You may have heard that the Steam Deck uses Arch Linux.
This is technically true.
Valve’s SteamOS is based on Arch Linux.
Here are some ways SteamOS is different from its parent distribution.
To add or remove packages, you need a package manager.
That’s where Pacman comes in.
Pacman is thecommand line-based package manager that comes with Arch Linux.
On SteamOS, your desktop comes all set up and ready to go.
SteamOS doesn’t allow software changes in this way.
If you turn off read-only mode, the situation changes somewhat.
On SteamOS, the AUR isn’t available out of the box.
On the Linux front,Fedora Silverblue is the most well-known image-based distro.
When it’s time for updates, the entire system image gets replaced.
Arch Linux makes very few decisions for you.
You get to choose your own desktop environments.
you’re free to pick your own display server, audio server, file system, and more.
Your PC is what you make it, not what someone else decided.
SteamOS isn’t that.
Yes, it’s technically Arch.
But at the same time, it isn’t Arch.
You could argue that it’s more restrictive than Ubuntu, Fedora, or any other typical Linux system.
You Don’t Have Access to Snaps
SteamOS utilizes Flatpak as its primary app distribution format.
But Flatpak is only one of the universal package formats available for Linux.
If you come from an Ubuntu background, you may be familiar with Canonical’s Snap format instead.
Some apps are only available for Linux as snaps.
So for all but the most dedicated of people, snaps are not an option.
Is this a big deal?
That really depends on the software you wish to run.
Many popular programs are available in the Flatpak format.
The broader open-source community has generally rallied around Flatpak over Snap.
