When I got my SteamDeck, I thought I was going to do a lot more tinkering than I did gaming. I planned on getting NixOS working on it. I ended up just playing games and having fun just using the stock install.

I'm tempted to get one, but it's going to be sitting on a shelf, along with my Oculus Quest. Gaming is a thing that sounds nice in principle, but I rarely can get into it in practice.

i was in the same boat - i wanted to enjoy games again, especially indie games, but i was mostly just buying them during steam sales and then never playing them. i bought the steam deck in order to see if it would be a more fun gaming experience than my laptop, and if not at least i'd have a fun linux device to tinker with. but it absolutely did get me back into playing (maybe an hour or so a day) and i've been enjoying it a lot.

Hmm, that's very interesting. I'm exactly the same as you, I really like indie games but it's always "meh, I'd rather do something else". Maybe I'll borrow a friend's Deck for a weekend to try it, thanks!