This has been a common sentiment, enough that I’ve thought of making a video about it.

Running a desktop OS, catering to everything people need from their PC, from printing to fringe drivers to VPNs to package management, is a big task. I have long doubted that Valve is personally interested in taking on that task. They write SteamOS for the deck and machine, since their only real responsibility is playing games. People who try to install that OS for other things will see some Flatpak friction - but that’s fine, it wasn’t built for that.

I’d strongly recommend looking at some other distributions with broader group support. My recommendation is CachyOS. Bazzite has worked great for others, but as a general desktop user I sort of bounced off of it - installing some unusual apps ended up getting a lot of friction against its emulation layers. I believe both are based off the same sort of origins as SteamOS, so that may be the safest thing.