Absolutely, I'm not blaming any Wayland implementation about this, just giving my current situation as an example.
I do so because I imagine it's a popular setup (according to https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-vs-nvidia-which-more-popular-linux based on ProtonDB data, more than 60% Linux gamers had an NVIDIA GPU) and thus might prevent adoption.
I hope NVIDIA will fix that. Maybe a push from Valve would help.
Also this is a good way to re-consider integration back, e.g. generating .desktop files for /.local/share/applications/ when using KDE rather than having to manually do it each time.
Hmmm very interesting thanks for the links and explanation!
I'm not "ready" for it yet so I've bookmarked all that (by adding a file in ~/Apps ;) but that's definitely and interesting, and arguably neater solution.
Honestly I try to stick to the distribution package manager as much as I can (apt on Debian stable) but sometimes it's impossible. Getting binaries myself feels a bit "wrong" but usually works. Some, like yt-dlp as I see in your list, do have their own update mechanisms. Interesting to consider stepping back and consider the trade off. Anyway now thanks to you I know there are solutions for a middle ground!
Ironically enough just 2 days ago I posted this https://lemmy.ml/post/20691536/13906950 namely how the 1st thing I do after installing NVIDIA drivers on Debian is disabling Wayland to rely on X11 simply because it doesn't work.
Sadly that's relevant here precisely because if we are talking about Valve it's about gaming, if it's about gaming one simply can't ignore the state of NVIDIA drivers.
So... it might run on 50% on Linux desktops but on mine, which I also game on, it never worked once I had drivers for gaming installed. Consequently I understand "how people are complaining" because that's exactly my experience.
No "if", no "would", we are millions of gamers using our (portable) PC with SteamOS running on it for few years now already.
As others have pointed out already, the SteamDeck is exactly that. I even travel with it, use desktop mode with my BT mouse&keyboard with a USB-to-HDMI adapter and work on large screen and do my presentations with video projectors.
If they were to sell a desktop too... well I have a Corsair ONE already, naming a gaming desktop (2080Ti) with a very small footprint and relatively silent. It is not easily upgradable due to how compact it is (but can be done) so if I were to have an equivalent of it from Steam and they were to keep on contributing to FLOSS it would probably be an even easier buy because I trust their RMA and I imagine I wouldn't pay a "Windows tax" with it as it would "only" come with SteamOS.
TL;DR: I'd prepare my credit card.
FWIW I installed Debian few times this weekend, both Sid and Bookworm, with a 2080Ti and iirc following the official documentation, e.g https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers#Debian_12_.22Bookworm.22 was enough, nothing exotic needed namely :
contrib and non-free, updating, install driversAnother "trick" I use is having an ~/Apps directory in which I have AppImage, binaries, etc that I can bring from an old /home to a new one. It's not ideal, bypassing the package manager, and makes quite a few assumption, first architecture, but in practice, it works.
I did more than 5 installs this weekend (for ... reasons) and the "trick" IMHO is ...
Do NOT install things ahead of actually needing them. (of course this assume things take minutes to install and thus you will have connectivity)
For me it meant Firefox was top of the list, VLC or Steam (thus NVIDIA driver) second, vim as I had to edit crontab, etc.
Quite a few are important to me but NOT urgent, e.g Cura (for 3D printer) and OpenSCAD (for parametric design) or Blender. So I didn't event install them yet.
So IMHO as other suggested docker/docker-compose but only for backend.
Now... if you really want a reproducible desktop install : NixOS. You declare your setup rather than apt install -y and "hope" it will work out. Honestly I was tempted but as install a fresh Debian takes me 1h and I do it maybe once a year, at most, no need for me (yet).
It's... Debian?
Ubuntu is based on Debian which doesn't have snap by default AFAICT from bookworm/unstable. In fact it's precisely why I switched back recently. Going from Debian to Ubuntu and now Debian again due to excessive bloatware and "worst" ways to deliver it IMHO.
Just ran a VR game for Windows just this morning, worked like a charm, didn't tinker one minute (using Proton and SteamVR, Valve with NVIDIA, just for context).
Then you also read things like https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2024/08/21/linux-scores-a-surprising-gaming-victory-against-windows-11/ on non technical websites... and can't help but wonder if it "will" be easier or... if it's already done.
plain old Konsole
Come on now, it's pretty active! Cf https://invent.kde.org/utilities/konsole/-/commits/master/?ref_type=HEADS 13hrs ago, a new feature weeks ago and https://konsole.kde.org/changelog.html
Great, can you clarify your setup then? I might be able to learn from it.