Especially since one of the best features is basically unmentioned. Turn on your steam deck and before you sign in for the first time, you can boot straight to the desktop. Just wish there was a toggle in Plasma to boot to desktop by default.
For all intents and purposes, you don’t need to log into steam to play games on the steam deck which is honestly shocking where most new hardware basically requires you to agree to sign in to begin using your device.
Looking at you Windows 11
For anyone wondering how to do this - on the first setup screen asking you to pick a language after you turn the laptop on, hit Shift + F10, which will bring up the console. Click on it and type:
oobe/bypassnro
This will restart the computer, and setup will appear unchanged. When you get to the step asking you to connect to a network, select “I don’t have Internet.” This will prompt the creation of a local account. Enjoy your Microsoft account free computer!
If you’ve already connected to the Internet but haven’t created the account, open the console and type:
ipconfig /release
Which will force the computer to disconnect from the internet. From there you can use the oobe command from before to reset and set up without a Microsoft account.