Steam Input with Wayland

dugan · 06-13-2026, 12:32 AM

I wanted to make sure Steam Input was working (because, you know, Steam Controller 2), and the only way I could find to actually get it to work reliably on Fedora Workstation was to run it in Gamescope. Gamescope expects a fixed resolution, so you might as well use Steam's Big Picture Mode, and if you're using Steam's Big Picture Mode UI, you might as well log into it.

This is all you need.

In /usr/share/wayland-sessions/steamos-1080p-sdr.desktop:

Code:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Steam 1080p
Comment=Steam 1080p
Exec=gamescope -f -e -W 1920 -H 1080 -- steam -gamepadui -steamos3
Type=Application

And this script (executable) to make Steam's "Exit to Desktop" menu entry work.

In /usr/local/bin/steamos-session-select:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
steam -shutdown

My test case is Devil May Cry 4 SE with a DualSense Edge. With that combination, it's really obvious if Steam Input is not working:

References:

Yes, this is the deliberately-minimal 1080p SDR setup that it looks like. Adapt it (higher resolution, HDR, etc) as needed.

AFAIK, Steam Input in Wayland without Gamescope is not actually there yet. Here are some interesting links:

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/ste...ux/issues/8020
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gamin...mes_including/
https://github.com/CachyOS/proton-cachyos/issues/163

UPDATE:

Both of these options work too:

https://discuss.cachyos.org/t/contro...-input/23341/3

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gamin...mment/nq6qtxz/

dugan · 06-13-2026, 03:31 PM

I've been doing some more tests, and: I think I have a Steam Controller-ready setup now. Steam client not running in Big Picture mode, Wayland support (which means HDR support if you want it), Steam Input on.

My test cases were:

Devil May Cry 4 SE, as before
notepad, with a gamepad button set to send the "c" key on the keyboard

I built this:

https://github.com/Supreeeme/extest

To do so, I installed rustup and also did:

Code:

sudo dnf install glibc-devel.i686

Now I have:

Code:

/home/dugan/opt/extest/target/i686-unknown-linux-gnu/release/libextest.so

I copied /usr/share/applications/steam.desktop to ~/.local/share/applications/steam_extest.desktop. I edited its title, and also changed the /usr/bin/steam part of every Exec line to:

Code:

env LD_PRELOAD=/home/dugan/opt/extest/target/i686-unknown-linux-gnu/release/libextest.so /usr/bin/steam -steamos3

Proton was "Proton-CachyOS Latest", installed with ProtonPlus.

The launch options for both of these tests were:

Code:

PROTON_USE_SDL=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 %command%

If you want HDR suppport, you add DXVK_HDR=1, but I didn't need that for the two Steam Input tests.

Note that to get both of these tests to succeed, I needed to use both of the "workarounds" to get Steam Input working under Wayland (-steamos3 and PROTON_USE_SDL=1). The ExTest preload is to stop you from being spammed with popups requesting Remote Desktop / Allow Remote Interaction permission.

References:

dugan · 06-19-2026, 02:03 PM

Might as well add this information: I installed this to get my DualSense Edge to work properly.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/ste...am-input.rules

I think some distros might include it, but Fedora does not.