I believe SteamOS is designed only for the steam deck, I wouldn’t recommend it as a general purpose OS for a desktop or laptop.

I would recommend Bazzite, it’s like a general version of SteamOS. It comes with a version that boots directly into steam’s big picture mode (like SteamOS) or one that boots into the desktop (I run this on my desktop)

It also has improvments like nvidia drivers, printer drivers, package layering and because it’s built on top Fedora Atomic you can rollback the system to a stable snapshot if an update doesn’t work with your system.

I’ve been running on my desktop since September (I was in the same boat as you) and it’s been really good. A lot of the stuff I would’ve had to configure and mess around with is already setup for gaming

You might like Bazzite. Its like a general purpose version of SteamOS with layering and printers

I just did this in September. I would second bazzite. I have a Nvidia GPU and I haven’t had a single issue with it. Bazzite is atomic/immutable which makes it more difficult to modify the system or add packages but honestly I haven’t actually needed to modify the system or add any packages. It also has A/B partitions and stores the last OS update so if something gets corrupted or an update doesn’t work you can roll back really easily. I know some people will say if you want to use Linux you need to be comfortable with using the terminal but I haven’t had to touch it.

Back in 2016 I ran Ubuntu on a laptop and I remember having to install everything from apt and tweak stuff. I also remember accidentally messing up my system and having to do a fresh install. Flatpaks have really changed it since then.

You can checkout https://flathub.org to see what apps are available in the built in app store. You can also look at https://protondb.com to see how well specific windows games run on Linux and any tweaks that might help them run better.

I still have a windows partition though since SteamVR doesn’t work on Linux and discord screen sharing doesn’t work on Wayland

I switched to Bazzite on my main PC at the start of September and it’s been great. I only use Windows for steam link vr streaming

All I want is someone to make an open world Sims 3 like game with 64-bit support and better multicore support. Can’t wait to see if Paralives and Life by You will deliver

Any specific reason you don’t want something mainstream? I would recommend a Nvidia Shield (tube). I have one for my living room tv and another for my bedroom and they are great. I also have a shield pro for my theatre room. I used to have a htpc in there but it would occasionally break on updates and wasn’t nearly as user friendly as the shield