Gotcha. Now I understand a bit more about the way input is locked down, it looks like I would need OpenSD to allow for more sophisticated controller input without using Steam.

Thanks for the reply, this is really helpful!

If you don’t, the Steam Deck will essentially behave as a Xbox 360 controller.

I see, this makes sense and I guess the “Xbox 360” experience will depend on whether the games themselves have native support for controllers or a very flexible input scheme.

the touchpads will not behave correctly

This is interesting, do you know what would be the difference between using the touchpads on other distros vs through SteamOS? Are they not just seen as a regular mouse input device by both OSs?