I use it as a general purpose computer. I set up an encrypted home partition by more or less following this guide: https://github.com/hirak99/steam_deck_encryption. I have a bag that nicely fits the deck, charging cable, dock, and a 60% keyboard for travel.
I just picked up a 144hz USB-C 16" monitor with a magnetic cover like a tablet. Paired it with a mini tripod and designed/printed a magnetic bracket so the monitor just snaps on. Slides right into my tiny 13L pack (barely).
Can I sign up outsidee Ukraine (legally, too)? Like its only extra latency. I cant go to space but I can blow up Russian armor a gazillion miles away so thats something
It essentially is a replacement for a mouse, I set FreeCAD to use Blender input settings since I'm used to those. It's one without a screen, just a USB that I use with a kickstand hub on my Deck. I picked it because it was cheaper then a screen style drawing tablet and it would help most with Blender for modeling organic sculpture. It was a simple plug-and-play, although the software to enable some extra features was available for Linux and was a snap to add. I experimented using it with FreeCAD and it's pretty similar to using a mouse, so I don't need both inputs taking up table space.
Though I have yet to get a Deck for myself, I'd probably use it a lot to read comics. Having used the Vita a lot for that, being able to control the comics with a physical controller was fantastic, and the far greater processing power of the Deck should also avoid pages taking a long while to load (loading Humble Bundle's ebooks in measly 512 MB of RAM is an experience).
I use mine to run VJ software and do light shows at music events.
Since the deck is a powerful computer, and the form factor is quite compact, I find it better than laptops for the task.
The Deck is plugged into a hub with a monitor, m+kb, and a focusrite Scarlett solo, and Reaper is the DAW I use.
It's pretty much just plug and play, I may have had to finnick with the software to get the focusrite going right away but it wasn't much time at all, if any. Other than that, recording and editing as normal!
Used mine as my main PC for half a year, doing everything from gaming (duh) to embedded development. Used RWFUS to install packages not available on flathub, but have recently started experimenting with the NIX package manager (I'm still running write-protected SteamOS).
My sister uses hers as a test and development machine for linux and Android applications.
Thought about using my SD in my model aircraft hobby, but never got around to that. Maybe I'll use it when playing around with my car with the OBD2 adapter, since i can easily connect to it from my current main rig.
Closest I've come is accessing the browser on desktop mode to transfer files (pretty much just games or files for games) and soon I hope to add custom boot videos. Otherwise, it's just a game player/emulator player for me.
Random question, but does anyone know a way to make it so only custom boot videos play when you select random or have we not gotten that far yet?
Can you elaborate in which use case bazzite is better on deck than stock steamOS? Whats the difference in terms of battery life? What are the tradeoffs?
Personally don't have a deck.. yet. I run Bazzite as my OS on my PC though. However, I read and see a lot of people running Bazzite on decks on forums and discord. This is also where i'd recommend going for answers such as you asked for. If I had to guess there isn't much difference when it comes to battery life - they're both running the same kernel. The reason you would want to switch, as shown on their website is to unlock the ability to run flatpak on your deck.
I used it to watch anime for a month when I was away from my computer haha. It really made me want an oled monitor for my PC, but I realized they are quite expensive. I need to use my deck more in general to be honest.