SteamOS

Zaparoo Core on SteamOS supports launching Steam games, EmuDeck, and RetroDECK from your Steam Deck.

File Paths

Item	Path
Config file	/home/deck/.config/zaparoo/config.toml
Data directory	/home/deck/.local/share/zaparoo
Log file	/tmp/zaparoo/core.log
Mappings directory	/home/deck/.local/share/zaparoo/mappings

Assuming the default deck account.

Install

In Desktop Mode, download Zaparoo Core for SteamOS from the Downloads page, unzip and copy the zaparoo file to your home directory.

Open Konsole and run:

cd /home/deck
sudo ./zaparoo -install
sudo systemctl enable zaparoo.service
sudo systemctl start zaparoo.service

If you've never used sudo, first run passwd to set an account password.

To uninstall:

sudo ./zaparoo -uninstall

Readers

All readers are supported.

Launchers

Launcher	Systems	Notes
Steam	PC	Games and non-Steam shortcuts
EmuDeck	56+	RetroArch and standalone emulators
RetroDECK	200+	Unified emulator frontend
Shell Scripts	Any	Custom .sh file execution

Steam

Launches games from your Steam library via the steam:// URL scheme. Both official Steam games and non-Steam shortcuts added to your library are detected.

Zaparoo also tracks when you start Steam games externally (from Big Picture or the desktop client), showing the currently running game in ActiveMedia.

Games are indexed from:

• ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/
• ~/.local/share/Steam/

To manually launch a Steam game, write steam://<app_id> to a token. For example: steam://1145360 for Hades.

config.toml

[[launchers.default]]
launcher = "Steam"
install_dir = "/custom/steam/path"  # Optional custom Steam install directory

EmuDeck

Zaparoo automatically detects EmuDeck installations and creates launchers for each system. Games are launched through Flatpak to individual emulators (RetroArch cores or standalone emulators like Dolphin, PCSX2, etc.).

EmuDeck is detected when ~/Emulation/roms/ exists.

Default paths:

• ROMs: ~/Emulation/roms/
• Gamelists: ~/ES-DE/gamelists/

Supported systems include: NES, SNES, Game Boy, GBA, N64, NDS, GameCube, Wii, Wii U, Switch, 3DS, Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast, PSX, PS2, PS3, PSP, Neo Geo, Arcade, and many more.

Games are discovered using ES-DE's gamelist.xml files for proper display names.

RetroDECK

Zaparoo automatically detects RetroDECK and creates launchers for each system. All games are launched through RetroDECK's unified CLI (flatpak run net.retrodeck.retrodeck <rom_path>), which handles emulator selection internally.

RetroDECK is detected when the net.retrodeck.retrodeck Flatpak is installed.

Default paths:

• ROMs: ~/retrodeck/roms/
• Gamelists: ~/retrodeck/ES-DE/gamelists/

RetroDECK supports any system folder that matches an ES-DE system definition.

Gaming Mode

Both EmuDeck and RetroDECK work in Steam's Gaming Mode. Zaparoo manages window focus through gamescope to ensure the emulator window is properly displayed when launching games.

Shell Scripts

Execute arbitrary shell scripts. Requires explicit allow list configuration for security.

System ID	Extensions
Any	.sh

config.toml

[launchers]
allow_file = [
    "^/home/deck/scripts/.*\\.sh$"
]

Known Issues

• Updates require stopping the service first: sudo systemctl stop zaparoo.service