Can anyone recommend a distro (and desktop environment?) that's going to be almost the same as desktop mode on the Steam deck? I'm getting more comfortable in that than I expected to be in any Linux, and to my surprise and delight I haven't had to delve into the command line at all yet.

[–] offspec@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

The steam deck uses KDE Plasma 5 as its desktop environment, so anything that uses that should feel very similar. I recommend bazzite if familiarity is something that would appeal to you.

[–] daggermoon@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The most recent update ships Plasma 6 I believe.

[–] Link@rentadrunk.org 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That update is still is preview curently. The stable branch is still on Plasma 5

[–] daggermoon@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Oh my bad.

[–] Mogofwin@lemm.ee 1 points 5 days ago (2 children)

+1 for Bazzite. It has just enough guard rails to keep you from (easily) making your system unusable while still providing more freedom than windows. Install is cake. Literally clear a drive or partition for your OS and storage, download it, and you're off to the races. just make sure to always check your build against protondb For games to see if there are any special run commands to put into steam, and you will be golden.

[–] offspec@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I can't say I've used it myself but it seems pretty straightforward and very in line with SteamOS philosophies.

[–] Mogofwin@lemm.ee 2 points 5 days ago

Very much so. Even for non-gaming, most stuff works out of the box from the package manager, everything else you can get working with a distrobox. Ended up getting blender to work better on Bazzite with AMD GPU rendering than I could on Windows lol

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Would I fuck myself over by putting it on a partition on the same drive as my Windows install? It's my fastest hard drive, but I can't just immediately give up everything I have on Windows.

[–] Mogofwin@lemm.ee 2 points 5 days ago

I hav heard that there can be issues with windows updates messing up Bazzite if installed on the same drive. I got a separate drive just for my Bazzite install to be on the safe side.

[–] pathief@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

The desktop environment is called KDE Plasma. Every distribution with KDE will look and feel very similar.

Fedora is a good and safe bet for a distribution.

[–] Saprophyte@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

https://docs.bazzite.gg/General/Installation_Guide/Installing_Bazzite_for_Desktop_or_Laptop_Hardware/

[–] valaramech@fedia.io 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

~~You can also install SteamOS which is literally what the Steam Deck runs.~~

EDIT: Disregard, I can't read.

[–] Matt@lemdro.id 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That is the old Debian-based operating system that ran on Steam Machines and is no longer supported. Valve really needs to remove it from their website. The version of SteamOS running on the Steam Deck is Arch-based.

[–] valaramech@fedia.io 1 points 5 days ago

Weird, I found the Arch-based one once but now I can't find it. Everything keeps pointing me back to that page...

EDIT: All I can find now is HoloISO - which seems to be in a reasonable place, I guess.