[Unfinished] Turning Steamdeck into a Japanese immerison machine by dual booting Windows

2026-05-09 04:51:02

😋

This article is unfinished

[Unfinished] Turning Steamdeck into a Japanese immerison machine by dual booting Windows

The dream of being able to immerse in Japanese games using all the tools you love (GSM, Luna, JL) on a handheld device has simply not been possible.

Until now.

This blog post will show you, reader who already has an immersion setup on Windows, how to do the exact same thing on the Steamdeck.

But on Steamdeck.

We're going to do this by dual-booting Windows and SteamOS on the Steamdeck.

But firstly, why dual-boot and not go full Linux?

But they are workarounds.
Pretty much every immersion tool you love is on Windows.
Combining immersion tools that work on Windows with VNs that only work on Windows, and trying to do that on Linux is neigh on impossible.

So why not go full Windows?

SteamOS is specifically made for the Steamdeck.

I know I do!

If you want to attempt the Linux only way™️, read this:

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This guide is for people that can comfortably dual boot Linux and Windows, but do not know specifically how to do it on Steamdeck.

Also I assume you have already done the whole TheMoeWay/Refold/AJATT/Migaku/whatever thing on Windows desktop and you just got a Steamdeck for Christmas.

SteamOS Beta

You should join the SteamOS Beta.

This is because it has BIOS drivers you need to make it work on Windows.

To update to beta, press the Steam button or open the Steam menu.
Select the Settings option.
Go to the System option.
Select Beta participation.
Change the System update channel from Stable to Beta.
Restart and apply the update.

Steamdeck password

You need to set a Steamdeck password to do adminy things.

Follow this:

Installing Windows

If you want a more hand-holdy video, this is good:

🐬

You can right click by touching the screen and long pressing.

You need this to resize your partition.

🤔

Hold volume up and press power button once to load the boot manager.

Use KDE partition manager in the repair image.
I chose 11 IOT as it uses less resources, and 11 has great touch support.
Put them onto a USB and install them:

Look for "setup information" file type, right click and "Install".

It should boot back into Windows.

Connect to WiFi and install Windows updates.

Now after doing that, restart the steamdeck.

Go back to Windows updates, click on "Advanced Options" and then "Optional updates"

Update everything again.

Now let's configure Clover.

When you dualboot normally you can choose between 3 things:

Grub
Refind
Clover

I believe Clover has controller support whereas the others don't.

👽

just open this page on the steamdeck now you have wifi

Open cmd as admin.

bcdedit -set {globalsettings} highestmode on

reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation" /v RealTimeIsUniversal /d 1 /t REG_DWORD /f

Sets hardware clock to UTC rather than local time.

If you have ever dual booted Linux and Windows you know this is required.

Linux typically assumes the hardware clock is set to UTC and converts to local time in software
Windows typically assumes the hardware clock is set to local time directly
When you switch between OSes, each one "corrects" the clock based on its assumption, causing the time to jump forward or backward

Now shut down your Steamdeck, go into boot manager and boot into SteamOS.

Follow this video to fix it :)

😶‍🌫️

Note: If you see a black screen press "A" if you followed that video.

There were some status.txt

In the docs it says:

Use this only if you have Windows installed on microSD / external SSD and if Windows keeps hijacking the bootloader!

Since I don't use that, I don't care.

Optimise Windows

Now Windows should work fine, let's optimise it to work even better.

Your life will be much easier.

Here's what I did:

Ran all Standard tweaks.
1. Additionally disable Background Apps (to speed things up)
2. Disable Bing search in start menu
3. Show hidden files and extensions
4. Enable S3 sleep (this makes the Steamdeck hibernate)

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On modern Windows, it will not hibernate by dumping RAM into a file and then reopening that file when you turn the device back on.

Modern hibernate will let Windows install updates etc

This burns through battery life.

Enable S3 sleep in Chris Titus' tool, and then do this to add hibernate to Steamdeck:
Open Control Panel → Power Options
Click Choose what the power buttons do (left sidebar)
Click Change settings that are currently unavailable
Check Hibernate under "Shutdown settings"
Change "Power button sleeps" to "Power button hibernates"
Click Save changes

Update: Hibernate breaks dualboots, use "Sleep" instead.

Disable All Updates:

Dual booting often breaks because Windows update breaks it.

I will disable all updates, but Windows Defender will still update its threat lists in the background so it's not all terrible.

On the Config page do this:

Set Up Autologin so you can just go straight to gaming.
All .Net frameworks.

In apps install:

Anki
Visual C++ 2015 64bit
7zip

Now open Powershell in admin and run this:

Set-WinSystemLocale -SystemLocale ja-JP

Japanese games require Japanese locale :)

And do this:

Open Settings → Time & language → Language & region
Under "Country or region", select Japan from the dropdown

While you're there, also install Japanese language support.s

Mining Games

Now let's set up our mining stuff.

Anki

Set up Anki and login, sync or whatever.

