also seen mention of another candidate - Nobara

I have not tried that one.

I have been using Bazzite for about 3 months now, it has worked quite well for me on my two desktop systems.

I can not use the SteamOs mode on my Nvidia system, but it still works decently well as a normal desktop running steam.

my AMD desktop system does use the SteamOs look mode.

I was using Holoiso last year, but had numerous issues, so gave up on it. The other similar distros, I recall testing, and not lasting a day with them for various reasons.

So for now Bazzite is my go to.

Side note: just noticed on reddit the /r/Bazzite sub is now banned for being unmoderated.

Not that there was a lot of traffic there anyway, but that is a major issue with Bazzite, it’s a bit fringe, and while a lot of silverblue stuff does apply, it’s still a small community it seems.

tip: don’t install fish or whatever, change your default shell, THEN uninstall fish because you don’t like it.

Change your default shell back first.

I have seen way too many support posts where people paint their self I to a corner doing that.

or just don’t change the default shell.

run fish as needed, then exit back to bash when done.

I have

I am reminded of the ability MANY years ago to write the kernel file directly to a floppy disk, or start of a hard drive and somehow being able to boot that way.

I just can’t recall how I did it, or WHY I did it.

Back when the kernel would fit on a floppy disk. I am truly showing my age.

6 yr old grandson found a box of old floppy disks and was asking what they were. He started stacking them up making card houses and roads for his matchbox cars. Glad he got some use out of those recycled AOL floppies.

I have seen this used in school situations with 3+ seats per PC.

that can add up when dealing with a dozen+ PCs.

For home use, not much a benefit, but I did have it setup years ago for the grandkids.

two little tips:

you can backup your EFI partitions, in case you mess them up. I find it a good idea to back them up in any case, I have had EFI partitions get Filesystem corruption.

also the tool rEFInd can work as an alternative boot menu it has the ability to scan the entire system and show all found Bootable OS at boot time.

So with rEFInd, you install it, set it as the default, and it should show windows automatically.

it looks nicer than systemd-boot and grub as well. And it can even show bootable USB flash drives, and has a few other features.

I have my steam library on a second drive but I am not using the flatpak of steam.

I think it’s possible to have the steam flatpak use a second partition, if you use flatseal to allow the steam flatpak full access.

https://docs.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-docklike-plugin/start

shows the preview feature you mention.

I have seen it with some Dock/panels, but the specific DE/tools you mention is not something I have used.

check the project page for the panel you are using.

make proper backups before you try messing with partitions. Have windows reinstall media made ahead of time, just in case things go badly.

what you want to do is possible, but mistakes happen.