I used to try Linux once a year for the last 20~ years, I'm 40. 2 years ago I made the switch fully when Proton made gaming easy enough.

I don't have any use for a handheld but I use Linux on the desktop for a few years now, since I did not want to switch from W7 to W10 or god forbid W11 (especially after dabbling with the W10 upgrade nuked itself along with my C: partition and all its data). If you don't play competitive multiplayer stuff and have a half decent technical understanding of things under Windows then it's a fairly easy switch. Not saying there are no caveats or bumps but those also exist with Windows, to a point where it became a bigger hassle for me than Linux.

The nice thing about the Deck for me is that I barely even have to look up things on ProtonDB anymore because most things just run out of the box or with little tweaking, and already have the Deck playable image on the Steam store page. It also kinda pushed the OS past OSX now and the handheld formfactor makes it a bit unique to the point where developers just get interested in it. And if they support the Deck, they'll basically also support my desktop by proxy. Win win.

I can say that I was a little dubious about how much I'd use it. I also left portable gaming many years ago. I now have a nice, beefy desktop with a nice 240Hz monitor with good sRGB coverage, and I have a Steam Controller. Why would I want something smaller and weaker?

While it's still obviously weaker from a hardware standpoint, it's nevertheless very capable, and the fact that I don't have to abscond to my computer just to play games and can instead play them on the couch or in bed, the fact that I can put the Deck into sleep mode at a moment's notice, the fact that I can take it on a plane or to another city and still play things from my library, the fact that it's a regular computer underneath and can do anything a Linux-based computer can do—these are all aspects that made me glad I bought it.

I sometimes get buyers remorse, even if just from spending a lot of money on something I really wanted, but I haven't once experienced that with the Deck.