Steam Hardware
A place to discuss and support all Steam Hardware, including Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and SteamOS in general.
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[Deck] - Steam Deck related.
[Controller] - Steam Controller related.
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[Frame] - Steam Frame related.
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[PSA] - Sharing important information.
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Rules:
- Follow the rules of Sopuli
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It will last until each update. Updates happen via an A/B partition switch, so the other partition gets updated, then that one becomes the default for booting (both still technically boot, but the original image will be behind).
If you mean accidental changes by you, then it would be
steamos-readonly enable. Note that changes happen via a persistent OverlayFS. Re-enabling might remove that overlay and your changes. Test with something easy to see if it persists. Note point 2 about permanence.Don't bother messing with the system files if possible. Try to use an AppImage or Flatpak instead, as they exist in userspace and will persist over updates. The issue is that it's the core system files that are written to a new image each update, not your home directory. Your home directory and settings will persist.
If you want something modifiable but still atomic, Bazzite is a good option. You can apply rpm packages via layering, and you can install packages from other package managers via
distrobox. You'll still have the safety of images as restore points. If you want a more traditional Linux experience, though, look into something like CachyOS.Can't you just use distrobox directly on steamos to save changing os?
Dunno, honestly. If it's not preinstalled as part of the base image, it would be subject to the same removal issues as other packages.
Yeah looks like it's installed by default. Can't find an official announcement/changelog but according to an unsourced reddit thread it's been there since steamos 3.5.
Thanks, awesome answers all around!
Regarding another distro, I do use CachyOS on my desktop so that's definitely an option, but for the time being I want to give SteamOS a fair shot before I go and install a different OS on it. There's every chance I'll cave and install CachyOS within a month or two.
Yes, definitely; I was going to do that anyway. There are only a few corner-cases, like the PWAs For Firefox that I linked in the OP, where this isn't possible or might require a lot more fiddling than I prefer. But in almost all cases, I can work with Flatpaks, AppImages, or through a web browser.
Thanks for answering, I was honestly not sure I'd get much good info here but you proved me dead wrong :)
Good luck! Incidentally, if you do end up going to CachyOS, I like
webapp-managerfor PWAs; should be in theextraarch repos. I've tried a few flatpaks for creating the necessary shortcuts, and I haven't found one that felt quite as nice. Do go try some, though, because maybe there's one that works better for you!I use it on Linux Mint, the biggest issue I have with it is external links:
https://github.com/linuxmint/webapp-manager#how-to-open-links-in-my-main-browser
Really annoying. PWAs For Firefox fixes it, you just gotta change a setting.