nowfound

Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Install Nix on Your Steam Deck

I wrote an article about how to get Nix on your Steam Deck! Big takeaways for me: * Steam Decks are very fun to hack on * Linux Consoles are good * There are more knobs in systemd units than I remember * Flatcar Linux is a thing that exists * Remoting into a console is fun * A/B boots are less interesting than one might expect when you're used to NixOS

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Install Nix on Your Steam Deck launched in 2022; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1

    Programming the oldschool way! Hack 1000+ Apple II apps!

    2016 · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    A steampunk adventure and puzzle game

    2016 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    An awesome indie Skateboarding game

    2015 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    Linux Gaming, Steam Deck Gaming | Boiling Steam

    2014 · boilingsteam.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    I was debating when to post this, but I've been using it locally in a variety of situations for several months and I think it's pretty stable (and usable!). There are more features I'd like to add, but I wanted to see if there was much interest before spending much more time on it right now.

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    Hello HN, I'm sharing a little open-source utility I wrote recently. I'm a huge fan of Brendan Gregg's "BPF Performance Tools" book. However, every time I SSH into a fresh server, most of the diagnostic tools aren't installed there and installing them can be really annoying. I decided to use Nix package manager and LLMs to make this process straightforward. My utility first downloads a "toolbox" of Linux utilities (built with Nix), runs Brendan Gregg's famous "60-second Linux analysis" playbook and then summarizes the results with an LLM. So "60-second Linux analysis" now becomes a single…

    Mar 2026 · quesma.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    I thought it'd be interesting to use Linux PSI (Pressure Stall Information) for an LLM runtime to trim the KV cache. This is mainly useful imo for edge devices like the Jetson Orin super nano kit which have unified memory. I haven't benched much, but plan to do so more over time and see if I can make a real use of it as I run local LLMs. Let me know if it makes sense :P (I of course vibed this idea)

    Jun 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8IM

    Try it at: ssh krnl.duetbrowser.com No sign up, totally free - no download. Let me know what you think. Prior art exists (brow.sh) but I wasn't satisfied with their graphical take. I wanted the raw, old skool terminal days of the early internet - BBS, and old green phosphor library comptuers - but running the modern web, with all the bells and jingle jangle whistles (JavaScript, etc). No funding, no VC, just 100% raw terminal fun. Not sure how long the demo will last, but try it out.

    Jul 2026 · its alternatives →

  9. 9OT

    ssh 85.27.249.130 -p 2222 username / password does not matter Enjoy asci[l]icious lava lamp action right in your console. Quickly hacked together in node, using a fifo file, hasciicam and the ssh2 library, running in docker for "security" :)

    2020 · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Learn the ways of Linux-fu, for free.

    2016 · labex.io · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    Hi HN! I've been hacking on this side project for the last month or two with the goal of making it dead simple to use cloud GPUs. I ran into this problem personally during the phd, and built my own tooling around it. I always thought it'd be fun to try to turn that tooling into a more general product... and bitbop.io is the result! All you have to do is run `ssh bitbop.io`, and you get your own personal dev GPU workstation in the cloud. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

    2024 · twitter.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12
    iSH▲5

    The Linux shell on iOS.

    2018 · ish.app · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    So, I've never written a line of Rust in my life. I wouldn't know an `&mut this` from a mutandis. But I saw a tweet about a month ago that said, in this new era of AI, you'd be able to just take a library that you love, throw a TUI around it, and call it an app. So I spent about 200 bucks last month, here's what I came up with: Imbolc is a DAW that runs entirely in your terminal. It talks to scsynth over OSC and ships 58 instruments and 39 effects. VSTs are a work in progress, also GarageBand loops if you want to recreate "Umbrella". The codebase is about 60k? lines of Rust across 5 crates,…

    Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    After seeing a cool demo of a hack on Twitter, I built a cross platform version of it that works well and uses streaming. From anywhere on Mac and Linux, trigger Ollama and optionally feed it your clipboard. I built it yesterday and it's already very useful to me. I'm pretty excited about it and wanted to share!

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    This post is from a protected account.

    2017 · twitter.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16IT

    I added Co-op online to Lazy Blocks. Using PeerJS & WebRTC, so no server. Hope you enjoy, let me know if you have and feedback, etc. Thank you, Adam -- EDIT Oh! -- Click the "Globe" icon to start online play -- Edit 2 Oh! -- I should mention - the board is infinite, you can scroll and pan and zoom in all directions -- and you can always find the other player with one click

    2025 · lazyblocks.xyz · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    How puffnfresh, my coworker, made a single command to download, assemble, and boot the VM image is arguably as cool as the port itself!

    Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18E

    Hello everyone, A couple of months ago I was introduced to Excalidraw and fell in love with it instantly. The only thing I didn't like was that I couldn't easily save my whiteboards and had to put everything in one whiteboard which started to lag my PC after a while. So I made ExcaliHub. It's exactly as it sounds: a hub for Excalidraw. It's free, open source, and I aim to keep it that way. Thanks in advance for any feedback!

    2024 · excalihub.dev · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    The AI that really does things. Any OS. Any Platform. The lobster way. 🦞 - GitHub - openclaw/openclaw: The AI that really does things. Any OS. Any Platform. The lobster way. 🦞

    Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    THE BEST WAY TO GET APPS ON LINUX

    2018 · flatpak.org · its alternatives →

  21. 21
    Cash▲4

    Cross-platform Linux without the suck

    2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22
    wsgrok▲7

    I built it for myself because ngrok didn't let me add one more domain unless I paid $12 more. I probably should've looked for alternatives before building my own, but my grudge got in the way . Once I started, I wanted to make it better than the other options. Silly, I know. No one probably cares. I plan to open source it sometime next year because I’ve got other projects to finish first. It's free until I deplete my cloud credits, then it will switch to a tier-based model with a free option.

    Jan 2026 · wsgrok.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    Find your next favorite Steam game in seconds

    Jan 2026 · playpick.gg · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Make your Mac great again... switch to Linux !

    2018 · its alternatives →

Also compare

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →

Install Nix on Your Steam Deck alternatives (2026): 24…