Approachability. Valve is a recognizable name and the Steam Deck is notoriously usable in the sea of Linux uncertainty.

Before you say “Linux is totally usable, just look at ” the first question people are prompted with is “What distribution do you want to install?” and there is no singular place that says “this is what you want for this specific use case.”

Valve is not the first name in Linux gaming, but they are a known and trusted name. It’s not just about brand recognition but about trusting a name to guide you through something brand new and extremely daunting. For the vast majority of PC gamers, SteamOS offers a guided introduction to something that previously was stereotyped as complex and difficult to learn.

Is it the best distro? Probably not, but then again it’s extremely easy to migrate from SteamOS to something else when someone discovers they want something else. Until they understand enough about Linux to find that they want something else, SteamOS is currently one of the best ways to get them there