this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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Steam Deck
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Desktop mode on the Steam Deck is using KDE Plasma. You can use that on the vast majority of Linux distros.
Here is a few the spring to mind:
I had seen Bazzite, and yes it does sound exactly like what I asked, but then on their website, every single feature/selling point is about games or performance. I don't see one word about general usability, or applications, support, or anything, and I'm not sure who builds a PC used solely for gaming.
I'm an artist and designer, and play around with Blender and 3D modeling stuff. Adobe support, and GPU Blender support would be fantastic.
Jokes aside, Adobe refuses to play nice with Linux. It likely won’t matter which distro you choose, because Adobe refuses to release a native Linux version. You can use Wine as a workaround, at least.
Software support is basically identical across any Linux distro. It's not really a concern when choosing a distro to use. Of course some are easier to install stuff on than others.
Then get Kinoite, it's like Bazzite minus the gaming presets.
While Bazzite is gaming focused, it will still be a great non-gaming distro. The main things gaming distros do is include some optimizations, prioritize faster software updates, bundle in some programs like Steam, and usually try to be more new user friendly. There's also Fedora Silverblue, which is like the parent of Bazzite. It's more developer focused though, and may not be as new user friendly as Bazzite.
But as others have said, your biggest request is having the same desktop environment as SteamOS, which is the KDE desktop. This is available on nearly every Linux distro, so you can get that experience with any of them. KDE even has it's own official distro in the form of KDE Neon, which could honestly be a good choice for you if that's your main requirement. It's based on Ubuntu, which makes it easy to find help if you have an issue.
The biggest thing left to understand is that SteamOS and Bazzite are immutable distros, which means the system files are locked down. This makes those systems hard to break, and very reliable. However it can make installing some kinds of software harder. More tradition desktops like KDE Neon/Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora(non-silverblue) are not immutable. They will give your more options for installing software/etc, but there's a higher chance of breaking something if you start messing with system files.
If immutable sounds good, I'd recommend going with Bazzite still. If you want more freedom to customize your system and install software from outside of the discover store, I'd recommend KDE Neon.
The same folks who made Bazzite also have Aurora and Bluefin. Those are general purpose distros with the same ideas as Bazzite, just less gaming stuff bundled in. The difference between the two is just the desktop environment (gnome for bluefin, kde for aurora).
But even though Bazzite is focused on gaming, it is still a pretty good distro for general use too. The same stuff that enables windows games to run on it also help run any windows program just as well, so it might be a good pick if you use any software that only runs on windows.
Ah, so Adobe?? Say Adobe and I'm there.
Not Adobe. Only extremely old, no longer for sale versions of Adobe products can run on Linux.
There are better--- by which I mean worse but free--- alternatives that you should replace them with if you want to abandon Windows.
The distro's marketing is gaming focused but the truth is there is not anything bad about their overall desktop experience. There is no difference between distros for blender and adobe support.
I am trying to dance around Linux distro concepts that are probably not super beginner friendly, so my descriptions might have been obtuse, but yes you can generally do anything on any distro.
Bazzite is a immutable distro, which gives you certian advantages, but makes it harder to accommodate some use cases. In general, if the software you want is on https://flathub.org/ you are golden.
By Adobe, I mean Photoshop, Illustrator, Substance, etc, which on Windows need to be installed with the Adobe Cloud app. Flathub only seems to have Acrobat.
Unless your boss tells you that you NEED to use Adobe, get rid of them and use open source software.
I don’t believe those products have native Linux versions. You would need to run them from a compatibility layer. To be honest nothing on my desktop has needed that so not too familiar with the best way to do that.
Apologies, I don't understand. Is any modern Linux distro lacking "general usability" or applications? Anyway, for Bazzite, there's a bunch of ways to install software. (Though I haven't used it myself.) I'm also not sure what you're looking for when you're saying "support". Good documentation? A helpful community? Continued active development?
Just because there's a strong focus on gaming doesn't mean the distro would suddenly do bad at everything else, especially.. general home/office use. Linux is good with that across the board. I hope I didn't misunderstand. Please explain.
By support, I meant software installability.