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I'd highly recommend Talos for this if you haven't already decided. It's entirely API driven and immutable. It can be bootstrapped from PXE and truly feels like a local cloud environment.

Not quite a tablet but if you'd consider a convertible, the Framework 12 is a solid choice.

If you're looking for outgoing requests, check out OpenSnitch. It should do exactly what you're looking for.

Upgrade it to 9.0

Is... Is that a garbage bag vest?

Steam is natively installed and works perfectly. You can install other packages, but it effectively adds another layer which slows down updates a bit.

Preface: I don't have any experience with Garuda or Nobara but I have used Bazzite.

Not to make the choice harder, but Bazzite does come with Plasma 6. You can have it boot to the SteamOS UI or to the Plasma Desktop.

Bazzite is a great choice for stability but you need to be aware it doesn't operate like a traditional Linux distribution since it's based on ostree and is immutable. Package installations are primarily done through Flatpak, AppImage or exported via Distrobox.

You might have some luck with Bubblejail or Firejail. Alternatively, you might want to give one of the Universal Blue images a try. They're Fedora based but immutable. Almost all installations are purposely done in a container using flatpak or distrobox.

For me it was

— I’d seen weirder things in Perl scripts —

Just perfect. No notes.

And you can tie in AI ✨! So you can make an LLM categorize the stuff that you'll never look at again.