I don't know about the background updates, but the HDMI CEC allows for the device and the TV to sync with each. Think like adjusting the volume on the TV adjusting the volume on the soundbar, or your Steam machine to turn on when you turned on your TV. To my knowledge this required specific hardware normal consumer motherboards don't support.

Not sure how to more than I have. A web search might clear it up?

Yeah that's another one I'm fine with flatpaks depending on the application but in most cases give me my native packages

I use NixOS but I have a few flatpaks. They're not my preferred packaging option (nix is) but they work decently well.

Yeah this is incorrect the OS doesn't require a steam login to work. You can bypass the steam login at boot if you want to and only need it to play steam games.

You click "offline mode" if thats what you want.

Well that's why so many people were keen for the PS3 supporting Linux way back when, but they had to remove it because people such as the US military were using them for cheap computing clusters.

You can either have an open system that lets you do what you want, or a cheap system subsidised by the company selling it, but you can't have both unfortunately.

Not yet. But the K12 supports it. I set it up in the bios already, it's just that Bazzite AFAIK didn't get the kernel patch for it to work, at least on Bazzite 43. I haven't found the time to check if it's already in 44 or in the latest Steam OS version.

But yes, the K12 supports CEC.