I’ve got the Keychron K7, it has low profile switches and keycaps and works pretty alright. Since I use my Deck as a dev machine and do my general computer stuff on it as well, In almost always bring it with me.

The downside to the K7 I’d say is the battery life. I often have it plugged in when at home and it lasts me when I’m out but the Bluetooth dies quickly on it when I forget to do so.

They have a re-programmable version of it as well and while I don’t have that one to save a bit of cash I’d wager it works a bit nicer.

There’s also different switches available to purchase. I have the keychron browns but hope to upgrade to the Gateron Banana or equivalent one day.

No, Njalla is. They have a history of stealing domains and banning users without explaining why and absolutely refuse to look into why a user got banned in the first place. On top of that generally terrible customer support.

I’ve had the complete opposite experience with 1984.hosting, support has been great and they even support GPG keys to one of their emails if you want to keep your inquires encrypted.

1984.hosting has a freely available to use DNS service for domains. They’re a good company that does what Njalla say they do but without the bullshit of stealing peoples domains.

Search is definitely lacking sadly. Unsure if there’s even solid plans to make it much better either.

I don’t do a lot of message searching so luckily for me, it’s not something that bothers me too much.

Matrix seems like a perfect fit for you then!

While I love Bazzite and have been using it as my primary OS on my only computer which is a Steam Deck, I’m not sure I can agree that a non-tinkerer should go with it. I’d probably follow along the Linux Mint train honestly. It’s an honest project with their heart in the right place and makes usability a breeze and with a wider community than rpm-ostree based Fedora it’s probably gonna be more minor issues and annoyances in the long run.

I’m thinking it’ll probably be way better for sustainability as well. Since I do need the performance I do and the Deck hits that performance within a good margin having to spend €12000 on a laptop with good build quality and good specs just for it to break or have some shit happen to it after the warranty is out feels like shit. So I’m thinking because the setup is semi-modular and each of the part of the setup isn’t super expensive it can still be worth it in the long-ish run. My steam deck break? I buy a new part from ifixit. The monitor breaks? Worst case scenario I can get a new one and possibly an upgrade since this market is new and moving. Keyboard and mouse breaks? Easy to replace that too.

Downside of course being the clunkiness of having to carry around all that and the time spent setting it up rather than just getting the laptop up and fold it up.

Something along the lines of 2K or more with at least good colour accuracy would suffice for me! It’s all I need for the photo editing part. Having plugged it into my 4K TV it went very well. All the UI elements and such displayed perfectly and smoothly for the most part. So 4K on the Steam Deck is most definitely doable! At least if you disregard gaming that is which isn’t the main goal for this project.

Does your steam deck output to 8K when you plug it into the TV? How are UI elements and FPS on that resolution for you? Would be fun to see where the limit would be.

This has been my primary concern with getting this to work as well. If I do decide to go with the portable monitor which I’m leaning more towards now it’ll for sure be a bit more clunky to get out the monitor, plug in the steam deck, pull out a mouse and keyboard and make sure their paired and then get going. Our trains here are very spacious most of the time unless it gets crowded so for the most part that itself wouldn’t be too big of an issue but depends on how much effort I feel needs to go into getting everything setup for my usual 40 minute train ride to get a few write-ups on my assignment done. Realistically I would probably skip the monitor and get the keyboard out and use the touchscreen thinking about it.

That seems to be the gist for most of the portable displays and lapdocks available. I know there’s a few portable displays that can charge the Steam Deck properly but they’re usually far between. I’m slightly put off from getting 1080p since it’s been a very long time since I settled with that resolution and to me just feels slightly too little. Especially when I’m gonna edit photos and browser the web. I’m gonna check around a bit for 4K portable monitors since there doesn’t seem to be any brand ones that are 2K.

Bazzite seems very interesting. Thanks for the link! HDR to me is a bit of a second priority, it sure is nice but it doesn’t make and break anything. Currently trying out Windows on the Deck and seems like HDR seems to be broken for me there. Sadly the option on my TV to fix it seems to be greyed out in the settings.

My desktop experience so far has been great actually. While the CPU itself isn’t as strong as my previous 5900HX the GPU performance is indeed noticeable when running about in some software. It’s a great try-out at least!

And as someone whose been distro-hopping for 10 years and tried loads of different setups it’s been my personal conclusion :)

In the end the browser isn’t everything, it’s also UI of the desktop environment and the file explorer and how some things are handled. That I find more comfortable with Windows, but when I manage my servers I love using Linux and when I need to do web-dev stuff too.

It wouldn’t be for gaming. Mostly running VMs, managing school assignments and general browsing and voice chatting. If I do end up booting up a game I wouldn’t mind utilizing FSR as much as possible.

I don’t intend to do any gaming on an external monitor I think. Even if I do I think I’ll be happy enough with FSR!

You don’t seem to be alone in disliking the build quality of the NexDock. I wish more people had input to the UPerfect devices but their displays seem good. I’ve heard of more “proper” display brands doing some portable displays too that I can look into to get a bit more reliable warranty and such.

Have you found yourself preferring using an external keyboard and mouse with the NexDock? That would probably be the biggest downside to the solution of using the monitor only solution. Having to chuck with me a Bluetooth KB+M.

I’m glad for your input tho, helps a ton!

Actually tried it just now, went out and got a USB-C hub and plugged it into my TV, least to say I’m pleasantly surprised even tho there’s a tad of workarounds to get going. Basically just installed Steam and Valve’s drivers from the steam website and it’s pretty nice. Haven’t tested gaming performance but wouldn’t surprise me if it’s lacking.

Because I find Windows easier to use with some tasks, like Photoshop, lightroom, browsing the web, voice chatting etc. Linux and especially SteamOS I find easier to game on. At the end of the day I’ll still have use for both of them.

I have a NAS at home I can easily back things up to. For limitations on the OS I do intend to install Windows on it on a separate partition to keep things clean when it comes to SteamOS so I don’t think the RO will be much of an issue.

I’m happy to hear about your feedback to it playing 4K video with no issues and that it works lagfree on 4K too. That’s been my main concern if I end up getting a 4K or 2K screen to get my more standard resolutions available that the hardware would potentially have a hard time to catch up if I have a few processor things running at one go like a video stream in the background, editing a document and voice chatting at the same time and then on top running Lightroom to boot. But from what I can gather from user experiences it shouldn’t be too much of an issue!

I want this rumour at my next workplace so that’s kinda making it more worth it lol

For the sake of the monitor it is also gonna be a “primary-ish” way for me to use it at home too so packing it up and down could potentially become a bit of a chore.

I intend to install Windows on a separate partition so there I will most likely keep my school work and then use SteamOS for the gaming side of things. I think a Windows partition will mitigate most of your mentioned OS troubles.

When it comes to SteamOS limiations, I’m most likely going to end up dualbooting with Windows so that won’t be much of an issue! As for printing, I never really print anything since I’m getting an education in IT systems administrations and virtualization so we never really print out our assignments. But good thing to keep in mind!

I don’t sit by cafés too much either but do have a few buildings I go to that are not home or not school, since I prefer to study outside of my apartment I like to bring things with me. For most weeks I’m either at my local community music school for music where there’s space to set up the setup but can be a bit clunky for sure if one compares to a laptop and folds up rather than setting up the screen plugging in the steam deck and then make sure the bluetooth is paired to the mouse and keyboard or if I get one of those Lapdocks I can short the steps a bit but will essentially be the same issue. A bit lower mobility and a bit more work to get running immediately.

My school works mostly contains of setting up VMs and working with Azure/AWS and the Windows partition will definitely help out in that regard.