Is the steam deck good for learning linux?

[Jenoh]

Been wanting to jump from windows to linux but have been shy.

[Man's Best Friend]

Extremely unlikely. There are much easier ways to get your hands on a Linux machine to try out. I'd say the top three easier options would be:

Dual boot your existing computer.
Setup a VM inside Windows (Virtual Box is a good option for this)
Buy a cheap laptop and install it on that.

Any of these are cheaper and easier to do than getting a Deck just to try and learn Linux.

[retrogunner]

Agreed. Sure it comes with Desktop mode and it can be used as a laptop (with accessories to make it more palatable. But Steam OS on the Steam Deck has several nuances most Linux distros don't have -- like fail-over, read-only rootfs.

You can install what ever distro you choose. Heck, you can even use Linux Subsystem for Windows or Cygwin (from cygwin.org) in Windows to get comfortable with the shell and most commands. It's not a dedicated or sandbox linux host, but it will get your toes wet.

If you're short on time and want to get right into things, VMs are a way to go. In fact, there's https://turnkeylinux.org with some premade Linux "app stacks" images using their distro-spin.

[AceHercules1196]

There is also the raspberry pi but the Linux community might disagree with that

[retrogunner]

Raspberry Pi is definite starter platform that most will agree with.

They are just so hard to get a hold of right now. About (or worse) than getting your hands on a Steam Deck as their is no queue for Raspberry Pi orders.

Another option is older PC from friends/family, ebay, etc. I've a couple of shelves of hand-me-down laptops I use as my "servers" and they have built-in battery backup, wifi, etc. Mine also use significantly less electricity than a standard PC or rackmount server -- I've those too but they draw at least 400 watts idle vs 40-60 watt laptops.

[@R+5]

Originally posted by retrogunner:

Raspberry Pi is definite starter platform that most will agree with.

imo, its easier to "jump into linux" exploring a distro you find interesting with a live-usb, or that has good reputation from having good support. Currently i think one of the best ones is manjaro-kde, which is very similar to steam os v3 (both are arch based, rolling releases, and use the same DE).

And, if you have an old pc, or you have enough space in disk and dont mind making a partition for dual booting, then you can install that distro you already checked a bit.

You can also play a safer route if you have an additional disk:
rather than having two os sharing the computer, you could also install in one disk the linux distro, and physically remove it and replace it with your other os (windows) disk, whenever you want to boot into the old os. this approach can help reduce risks of sharing the same disk, ie booting issues from a bad update, or something that breaks the os and you are unable to fix it.

A Raspberry Pi means buying additional hardware. using a computer you already own is cheaper and more direct, and will also give you more freedom to toy and break the os, and try to fix it or reinstall it, and learn by trial and error.

imo pi exists to help those who already are a bit familiar with linux to play and try more things, or use the pi to make small gadgets.

Originally posted by retrogunner:

Another option is older PC from friends/family, ebay, etc. I've a couple of shelves of hand-me-down laptops I use as my "servers" and they have built-in battery backup, wifi, etc.

agree: if you can get a new computer for free, thats better.

[Marlock]

the Deck comes with SteamOS 3, which ships with very unusual and annoying customizations:

1) read-only system partition
this alone makes SteamOS 3 not worth it for learning purposes... you can't modify the system at will unless you turn it writeable first (which you can, but then all modifications might be overwritten at the next OS update - see 2)

2) A/B system partitioning + monolithic update mechanism
this is the current norm in android devices and makes for a safer way to ensure there is still a usable system if an update breaks it

you use system partition A until an update comes... it comes as a whole new system image, which is written to system partition B... then on reboot it tries to run B first... if it works, you'll then start using B until the next update is applied (to A)... if it doesn't, then it falls back to A (wich you know was working fine

this means every system modification is lost and overwritten each time a monolithic update image is applied

3) gaming mode and desktop mode
SteamOS 3 ships with 2 default users preconfigured, each using different components to a certain point (KDE on desktop mode vs. GameScope on gaming mode)

