sigh wish I didn't have to spell it out for all the idiots... but here you go.

the command to check what lane width the SSD is operating at is lspci -vv. This has to be run as root or using sudo because otherwise lspci won't have the necessary permissions to read and output the Link State (linkSta) attribute showing the active lane width.

Given that Valve has disabled root, and I do not want to enable it which will potentially compromise security of my Steam Deck, this means you'd have to use sudo. In order to use sudo, you need to set an account password and this has shown to cause compatibility issues with Steam Deck OS operations until the OS is reset.

So fuck off, use your Steam Deck how you like, and stop presuming to tell others how they should or should not use their own.