I know people have gotten it to run on Steam Decks in the past. Here’s a guide for running it on Linux in general, though I would assume it also applies to the Steam Deck.
Also, controller support is not a thing in Freelancer, so you have to play with KB&M
Though you might be better off asking in the discord server: https://discord.gg/FdSkbZ8
There’s a list of most active factions on their discord: https://discord.gg/FdSkbZ8
Here’s a pop chart:
You have to pay a 20$ fee do get access to dev mode and reboot the console to switch between the two. So it’s mostly just the convenience factor of having your emulators in the same menus as your regular games
Really hoping Snapdragon Oryon can be the same boon for Windows/Linux that Apple’s M CPUs were for Mac