Hey folks. I have been playing with my steam deck oled 1 TB version for a few weeks now and I absolutely love it. Very nice device on the go. The thing is I would like to use the device as a backup workstation for some quick important work on the go when I don’t have my laptop handy.

I would like to ask if Bazzite is a viable option for this. I know the deck is primarily a game console, but I want to use this beautiful thing to the best of my ability.

But what do you guys think if I replace the Steam OS with Bazzite? Should I just use Tails OS on a flash drive and then use Tails OS for work? Or is the Steam deck not yet ready to be used as a laptop backup?

Thanks in advance and I’d love to hear what you all think.

  • Björn Tantau
    21•11 months ago

    I’d say SteamOS is a viable emergency laptop replacement as is. You can already use most office software in desktop mode.

    • @QualOP
      3•11 months ago

      The only problem that I had is that Steam OS doesn’t offer any full disk encryption. But I think I could just solve that with a cryptomator container. Even if an attacker gets access to the deck then they should not be able to decrypt the container.

      • Björn Tantau
        11•11 months ago

        Yeah, trouble with Bazzite at the moment is that you need a keyboard to decrypt it on boot for now. I’m waiting for the ability to enter my passphrase with the touchscreen.

        • @QualOP
          2•11 months ago

          Yeah, that would be a little problematic for something that is necessary on the go. Can you not just use a hardware key to prompt the paraphrase every time you boot ?

          • Björn Tantau
            5•11 months ago

            No idea. But I would even be too lazy to pop in a hardware key. And too paranoid about getting the key stolen along with the Deck.

            • @QualOP
              2•11 months ago

              That later I understand hahahaha. I just keep mine around for unlocking encrypted external hard drive that have been encrypted with a password and the hardware key that is just hidden in a place that only I know about. But then I would need to wait for that or just use Tails OS for the time being.

          • andrewEnglish
            2•10 months ago

            Doesn’t yubikey have an HID mode where it acts like a keyboard and types a static phrase? You could do something like that for boot. Or possibly more complicated. Idk if modern bootloaders support cooler modes where the key resides on the yubikey.

            Edit: according to the arch wiki, there are quite a few potential options there if you have a yubikey. Wiki