Just got my 512 GB Machine today. Its hostname is steamdeck and the default Linux user is deck. I would have expected them to at least change the hostname in SteamOS. No wonder all the Deck ready games use a Steam Deck profile if not even Valve bothered to rename the thing.

Wonder if it also sets the steamdeck environment variable.

Surely games don't check the hostname. (Maybe some, but checking the env var is more reasonable)

You can change the hostname in steam bp

I guess some of the games falsely seeing the Machine as a Deck check for Proton.

I don't know what they check but my Bazzite desktop is often detected as a Steam Deck, which is infuriating because they apply all the wrong settings, and will even remove others until you reboot the game with 'steamdeck=0' and it doesn't even give you any indication that it's happening.

SteamOS in seems to have references to the deck all over the place, if I recall correctly from the GN video I watched. It was one of their criticisms. Overall I'm not sure it was really fully baked before shipping.

The Deck also wasn't fully baked when it shipped.
I was hoping their experience with the Deck would have them not repeat the same mistake with the Machine...

Tell me about it, it was very confusing.

Couldn't run baulders gate with my wife on our beelink in the living room due to the same thing. Bazzite big picture mode thought it was a steam deck and bauldera gate 3 disabled multiplayer for the steam deck so you have to disable it in the commands.

Can change it if you want:
Settings > System, and scroll down to 'About', change the name and restart.

Seems like the problem is maybe Steam running with SteamDeck=1?

My Steam Machine became a Deck between restarts to update and apply settings. I’m not taking about the hostname, the OS itself was exposing Deck-exclusive settings and features.

It seems to have found itself now

One might say the Deck still isn't fully baked. I got mine a few months ago, so well after it launched, and there were still some rough edges. For example, I wasn't able to redeem the OLED goodies (startup animation and keyboard theme). Steam Support advised me to switch to the SteamOS beta at the time, which worked. So the release version of SteamOS had a known redemption bug for months, likely to affect a large number of new users? Sure it's a small thing, but exactly what I mean by not fully baked.

I have some other nitpicks with it but overall I'll admit it works quite well.