I kept breaking my fedora install so I went to bazzite that month lol
Aurora sitting down there at the bottom of the desktop OSs. I’d love to some of the Bazzite users migrate to Bluefin or Aurora.
If you’re not aware, switching between different Universal Blue OSs is super easy, with one caveat. Switching from a GNOME OS to a KDE OS or vice versa is problematic.
Switching from a GNOME OS to a KDE OS or vice versa is problematic.
I did that a few times already on different installs and never had any problems, besides the window decorations/ theming being off and needing to set them again. What issues could be expected?
On atomic systems like Bazzite and the universal blues, getting rid of the old files from the previous DE can be a huge hassle. On normal systems it’s a lot easier
The dotfiles between GNOME and KDE are the same, the base image doesn’t matter, if you try to switch DE’s on old distros you have the same problem.
Right. But cleaning up the old files left over from swapping your DE is much easier if you actually have read and write access to those files. When you swap DEs, it’s gonna leave shit behind whether you’re atomic or not. But atomic systems have more barriers to cleaning them up, to prevent the user from accidentally cleaning the wrong things.
All of the affected files are in the user’s home directory, not on the system.
This just isn’t true. There are tons of dependencies that are going to get left all over the place
It’s an image, there’s no such thing as “left all over the place”. Source: I’m one of the maintainers.
I’d love to some of the Bazzite users migrate to Bluefin or Aurora.
Why?
To spread the love, basically.
Bluefin comaintainer here. The metrics are flathub and app developer donations, not the base image. You spread the love when you install a flatpak or buy a linux game and make those numbers go up.
The idea that the base OS is important isn’t a thing, the only way to fix the economics of the linux desktop is to focus on applications, not distros.
Installed this on my Legion Go recently, it’s amazing.
They should use this technology we used purely for uh… "Linux ISOs’ back is the day.
BitTorrent.
I‘m one of them. I already only used Windows for gaming and seeing where this OS is going, made me try Linux again and this time might be the first time I might stick with it, thanks to Bazzite.
Games run incredibly well and compatibility is surprisingly good at this point. The only exception are games with invasive anti-cheat like the new Battlefield. But I guess it’s just a pro that I won’t buy a game that essentially has malware included with it.
Meh, flavor of the month.
What’s the appeal of Bazzite over regular Fedora immutable version? I’ve personally never had an issue running Steam on Fedora, then again I wouldn’t consider myself a “gamer,” certainly not my biggest requirement as far as computing is concerned.
Plasma/KDE as a first class citizen.
KDE is second-class to GNOME on Fedora.
KDE is second-class to GNOME on Fedora.
It is? I ask because I’ve always used Fedora KDE and honesty it’s been the best KDE experience I’ve had. Now I’m curious how much better the Fedora GNOME experience might be if it’s prioritized so much more, but I’ve never seriously used GNOME so I don’t think I can make a fair assessment. In what ways is KDE deprioritized?
they have nice scripts and tweaks, and afaik steam as a flatpak runs a bit weird so youd have to layer it whereas it comes prebaked on bazzite.
I’ve been using Pop OS and it’s been pretty good but I’m not super tied to it, would Bazzite be better at all?
If you want a console like experience on your PC then use bazzite. If you want the same experience but with out the console lock down use cachyOS.
Depends on how much you do with your PC really. Like bazzite has one of the best out-of-box experiences there is. Basically everything is preset up. But if you need to say, leave the steam ecosystem. Things become infinitely more complicated than any other distro to do anything with that is both the benefit in downfall of an immutable distro. It makes sure you can’t f*** anything up but it also means you can’t f*** anything up if you get what I mean.
While cachyOS has the exact same out-of-box experience with the sole exception of you have to push one button and type in your password. And if you do need to leave the steam ecosystem, it’s at the end of the day a normal distribution so you can just do whatever you want.
The downside is you can do whatever you want so you can break s***.
Basically comes down to bazzite is basically old Windows. You are not allowed to do anything really without a lot of jumping through hoops. It means you’re going to get a consistent experience and it’s going to be reliable, but only within the operating parameters set out by the distribution.
While cachyOS is basically all of the same upsides but without any of the guardrails. So if you want just a good out of box experience it’s there. All the compatibility is the same if not generally better in the real world. But again, if you’re stupid or unable to read basic instructions there’s a good chance that you break something and you’ll have no idea how to fix it. Short of a reinstall.
