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bedHedd · April 1, 2024, 9:16am

More steam deck debugging

This originally started as a post here, but I realized the tangent about resetting my sudo password wasn’t as important

figuring out how to reset steam/kde’s user password

Though before I could set the controllers on my steam deck, I actually forgot my sudo password (I set it a long time ago).

I intially tried this guide, but I ran into a error
https://old.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/x4ho0g/made_a_password_for_kde_completely_forgot_it_cant/imvfce4/

First, follow the directions on the Steam Deck Recovery Page to create a recovery media and boot from it. You will need a USB key and a USB-C hub for your deck; I highly recommend having a USB keyboard and mouse as well.

In the recovery environment, open “Terminal with repair tools”. This will open a terminal window.

You can then reset your password with the following commands:
sudo ~/tools/repair_device.sh chroot
rm -f /var/lib/overlays/etc/upper/passwd
rm -f /var/lib/overlays/etc/upper/shadow
Reboot, and then you’ll be able to set your own password again using passwd or the GUI.

This essentially allows you to remove the passwd and shadow overlay, reverting both files to their default version off the root/system partition. By default, the deck user has no password.

The first command uses SteamOS’s scripts to mount the root and var partitions, and creates a subshell where the mounted root partition point is /.

The next two removes the overlay files.

I ran into the same
steamos-chroot' '--disk' '/dev/nvme0n1' '--partset' 'B' /usr/bin/steamos-chroot: line 206: /run/lock//dev/nvme0n1-B.flock: No such file or directory
that this user encountered
https://old.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/x4ho0g/made_a_password_for_kde_completely_forgot_it_cant/kwl2suk/

The solution to that was actually to not use the recovery manager, but rather modify the grub boot settings.
I used this guide

The creator actually had the instructions also written too

If you have forgotten the sudo password for the Steam Deck then don’t worry I will teach you how to reset the forgotten sudo password the quick and easy way!

This are the steps on how to reset a forgotten sudo password. You will need a keyboard attached to the Steam Deck to enter the commands easily -

While the Steam Deck is powered off, hold the 3dots (QAM) and turn on the Steam Deck.

The recovery menu will appear. On your keyboard highlight the 3rd option - CURRENT (OS Boot Menu) then press enter.

The GRUB menu will appear. Highlight the 1st option - SteamOS then on your keyboard press “e” to edit the boot options.

Press down cursor on the keyboard until steamenv_boot is highlighted. Press “end” to go to the end of the line.

Enter the command -
systemd.debug_shell

Press CTRL-X to boot!

Once SteamOS loads, press CTL-ALT-F9 on the keyboard to access the root debug shell.

Enter the command -
passwd deck

Enter new password and retype the new password.

Once done, press CTL-ALT-F1 on the keyboard to go back to game mode.

sudo password has been reset! You can now boot to desktop mode and use sudo commands using the new password!

Suggested by this user
https://old.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/181cwyi/problem_resetting_deck_password/kafdlmy/

It’s times like these where I’m glad I forced myself to daily drive linux on my main computer. All the times where things broke and I needed to look up how to fix it using exclusively the command line really helped build my resilience.

I think as Large Language Models get fine tuned for coding/CLI tasks such as open hermes

It won’t people from copy pasting commands and running them (I’m guilty of that), but it will make it easier to interpret commands and scripts before running them.