Go to your Anki addons folder on Desktop (assuming you have it)

C:\Users\Bee\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21

It all works.

GSM

We'll be using GameSentenceMiner.

Go to this and install it:

Disable texthooker on startup.

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Only use Silero, it is much lighter.

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Actually set this to webp, avif requires reencoding.

I play visual novels so I don't need them to be animated 😄

But if you play games, activate animation!

I set AI up:

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Actually I moved to using TranslateGemma 4b on Ollama for offline translation.

Install Ollama, open it, select TranslateGemma:
https://ollama.com/

4b takes around 5 seconds to run, 12b takes 30 seconds but lags a lot.

In GSM AI set it up to use Ollama and then TranslateGemma.

Then set MeikiOCR in Overlay:

In Advanced:

Close GSM and reopen it, my OBS was not synced properly until I did this the first time.

In OBS go to settings, output and then set these:

Now in Video tab:

Basically all these settings say:

I am playing a visual novel that does not move very fast, give me much lower settings to preserve battery life etc.

Finally in GSM enable "Start Overlay on Startup":

Open GSM Overlay and set Yomitan up, just export your settings from your desktop and move them over.

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Yomitan will check every dictionary you have installed before showing you "Add to Anki".

To save power I just run 4 dicts:
Jitendex (definitions)
Kanjidic
Jiten freq
GSM Character Dict (talked about next).

I also tell Yomitan to only show definitions from max 1 dictionary. This is because Yomitan loads every dict before letting you do anything, which can take some time and power to do

Pro GSM tip:

Go to settings -> Database Management and download the special Yomitan dictionary for character information in your games!

While you're here, set up Jiten reader. Use this for Custom Word CSS to make it look normal. The default CSS is horrific to look at.

.jiten-word.new { color: inherit !important; }
.jiten-word.blacklisted { color: inherit !important; }
.jiten-word.mature { color: inherit !important; }
.jiten-word.due { color: inherit !important; }
.jiten-word.young { color: inherit !important;}

Also in settings for Websocket remove all Websockets apart from 2333.

2333 will be used by Lunahook, this saves some cpu cycles as GSM regularly checks to see if those sockets are open.

GSM keyboard shortcuts in overlay todo

Steamdeck controls

Now install this:

This lets you control Steamdeck specific things like fans / gpu usage etc.

Lunatranslate

Install this:

Turn off Google translate.

Put it into Windows defender allow list so it doesn't break.

Turn on networking.

Just make sure the webhooks in GSM hook up to it.

Random tools

I installed Copyparty to let me copy and paste games from my desktop to my SD:

It's like FTP but:

You run the .exe
It says "enter this IP in your browser"
You get automatic retries, able to make folders etc.

A lot less finicky for me.

f.lux

Software to warm up your computer display at night, to match your indoor lighting.

justgetflux

Cause GSM records the game itself and not the window (by default), your screenshots won't be yellow.

Windows nightlight has a max limit to it, F.lux does not. You can go super red.

Use this to instantly load your gaming library on startup. Lunatranslator and GSM should auto switch to it.

Games

Steam games do not work :/

Anki VN Sorter

2026-05-04 16:25:32

Hi I vibe coded this addon

it's a sorting addon for new flashcards in anki.

Other sorting algorithms:

Go by frequency alone, so similar kanji aren't bundled up together

this addon uses an advanced algorithm (I actually wrote it, but the AI implemented it. No idea if it's the most optimal, but I was going back and forth and double checking my new card order and this one looks like it works)

The idea is:

Reduce the struggle. Words with all Kanji known or only kana appear first, UNLESS there is a super high frequency word you are missing

Basically, if you know all the kanji the word is super easy so you should see it first.

it also works for other things not just visual novels

Algorithm

Candidate selection: The default query is note:Kiku is:new -is:suspended. Review and learning cards are ignored.
Known-kanji extraction: The add-on searches mature cards using matureQuery or the generated matureDays query. It reads the Expression field from those mature Kiku notes and extracts kanji characters. If a kanji appears there, it counts as known.
Frequency source selection: The active list comes from jitenFrequencyListId. The default is global. The add-on tries to use:
- the fresh cache for the selected list
- the live Jiten export API for the selected list
- the stale cache for the selected list
- the bundled Global snapshot when the selected list is global
- Kiku FreqSort only if no Jiten data is available
Per-card features: For each candidate card, the add-on reads:
- Expression
- extracted kanji count
- known kanji count
- Jiten rank from the selected list
- Kiku FreqSort rank as fallback
Blended scoring: The default score is:This means:
- absolute frequency score from Jiten, or FreqSort as fallback
- multiplied by a readability adjustment:
  - all_kanji_known: 1.00
  - kana_only: 0.92
  - unknown kanji: 1 - min(0.18 * unknown_kanji_count, 0.54)
- plus a small partial-known bonus:
  - 0.04 * coverage_score for cards that still have unknown kanji

similar-frequency known-kanji cards usually beat kana-only cards
super common kana-only cards can still rise early
super common one-unknown-kanji cards can outrank weaker easy cards
harder unknown-kanji cards still sink unless their frequency is very strong

Final ordering: Cards are sorted by:The older easy_first_tiered_v1 mode still exists if you want strict buckets.

higher blended score
then better raw rank
then shorter expression length when preferShorterExpressions = true
then current due
then card template order
then card id

Repositioning: The add-on calls Anki’s internal new-card reposition API. It starts from the minimum due among the eligible cards and only reorders the matching new cards. Non-matching cards are left alone as much as possible.