I would give a child bazzite 100% of the time. Immutable this shows work is a fantastic form of parental control. Because while the barrier exists and will prevent most kids from doing something stupid with their computer, it’s not insurmountable and you still can do whatever you want with your computer. It’s just not easy.
But in either case, I would choose literally shooting myself in the foot before using anything in the debian or Ubuntu family if my primary goal is gaming. I love Debian but it in its family of distros are so out of date and require so much f****** to actually bring in newer packages and make sure that they actually compete even half as well as a fedora or arch-based option that it’s not worth the hassle. You’re far more prone to breaking a Debian mint popos install. Trying to make it equivalent to bazzite or cachy for gaming. Than you are breaking an arch install by just randomly installing packages from the aur without reading anything.
Why do people use PopOS? I genuinely don’t get it.
Cosmic is subjectively the best DE out there. Popos 24 is scheduled for release in a week, it’s awesome.
It’s a Ubuntu fork so it’s easy to follow Ubuntu based guides. Starting with 24 they’re going to stay much more in sync with Ubuntu LTS.
Besides that, modern kernel, out of the box nvidia and disk encryption. Oh and pop is maintained by system76 that ships actual hardware (laptops and desktops) so it’s in their own best interest to have good modern hardware support. It’s a fantastic distro
Why don’t you recommend it?
I don’t even know what it does.
If it’s doing what you need it to do, no reason to rock that boat! It is fun to try out other distros without distro hopping, just to see what’s out there. That’s what a good thumb drive is for!
True and fair enough! I suppose it’s working well enough as is
Bazzite is good for gaming, do you game?
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I am looking forward to GNU+Linux usage share numbers a year from now. I think it is very likely to pass 5%.
I wish people stopped recommending Mint to Windows users
Fedora Kinoite is, probably, the best recommendation.
I’m perfectly fine with Mint as a recommendation. It’s not what I would choose, but it does work for a large portion of people without issues.
I am very glad that I hardly ever see Manjaro recommended to new comers anymore though - that’s a curse/trap. There are so much better “Arch but easier” distros now that are rock solid.
mint aint that bad
besides all its desktops not supporting Wayland (ig X11 is better for beginners??)Not really. Beginners don’t know the difference.
Why? me and SO have been on mint only for a year now and love it.
Couple other pcs have popos which is OK but a bit buggy for me
Because of outdated packages and UI, same for Pop OS, at least before Cosmic
Possibly for this reason, Mint is a great choice for “keep my PC going so I can get to the google and the email and the facebook without having to buy another $1000 machine.” Mint is my go-to to keep a Pre-TPM computer on the road.
I recently got a mini PC for couch gaming / HTPC functionality, and I installed Mint without ever booting Windows. I’ve been using Mint for a while after years of distro hopping, but I’m having issues with Bluetooth XBox controllers randomly disconnecting. Maybe this is the excuse I’ve been looking for to try Bazzite, although I might just need to get a USB dongle with a chipset known to work on Linux. What I’m really waiting for is an immutable distro with Plasma Bigscreen.
I also have Bluetooth issues on mint but I just ignore it ha. Its annoying though
Yes, but Plasma BigScreen is far from moving fast
Why though? I don’t like it personally but it’s my #1 recommendation usually. (can’t recommend slackware to noobs)
If they have issues they’re gonna ask me for tech support, and I don’t know how to use immutable distros (lol)
As someone who has gone from windows to mint, what is wrong with it? So far I have 0 issues and can run all the games I want. What am I missing out on?
Absolutely nothing. If you’re vibin’ with Mint, 3 Huzzahs for you! If you get curious to try something else later, that’s great too!
It’s not the distro you use that matters in the story of Life, it’s the fact you use Linux that matters.
It’s very stable, but outdated imo, especially its default desktop environnement. Kinda makes linux look like a weird old windows clone, while other desktops can be very modern and way prettier than Windows
That’s fair, it’s not exactly popping off the screen on looks. It was the underlying functionality and ease of use that sold it to me. Tried KDE plasma which was prettier but just changing sound output was so complicated. I have 2 speakers but it listed 8-10 different outputs I’m sure I technically do somehow but I just want a drop-down
I don’t know. I use KDE on Debian on my desktop, but I have set up Linux Mint Cinnamon on family laptop and it runs and looks fine.
I like bazzite-kde because it’s similar to windows. Gnome bothered me.
Booting Gnome for the first time is such a baffling experience. Then you discover extensions and it feels pretty good.
