Source is this video:
Windows Was The Problem All Along - Dave2D
We could obviously compare performance between windows and steamOS before on the steam deck, or between windows and Bazzite on other handhelds. But this is the first time we have had official windows and SteamOS builds for the same hardware.
What is “optimized Windows”? Windows is Windows. There’s no gaming-focused version.
There’s no such thing, to my knowledge.
What is a “base distro”?
Removing / disabling useless services, tweaking registry…
SteamOS sure looks like one. Gaming focused if you prefer. I’ve seen a couple on Linux, though I don’t remember their name rn.
Something like Ubuntu or Mint, which would be more comparable to a desktop experience like windows, ready for productivity
That’s the opposite of comparable since none of that was done on Steam OS.
“Gaming Focused” distros aren’t anything special outside of having some pre-installed software.
SteamOS has all of those same productivity tools but I’m not sure how that’s relevant to performance.