There are also optional strategies, easy_first_tiered_v1 and balanced_ease_v1, but the default and recommended path is frequency_first_soft_v1.

Mature card exporter for anki

2026-05-04 16:20:41

hi i vibe coded this super simple anki addon

go to tools -> Export Mature Words to Clipboard

It will ask you to set up your cards, like what Mature is and what Anki card field has the word

After that everytime you click this, it will export all mature words to your clipboard

No features other than that.

Use cases

External word trackers like Migaku, Jiten, JPDB can use this
Put it into ChatGPT or something
Excel?
I don't know, its just a really easy way to copy mature anki cards.

My Moe Desktop Rice 2026

2026-04-13 01:03:44

Like any Linux nerd I have been into ricing for a while, stalking the good folks over on r/unixporn and making my own Hyprland rice.

But for the past 6 months or so I've been using KDE.

And the past 2 weeks I have gone back from Wayland to X11 (it's just more stable)

This just so happened to coincide with me discovering this community:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MoeDesktop/

It's like r/unixporn but for classic 2005 otaku desktops, invoking the feeling of Moe (pronounced mo-eh).

Which just means cuteness (or something like that) in Japanese

So I thought I would try my hand at a Moe rice.

My first stop was this KDE Aero Plasma theme, since I'm a big big fan of the Vista aesthetic.

I installed it in one Paru command and it worked 🥳 My desktop does look like Vista now!!

Colour Matching

I'm using this wallpaper from Nekopara:

It's really cute!

There's things in Python you can do to study the images colours using ImageMagik and match your colourscheme to it.

So after Aero and my wallpaper I did this!

Cursor

In KDE you can edit your cursor super easily

I went into KDE cursor store and got my Miku cursor!

Building Custom Widgets

Like any good Otaku and doujinsoft fan I needed widgets.

Doujin soft - Wikipedia

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects

Remember how cool it was in Vista!?

So I looked at the defaults.

I added the Photo Gallery widget

Because I take so many screenshots of anime / visual novels I just pointed it at my folder.

In this game her eyes reminded me of Oshi No Ko!

Second widget is weather!

I live in the UK

Somedays it's super sunny, the next it's raining.

Last week I went to work in a coat. Everyone else was in cute dresses and skirts.... I was the odd one out :/

Never again since I added this widget!

But I had the thirst for more. MORE MOE WIDGETS!

So like any good 2026 coder I asked my AI bot to build them for me lol

City/landmark

Like any late 20s white girl that visited Japan, I miss it dearly

I told AI to build me a widget where once a day it'll show me a location from Japan, a photo of it, the Wikipedia description and let me click on it to go to Wikipedia:

Works quite well!

I even asked it to make curated lists, so there's one for the West of Tokyo (I lived in Suginami-ku, so I miss that part in particular)

Word a day

Every day (well, every hour) it picks a random word from my Anki deck and shows it to me.

No Anki? No problem!

We can change it to Local only and see a local word list of curated, fun words :)

This is prettier than my Anki cards anyway, which are.... full of HTML and ugly...

Moe Clock

I built this from a GitHub repo called Moe_Counter or something

It's just a clock, pretty cool!

https://count.getloli.com/

Someone did this on Windows already so I just made it a KDE widget :)

Split Clock

I wanna see:

The time in Tokyo and London (where I live)
If it's daylight or not
Moon phase
If the sun and moon are visible at the same time

So I vibe coded this!

The moon is not visible in Tokyo rn

Conclusion

This is my current desktop!

5000 words

2026-03-25 15:27:24

5000 words.

I hit 4000 words 87 days ago.

That's 11.49 mature words a day.

Stats since 4k words:

Stats

10k average daily characters.

2 hours of visual novels a day on average.

Since I hit 4k words in December:

800k chars read, 128 hours spent reading.

I've averaged 1 hour a day of reading (work....) and reading an average of 9.1k chars a day.

💡

My reading speed went from 5k / hour to 6.4k / hour!

I've come across 15.5k unique words, and 5.8k of those I had never seen before.

In that time I read:

Limelight Lemonade Jam
Marco and the Galaxy Dragon
Summer Pockets Reflection Blue

In terms of Anki:

💡

Not all my cards are in Anki, a few hundred are in Migaku Memory.

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I don't care about JLPT that much, only about reading. In theory I am definitely N3, maybe N2. Who knows. I don't care. I just know that reading visual novels is still difficult for me