Profiles

Give each person who plays on this host a profile: their name on every session and their own play stats, and with seats a desktop, a Steam and controllers of their own. A host starts with one profile, the owner, named after you; while it is the only one, nothing changes for anyone.

Add a profileCopy Anchor Link

1. In the web console, open Profiles → Add profile.
2. Enter a Name, pick a Colour, and optionally a picture.
3. Under Where this profile plays, pick one:
   • Shares Alex's desktop, with your name: the same desktop, Steam and games, under another name.
   • Own desktop: a desktop of its own, with its own Steam and controllers, on Windows Server or Linux.

On Linux, Own desktop needs Reachable without logging in and stays greyed until it is on. A host holds up to 8 profiles, and two can't share a name.

On Windows ServerCopy Anchor Link

An Own desktop profile signs in to a Windows account of its own, so two people play at once without sharing a desktop. Seats on Windows has what it needs, the setup and Steam on a seat. In short: open Profiles → Seats, press Set up Remote Desktop if the list asks for it, tick Seats are on, then Add profile → Own desktop.

A player who picks a stopped seat sees Getting Kid's desk ready… while it starts. A card's Start, Stop and End session do the same by hand; End session keeps the seat running. Remove deletes the profile's Windows account and its files too.

What a seat can doCopy Anchor Link

A seat's desktop is one virtual screen at its player's resolution. It never shows, turns off or powers down a monitor of this machine. A second device on the same seat shares the screen when its A second device connects is Shares the screen, and is told the seat is busy otherwise. Only the owner's desktop follows Displays; of a device's display settings, only Largest screen this device gets, the scale and A second device connects follow it onto a seat.

Every seat shares one set of Seats settings on Host, shown while seats are on:

• Seats kept warm: the seats of the most recent players start with the host.
• Stop an idle seat after: 240 minutes by default; 0 never stops one. Your own seat never stops for this: it runs your plugins.
• End a seat's stream when its game exits: off keeps streaming the seat's desktop.
• Highest mode per seat, such as 2560x1440@120: a device's own cap outranks it.
• Seats update your games (Linux): off, seats play the games you installed but can't update them or install into your libraries. A seat picks up a change when it next starts.

Library, Game sources and Plugins are per seat: once a seat exists, the page's title (Anna's library ▾) switches it to another seat's own.

On LinuxCopy Anchor Link

Reachable without logging in makes the box answer clients from boot, with the lock screen still on your monitor. A paired device that picks your profile starts a session of yours in the background, and the monitor is never touched. It is also what gives a profile a desktop of its own: Own desktop is a user of its own with its own Steam, and up to four seats share the box, yours included.

1. Add your user to the group that may start the switch, then restart the computer. The host keeps the groups it started with, so logging out is not enough:

   Copy Text

   sudo usermod -aG punktfunk-update $USER

   On SteamOS, run bash ~/punktfunk/scripts/steamdeck/update.sh in Konsole instead and enter your password: it sets the switch up and joins the group. Restart once after. On NixOS, set services.punktfunk.seats.enable = true and rebuild.

2. Open Profiles and tick Reachable without logging in. Confirm with the console password. The page reloads while the host restarts, and the console asks you to sign in again.

What turning it on does:

• Files move. The host's identity, pairings, profiles and the console password are copied to /var/lib/punktfunk, owned by a punktfunk system user that runs the host from then on. Display settings and hooks stay yours. Paired clients keep working: the fingerprint is the same.
• You become a seat. Your own punktfunk-host moves to the first seat's ports and serves your library, plugins and Steam from your own home. The console reaches it from Library, Game sources and Plugins; the page's title, Anna's library ▾, picks another seat's.
• The monitor wins. When you log in at the machine, the background session ends within a few seconds and your own session hosts you. Streams on the background session end, and the client reconnects. Nothing on your monitor is closed.
• Browsers play on seats too. With Browser streaming on, a browser lands on its profile's desktop as an app does: each seat streams to browsers on its own port, UDP 9783–9786. A seat that was running when you turned it on takes it when it next starts.
• The console is the door's. It listens on the same port with the same password. Host settings, Displays, Automation, Plugins and Health checks show your own host, which streams.
• Seats see your games. Every seat shows your Steam libraries: its Steam plays, updates and runs Proton from them while the files stay yours. A library on a filesystem other than btrfs, ext4, xfs or f2fs stays hidden from seats. New games a seat installs go to /var/lib/punktfunk-seats/games, and you join its group, punktfunk-games, at your next login. Each seat keeps its own Proton prefixes and shader cache.
• Your library is the box's. Every profile's apps list the games your own host found. A profile with a desktop of its own plays your Steam games with its own Steam; games from other launchers play on your desktop only. Change the library on your own Library page; another seat's is read only. Covers that Steam keeps in your home show while your host runs.
• A seat has Game Mode too. Return to Gaming Mode on a seat's desktop opens Steam's Game Mode on that seat, and Steam's Switch to Desktop goes back. The stream carries on, and neither touches the box's own session. The desktop's apps keep running underneath, and Steam keeps running when you disconnect in Game Mode. A seat starts in the mode it was last in.

Turning it off copies the files back to your home and your own host serves the box again. Seats of their own stay on the box, stopped, and come back with the switch.

How players pickCopy Anchor Link

On a host with two or more profiles, the Apple, Android, Linux and Windows apps ask Who's playing on Living Room PC? on the first connect and remember the answer for that host. The host card then shows the pick's initials, and Switch profile… in the host's menu changes it.

The controller interface asks on every connect instead:

• Turn on Remember on this device under the profiles to stop the question on that host. The card then shows the pick's initials.

• The button under a host card, Playing as Kid or Who's playing?, changes the pick or sets Ask every time.

• On Games, the pill with the host's name opens Host and profile: pick the host whose games show and who plays there.

• A device that had its own Steam seat before keeps playing as the profile named after it, without being asked.

• A punktfunk:// link's as= or the command line's --as plays as a profile for one connect.

• The Decky plugin shows one chip per profile under the host.

• Moonlight and the other clients play as the owner.

A profile is a name, not a lock: anyone on a paired device may pick any profile. What a device may do stays its access level.

Where a profile showsCopy Anchor Link

• Home → Sessions puts the player's picture and name before the device, once the host has two profiles.
• Devices → Approve names the profile a waiting device asks to play as.
• The game library counts each profile's play time beside the totals.
• Hooks and events carry the profile of the session.

Change or remove a profileCopy Anchor Link

On the profile's card: Rename, Choose picture or Remove picture (PNG or JPEG under 1 MB), and Remove. Removing asks for the console password and ends every session playing as that profile with "Your profile was removed by the host's owner." For a profile named Kid whose own Steam the host still keeps, Also delete Kid's Steam and saved games on this host erases that Steam too; without it, the files stay on the host. The owner can't be removed.