when they asked permissions?

Immutable distro debian based with GNOME

Probably the fact that they have many ISOs tailored for each supported hardware configuration, and they point the user to the right ISO with a clear wizard in their download page.

Also basically it is an unbreakable gaming focused OS very close to SteamOS, that you don’t have to maintain, and it comes preconfigured with Steam and the right drivers for your setup. I’m not the target audience, but I see the appeal.