According to YouTuber Dave2D who managed to get their hands on the Lenovo Legion Go S, the SteamOS version destroys Windows in performance and battery life.
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.
Tempted to get Steam OS on my laptop, gotten really used to it on my Steam Deck
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.
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.