this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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Privacy
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SteamOS will not be your best option for desktop. Stop waiting for it. It's made for the Deck and console like experiences, not desktop. It's immutable too, which is great for a console experience, but probably not ideal for a desktop user.
Just go download Linux now. There's nothing special in SteamOS that you need. I use Garuda, which is Arch based (which SteamOS is also, if that matters), and has a version specifically designed for gaming. It comes with most of what you could need set up, and a tool to quickly install any packages you may want for additional things like controllers or whatever.
I've been enjoying Fedora Atomic, personally.
Aurora DX (which is based on Fedora atomic) has been the best distro I've used in a long time. Immutable OSes are great for general purpose desktop use! I set up a container for each development environment and never need to worry about conflicting dependencies anymore. But yeah, I wouldn't go with Steam OS for that. Steam works fine on pretty much any modern distro, so I don't see any obvious benefit to using it.
There's pros and cons. I personally don't want an immutable distro, but there are reasons for it. It's especially good for what the Deck is with a large portion of people who probably don't know what they're doing.
What?
https://www.howtogeek.com/what-is-an-immutable-linux-distro/
I know what it is, my question was more at the “not for desktop use”
I think being able to rollback is better for new users
Sure, that is an advantage. There's a lot of advantages. I just don't think it's good for users willing to learn. It's good to make sure the user can't fuck up, but then it also limits what they can do. I think if you've made it here and can use a full OS currently, you should try a non-immutable distro. If it turns out you fuck it up then you can swap to something that'll hold your hand.
Fair enough