I think the most accessible small form factor Linux box right now is the Steam Deck. You're paying a bit more for game controller hardware if you just want to use it as a workstation, but it is just Linux under the hood and looks to be a pretty neat cyberdeck-like device.
I recently learned however that the SteamOS desktop is built on a read-only image, with the expectation software will be installed via flatpak.
It is apparently possible to turn the read-only protection off to use pacman or your own thing, but anything you do may be wiped out on the next OS update.
Valve even supplies (sorta buggy) Windows drivers for the Steam Deck: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675200/view/3131696... - a major selling point of the Deck is that it's just a handheld PC that happens to come pre-installed with a Linux distro designed for handheld PCs. And AFAIK all of its hardware is supported upstream, so other distros should just work by plugging in a flash drive and booting into them.
Other immutable state distros such as Fedora Silverblue and openSUSE MicroOS Desktop offer a “toolbox” environment that runs as a Flatpak with relaxed restrictions for development tasks. Is something like that an option on SteamOS 3?
