[Code & Docs] Add Support for Steam Deck

[kevin-wijnen]

Context

Addition to #9; I've been trying to get Comet to be easily usable with Valve's Steam Deck since Heroic Games Launcher works easily through Flatpak onto the handheld gaming device.

Since the rewrite to Rust (#15), technical compatibility has been made a lot easier. No more SSL certificate workarounds or separate packaging necessary as Comet works out of the box for Steam Deck users.

Proposal

With most of the issues resolved, I've tried to simplify usage of Comet for Steam Deck users by developing a Bash script to allow users to earn achievements when launching Steam shortcuts generated by Heroic Games Launcher.

This Pull Request adds the following to Comet:

• Initial documentation regarding installation on the Steam Deck for both Desktop and Game Mode.
• A Bash script users need to refer to in Heroic Games Launcher non-Steam game shortcuts in the Launch Options field to start Comet along with the achievement enabled GOG game.
• Adds the Bash script and usage documentation to x86_64 Linux builds (as the Valve Steam Deck only uses this arch/OS configuration).

There are still few things to do for improved Steam Deck compatibility, but this seems like a good start. I intend to help out providing more documentation in the Wiki of the repository and list problematic games not working with the current set up (as previously discussed: games like Cuphead not communicating with Comet at all for example).

TO-DO:

• Add instructions for workaround for GOG Galaxy games using older SDKs
  • Instructions present in the folder, yet might be useful to add to the USAGE.md for Steam Deck users.
  • Currently being discussed in Steam Deck Compatibility #9. Attach .bat file for service creation.
  • Add .bat file to dummy artifacts.
• Add renewed .bat file for easier installation when the script (along with GalaxyCommunication.exe is in a Heroic accessible location (for Flatpak)).

[kevin-wijnen]

TO-DO:

• Add instructions for workaround for GOG Galaxy games using older SDKs
  • Instructions present in the folder, yet might be useful to add to the USAGE.md for Steam Deck users.
  • Currently being discussed in Steam Deck Compatibility #9. Attach .bat file for service creation.
  • Add .bat file to dummy artifacts.

[imLinguin]

Looks good overall, I have a few small nitpicks

Maybe instead of the whole pfx/ path to be copied by user we could make .bat copy the file. Then we could support a wide range of Wine versions/wrappers. If you wish I can take care of this after merging this Pull Request.

I appreciate the contribution

[imLinguin]

So we could have the script like this

@echo off

SET currdir=%~dp0
SET targetdir=C:\ProgramData\GOG.com\Galaxy\redists

sc create GalaxyCommunication binpath=%targetdir%\GalaxyCommunication.exe
if not exist "%targetdir%" mkdir %targetdir% 
xcopy /y /q %currdir%GalaxyCommunication.exe %targetdir%

With that we could ship GalaxyCommunication.exe next to the script

[kevin-wijnen]

So we could have the script like this

@echo off

SET currdir=%~dp0
SET targetdir=C:\ProgramData\GOG.com\Galaxy\redists

sc create GalaxyCommunication binpath=%targetdir%\GalaxyCommunication.exe
if not exist "%targetdir%" mkdir %targetdir% 
xcopy /y /q %currdir%GalaxyCommunication.exe %targetdir%

With that we could ship GalaxyCommunication.exe next to the script

I've tried this with SteamOS yet there is a problem. Because of how WINE loads the .bat script, the current directory is not where the .bat file is located on the Linux filesystem. It is a temporary directory elsewhere with only the .bat file present in it. So while it correctly creates the folder, it doesn't get to see GalaxyCommunication.exe to copy it over.

The exact file path I get (as currdir) would be /var/run/user/1000/doc/9f150bfb/, with (assumingly) the last folder being random/not static. See this for an explanation of the folder. It's a temporary folder for processes. And trying to "trick" it by running the dummy service prior to the script does not work, as both will be in separate temporary folders.

A workaround might be to wait in the script, mention its current directory and have the user copy the dummy service executable over before continuing the process. But I would argue that would not make it any easier for the end user.

While the batch script would work for Windows, it's unsuitable for Linux environments relying on WINE to get the job done. A hint that might be useful, is that WINE does mount the internal SSD as the Z:/ folder. So the script could use a static path to copy from it. Like using a /home/deck/comet folder and mount it, to have a static point of reference where the GalaxyCommunication.exe could be stored for the script to copy it from.

[imLinguin]

While the script is in locations like ~/Documents or ~/Desktop it should work just fine, since Heroic has full access to those. Could we add instructions to place downloaded files there? It just feels a lot simpler than digging through wine prefixes. Some people don't even know what wine prefix corresponds to their game

[kevin-wijnen]

While the script is in locations like ~/Documents or ~/Desktop it should work just fine, since Heroic has full access to those. Could we add instructions to place downloaded files there? It just feels a lot simpler than digging through wine prefixes. Some people don't even know what wine prefix corresponds to their game

My bad - I did not know this was a side effect of not providing Heroic access to a certain folder. I had my comet related stuff in a separate directory in the deck (user) folder. Moving my comet folder with everything of comet to ~/Documents made it work flawlessly.

I'll do a quick fact-check on whether actions/download-artifact actually unzips from the get-go, then I'll attach the new .bat script provided by you and push through the proposed changes of yours. Thanks for the feedback and assistance throughout this PR and in general aiding with bringing Steam Deck support into this. 👍

[kevin-wijnen]

Update

After (struggling) with the CI/CD, I implemented the following:

• Added the renewed .bat script along documentation (mentioning users should keep the files in a folder where Heroic has access to & renamed it to be more obvious to its function (install-dummy-service.bat).
• Refactored CI/CD pipeline as requested to refer directly to the required files for Linux/Steam Deck deployments during upload

[imLinguin]

Looks good, thanks!