Unless there are major changes from the Deck version, I would STRONGLY advise not running SteamOS on any machine with sensitive data. You want a real login screen and, preferably, FDE for any laptop.
If you like the Desktop Mode? That is just KDE Plasma. Basically every major distro has a build that uses it (and you can install it yourself otherwise). And Steam mode is literally just Steam Big Picture (with some minor tweaks).
For a laptop? I am an old so I use Fedora. But I think everyone loves atomic distros these days so consider Bazzite.
Nalivai@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Steam OS is basically Arch Linux with KDE and Steam that autoruns in their special mode. It would even be easier to setup for yourself.