Steam OS, at least in the form that exists on my Deck, is not suitable for general purpose. True, it has a desktop environment, but it's "jailed" - of course with an option to jail break it, but anything you do outside of the user space is subject to being wiped the next time you get an OTA update.
Then again, OTA updates are necessarily only a thing on the Deck and I suppose this wouldn't be a problem on the Steam OS distribution available for installing on other hardware.
> [...] anything you do outside of the user space is subject to being wiped the next time you get an OTA update.
You mean outside of /home? This is actually excellent. Rock solid base OS that can be A/B booted, deliver extra apps via Flatpak/AppImage - this is close to what macOS achieved, minus all the crap Apple has been pulling recently. I'm tempted.
More precisely it would be /home and /var. Persistant changes can in theory also be done with systemd-sysext, but it isn't exactly the most user friendly thing currenty.
Jailed might be OK for the general audience vs technical people but does it come with a package manager that lets you install things such as OpenSSH, assorted open source VPN daemons, email clients, etc... or do such things have to be shimmed in or run from /home or break OS updates? Or do such things have to be purchased or installed through an app store like on cell phones? If so it may still be usable. I rebooted a telco mainframe switch using Telnet from a Nokia 9000 back in the day whilst on call.
Steam OS, at least in the form that exists on my Deck, is not suitable for general purpose. True, it has a desktop environment, but it's "jailed" - of course with an option to jail break it, but anything you do outside of the user space is subject to being wiped the next time you get an OTA update.
Then again, OTA updates are necessarily only a thing on the Deck and I suppose this wouldn't be a problem on the Steam OS distribution available for installing on other hardware.