4) dualbooting not supported
SteamOS 3 doesn't support dualbooting, and setting this up on your own is non-trivial


on a "normal" linux distro (meaning the mainstream ones for PCs, laptops, etc), you would usually get one system partition for the new OS, where updates would replace only one or a few OS components at a time, you'd create your main user at the initial setup, and dual-booting would be much more trivial to put in place

IMHO you CAN use the Deck's hardware for learning, as long as you replace SteamOS 3 with another linux distro (it should work well, barring a few tweaks that Valve might not have contributed "upstream" yet or that some distros might not have included in a new enough version to support)... then it will be quite exactly like working with linux on a "normal" laptop hardware

then again if you have another computer available, you don't need the Deck... buy yourself a cheap SSD drive, plug it in, install linux to it (side-by-side with windows, safer and easier on separate physical drives than on different partitions on the same drive) and start trying it out

Linux Mint is my favourite linux distro and I really think it's great for new users:
linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/

After you have the OS installed, this website might be all you need to find alternative software for those that don't already support linux:
https://alternativeto.net/
Hint: look for the software you currently use, filter the alternatives by "linux" and by "opensource" so you can go straight to the ones that will fit in easiest and be usable everywhere later on

[Jenoh]

Originally posted by Marlock:

the Deck comes with SteamOS 3, which ships with very unusual and annoying customizations:

1) read-only system partition
this alone makes SteamOS 3 not worth it for learning purposes... you can't modify the system at will unless you turn it writeable first (which you can, but then all modifications might be overwritten at the next OS update - see 2)

2) A/B system partitioning + monolithic update mechanism
this is the current norm in android devices and makes for a safer way to ensure there is still a usable system if an update breaks it

you use system partition A until an update comes... it comes as a whole new system image, which is written to system partition B... then on reboot it tries to run B first... if it works, you'll then start using B until the next update is applied (to A)... if it doesn't, then it falls back to A (wich you know was working fine

this means every system modification is lost and overwritten each time a monolithic update image is applied

3) gaming mode and desktop mode
SteamOS 3 ships with 2 default users preconfigured, each using different components to a certain point (KDE on desktop mode vs. GameScope on gaming mode)

4) dualbooting not supported
SteamOS 3 doesn't support dualbooting, and setting this up on your own is non-trivial


on a "normal" linux distro (meaning the mainstream ones for PCs, laptops, etc), you would usually get one system partition for the new OS, where updates would replace only one or a few OS components at a time, you'd create your main user at the initial setup, and dual-booting would be much more trivial to put in place

IMHO you CAN use the Deck's hardware for learning, as long as you replace SteamOS 3 with another linux distro (it should work well, barring a few tweaks that Valve might not have contributed "upstream" yet or that some distros might not have included in a new enough version to support)... then it will be quite exactly like working with linux on a "normal" laptop hardware

then again if you have another computer available, you don't need the Deck... buy yourself a cheap SSD drive, plug it in, install linux to it (side-by-side with windows, safer and easier on separate physical drives than on different partitions on the same drive) and start trying it out

Linux Mint is my favourite linux distro and I really think it's great for new users:
linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/

After you have the OS installed, this website might be all you need to find alternative software for those that don't already support linux:
https://alternativeto.net/
Hint: look for the software you currently use, filter the alternatives by "linux" and by "opensource" so you can go straight to the ones that will fit in easiest and be usable everywhere later on

Is getting familiar with linux just a time thing or is there a better way? When i used linux i had a hard time getting into a specific folder like steamapps.


And i assume i will need a windows VM for certain software.

[maxRunner]

SteamOS is fine for learning linux as a desktop user. It's been pointed out that it's not really a "traditional" linux desktop but a read only filesystem. I think that's ok though because linux is moving towards containerized solutions. You'll be using a lot of flatpak, which has packages for most of the desktop software you will need, and others can be found with appimages. If you need compilers and stuff though you'll need something else, like guix. That's outside the scope of steamos but anything that installs to your home dir it should work fine.

You also will not be able to easily set up server software such as ssh, shared file systems, web services, etc. but I can't see why you would want to anyway.

All in all my report on the linux functionality of the Steam Deck is favorable.

[Penske]

yep