No prob! I was curious how far I could get with a low-effort decoupling from Meta, and I'm sad it turns out that that's not very far.

I updated my post a little with some more thoughts about the situation.

I think it would be cool to root it, but the hassle then to update it would be too much for me at least. And you would want the updates too because they are still adding improvements to things like controller motion tracking and whatnot.

I'm excited for what this quest version of Steam link can do for getting more VR content on Linux. Without the need for Linux drivers for the headset, it can just be streamed and the hardware work is done. Valve is clearly talented enough to get the software side working. It would be cool as hell to have a mode that turns the Steam Deck into a WAP (easy on Linux as you undoubtedly know) and you just connect your headset and start VR gaming from it.

Thank you for the discussion by the way. You've inspired me to drop my unit into its own SSID now, and log what it's doing to keep an eye on it.