When comparing SteamOS vs Funtoo, the Slant community recommends Funtoo for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux distributions for desktops?” Funtoo is ranked 32nd while SteamOS is ranked 79th. The most important reason people chose Funtoo is:
The profile system improves portage's usability without losing the soul of Gentoo.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Native graphics processor support
The OS natively supports Nvidia, Intel, and AMD graphics processors.
Pro Streaming service integration (under development)
Valve is in talks with streaming companies such as Spotify and Netflix to bring their features to SteamOS.
Pro For entertainment, it just works
What media center software do for videos, it does for games (and later videos).
Pro Like Gentoo but more streamlined
The profile system improves portage's usability without losing the soul of Gentoo.
Pro Use flags that are suitable for a task or environment are grouped into Profiles
It allows selecting, for example, gnome or desktop profile with most of the sane use flags enabled inside the profile.
Pro Portage tree split into kits
This allows more fine-grained control over package updates, and packages can be now tied together inside the kit to minimize dependency breakage while upgrading.
Pro `boot-update` to take care of bootloader configuration
A tool to update your grub config.
Pro Funtoo Linux offers a variety of stage3 builds
Customized to a variety of CPU microarchitecture variants from AMD, ARM, and Intel.
Pro Stage3 sources are built using the Funtoo Linux tool 'metro'
It's a sophisticated replacement for Gentoo's build tool 'catalyst'.
Pro Uses GIt instead of Rsync
THis makes updates so much faster!
Pro Stage3 archive coming with pre-compiled kernel based on Debian's kernel
Pro Simpler template-based network configuration
Cons
Con Hard to install
If you've installed Arch you're probably fine, but for those used to simple installs like (Ubuntu to name just one) you should prepare some patience, determination, and painkillers. Good news is, it's getting better (it's very young).
Con Not built around the desktop experience
SteamOS is, first and foremost, meant to act as a gaming console - it doesn't ship with even some of the most basic applications, such as a file manager or image viewer. As a result, using SteamOS as your primary operating system would require a fair bit of work.