I mean "real SteamOS" has always been available. It was just never tailored to those devices.
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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Steam Deck
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A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
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As well, Bazzite is for all intents and purposes just SteamOS with support for other handhelds. It runs the exact same gamemode package that the Deck does.
Bazzite is great but people are going to be far more likely to install SteamOS just because it's Steam.
Bazzite is awesome, have been using it on my main laptop for over 6 months now.
It's slightly different than SteamOS as it's immutable Fedora rather than Arch. But with distrobox, none of that really matters anyway.
Yeah I do understand the differences, that's why I said they are essentially the same, because to a less tech-inclined end-user they function in the same way.
I dunno, I guess I just don't super understand the hype around SteamOS coming to desktop. I do get the excitement for OEM devices with it though.
I was just adding to your comment, I wasn't trying to correct you or anything...
I always like to boost bazzite when I see it, because it really is great and more people should try it.
Oh, sorry if I came across like I thought you were correcting me. I'm just,,, it's been a big day, maybe I shouldn't be commenting on the internet 😅
No worries
It’s slightly different than SteamOS as it’s immutable Fedora rather than Arch.
I have yet to try Bazzite myself but as I see it, for the average user both are essentially the same, no? Launches into Steam Game Mode and Desktop Mode is the same Plasma desktop with Discover they read about in tutorials, right?
I only use it on my laptop and not a portable device, so mine does not boot into Big Picture mode, though I imagine that's possible.
And yeah it's pretty similar, particularly on the gaming side. If you're only using it for gaming and doing nothing but Steam and maybe a tiny bit of Desktop mode for Discover store, then yeah you probably won't notice a difference.
However, if you use it for more than gaming, which is not only possible, but super stable, then there will be some slight differences than SteamOS in how you "layer" packages and such. But again, you probably won't need that since most things are available in flatpak (Discover).
I think it's probably a more complete desktop experience than SteamOS at this point simply because it's been available longer.
And even the OG SteamOS is just a flavor of Arch that is immutable
Rog ally was an idea at the time I was buying my deck. People told me I should get it instead because it was more popular and ran windows so it would be directly supported by games. I'm so glad I did not buy into that, the oled deck is fantastic. My hands go numb playing it, or watching movies. Sure put steamos on the Ally, but...
because it was more popular
Meanwhile the Deck is outselling all other handheld PCs combined
What's wild is that there are people who bought the Steam Deck and immediately put Windows on it. Didn't even try SteamOS.
If you know that you want to play a game that only runs on Windows?
It's their device, I never tried Windows on the notebooks I bought in recent years either