosers). Find someone with a very similar error in a quite recent post. No answers though, except one by the OP himself who says he found a way AND DOCUMENTED IT. Thank you /u/TheArtfulAardvark for proper Internet etiquette. Obligatory XKCD curse avoided.
11. Watch the 2 minutes-long video with cautious optimism. Does not seem too hard nor risky... To good to be true
12. Perform the procedure, goes more or less exactly as described in the video (not exactly the same version of the boot menu, but same items).
13. Fail to return to gaming mode with CTRL-ALT-F1 for some reason, so trigger a command line reboot.
14. Check that the parameter added to GRUB was not saved (it was not).
15. Return to desktop mode and finally set a new password with passwd. Exhales. Thanks for the video and instructions 10 Minute Steam Deck Gamer.

Nothing particularly original, but it's mine, so here goes.

• Earfun Free 2: good for listening to podcasts on the go.
• House keys: well, duh.
• Olight imini: handy and really tiny flashlight.
• Mini push dagger: oldest thing in there, got it more than 20 years ago. Says "United" & "Taiwan" on the sheath, so it likely is from United Cutlery.
• Kershaw Launch 11: my current all-time favorite pocket knife. Small enough to fit in a 5th pocket (but not "deep-carry"), yet handles really well with my not-too-meaty hands.
• Bellroy Card Sleeve Black: small enough to keep credit cards and such in regular pants' front pockets.
• Zippo Lighter Spectrum: really a fidget toy for me since I do not smoke, so pretty though !
• Kleenex mini pocket tissues: the runny nose unwavering companion.

Not on picture: Samsung Galaxy S20 with a Spigen Tough Armor case.

Includes the release date for PS5 and PC: February 08 2024

And preorders, starting September 22 2023.