rwfus VS Qbert

You can use https://github.com/ValShaped/rwfus

Reason is, that valves os is based on arch linux, but they locked all the system partitions down to read only. You can unlock them or use tools to lay a fake redirect layer over them (see: https://github.com/ValShaped/rwfus), but thats advanced users stuff.

I use this with regular steamos works between channel switches on 3.5 https://github.com/ValShaped/rwfus

I'm using rwfus

I'm using rwfus to create an overlayfs over the rootfs so that packages and other changes persist across updates

I also might want to install a few other basic tools going forward, so rwfus was a great choice.

I'd recommend qbert rather than disabling the read-only filesystem. It survives updates and you can just turn it off if you want to.

But if you do, qbert will make it behave like a normal arch Linux so you can follow the tutorials on the internet.

This was recommended to me: https://github.com/XargonWan/Qbert

Also, I would advise you use Qbert or Junest to install it, instead of making the filesystem writable, because a SteamOS update will wipe all that data

To do that, you will either need to unlock the read-only part or use qbert to get the same effect in a way that can't break stuff.

for pacman on deck you can use qbert, which will let you leave the system read-only and lets you keep your files between updates. You can even put it into .bashrc so it runs automatically on boot.