Using virtual-files experimental feature under SteamOS (Arch Linux) with KDE Plasma Desktop

ℹ️ Support
1

I’m attempting to install the Nextcloud client with “Virtual Files” support on SteamOS (Steam Deck) for dekstop-mode, but keep running into package conflicts. Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

Steps I’ve Tried:

  1. Standard Client Installation Attempt:

    • Disabled root partition’s read-only mode with:
      sudo steamos-readonly disable
    • Tried to install the client:
      sudo pacman -S nextcloud-client
    • Result: Encountered a conflict between karchive and karchive5, preventing installation.

  2. Attempted nextcloud-client-git from AUR:

    • Same conflict appeared because karchive5 is required by other KDE packages like kemoticons, kfilemetadata5, etc.

  3. Enabled Experimental Features for “Virtual Files”:

    • Edited nextcloud.cfg to enable experimental options:
      • Opened ~/.config/Nextcloud/nextcloud.cfg and added:
        [General]
showExperimentalOptions=true
    • Restarted the Nextcloud client and enabled “Virtual Files” in the settings.

  4. Try to get nextcloud on the list of “online-services”:

    • Installed gvfs-goa and try to install gvfs-dnssd to enable it.

Current Result:

After enabling “Virtual Files,” placeholders for files appear, but they all end with .nextcloud and are not directly usable until downloaded manually.

Question:

Has anyone managed to resolve the karchive vs. karchive5 conflict on SteamOS, or has another solution for properly enabling Virtual Files without the .nextcloud extension?

Thanks in advance for any guidance!

2

Well, SteamOS is not ArchLinux. It’s a purpose-built distro based on Arch, and such dependency issues will probably be hard to avoid, wehen you try to install packages from the Arch repos or the AUR.

Because of that (and because SteamOS afaik wipes the system partition on updates) it’s not recommended to install packages directly via pacman or from the AUR. Using the AppImage or Flatpak would likely be a better choice.

Afaik, this is still to be expected on Linux, because unlike MacOS and Windows, which provide native standard solutions for Virtual Files that the Nextcloud client will use, Linux doesn’t. So afaik, it’s still normal behaviour for the Linux client to create dummy files, which are then downloaded by double-clicking on them, and only then will show the correct file extension and icon.