I don’t like that I’m beholden to extensions that may break after an update to get what I want out of it, but I still use it on my laptop cause it’s the best touchscreen experience I’ve had (after tweaks)
Why is Mint wasting their spot as the recommendation for Windows users? Is it simply no longer developed or are the devs set in their ways of the UI having to look like Windows7?
Also it’s getting confusing with Zorin and Bazzite and even Aurora which is a Bazzite desktop spinoff as a recommendation.
I love cinnamon, now you kids get off my lawn
My Cheap, Cheerful, Chinese mini desktop is running the Fedora Cinnamon spin. Works great! And Cinnamon is the best Gnome experience in existence anymore.
Cinnamon is the second of five attempts to defuckulate Gnome that I’m aware of, and my personal favorite.
I love apt more than I love cinnamon, now scram!
I spent years running Ubuntu. I’ve typed ‘sudo apt-get install’ so many times I got carpel fingernail from doing it. ‘sudo dnf install’ is less typing and could have saved my fingernails. Now I use Kinonite and have all updates set to automatic and I very seldom even need to do anything at all.
Yes, I’m old, lazy, and can’t be bothered anymore. Why do you ask? ;)
It suffers from the same problem all Debian/Ubuntu family distros suffer from.
Being horribly out of date. It’s a very slow moving family of distros. Which can be a good thing if your work load doesn’t involve new hardware and software along with a focus on stability and reliability. Since if things don’t update they can’t break.
This can result in support for hardware and software being upwards of two to three YEARS out of date. Which for gamers for example is unacceptable and causes issues more often then not.
It’s the why fedora or arch based distros are generally speaking the better option to suggest to people. Depending on their level of intelligence, education and willingness to learn.
Bazzite and cachyOS for example are both fantastic for gamers.
Fedora or endeavour for your run of the mill office PC.
There is a serious argument to be made that the mass adoption of bazzite and the general flavor of the month affection for immutable distros is very likely going to cause issues for loads of users down the road.
So bazzite being overly popular is somewhat concerning. Flavor of the month distros have a bad tendency to implode randomly.
So bazzite being overly popular is somewhat concerning. Flavor of the month distros have a bad tendency to implode randomly.
If it implodes you can just rebase to kinoite with a single command without needing to backup anything
This can result in support for hardware and software being upwards of two to three YEARS out of date. Which for gamers for example is unacceptable and causes issues more often then not.
I think your perspective might be a bit biased towards your own bubble here. People are still buying Nintendo Switch’s. People are still buying Steam Decks.
I am getting close to 600 games in my Steam Library, but only 2 were released this year. Both were Indie games (Fragrance Point and Tower Wizard).
Ram is costing hundreds of dollars. GPU’s are costing thousands. Desktop gaming, heck desktop ownership in general, has been falling off. If people are still on x86, they are more likely to be on laptops.
For the average person, the idea that you need your OS to be updated every couple of weeks so that you can check your email and play Minecraft with your kids is insane.
I feel like this might come down to more people building their own towers vs buying them outright, whereas those who wouldn’t be inclined to build their own PC are instead defaulting to laptops.
I’d be curious what it looked like during Covid, because a lot of non-PC gamers I knew all of a sudden were interested in building their own rigs.
Packages on Ubuntu was why I had to move. I had issues daily and each time I looked it was actually fixed but not available in the distro. It was especially amnoying for development where I had to manually compile newer versions. Snap being forced while being outdated as well was also part of it.
A big barrier to Linux adoption is lack of software, and immutable distros locking you out of the traditional package managers like APT or DNF or Pacman and limiting you to what is provided on Flatpak, I think might trip some folks.
There’s nothing wrong with Mint, it’s solid. If it works for you don’t stress about it
The only thing is that it’s based on Ubuntu LTS so it’s packages can be a bit old. Doesn’t really matter much unless you have very new hardware and need the hardware support. Then something Fedora based like Bazzite would be better.
For getting newer software you can use flatpak/Flathub.
Bazzite is also “immutable” which makes it harder to break on a system level, but also harder to tinker on a system level. Mint is a “normal” distribution in that regard. Mint does have Timeshift for taking system level snapshots, on the off chance that an update or your tinkering breaks something. Its worth checking that Timeshift is set up for automatic snapshots
If you have 0 issues and aren’t bored with it either, keep using it. It’s completely fine.
People often have various reasons for not using it. E.g they want more up-to-date packages so they go with a rolling release distro, or they want to use a different package manager, or they want an immutable distro. Mint is just a generalist distro that works fine for most people, but doesn’t excel at any particular thing. Same as Ubuntu LTS, but with a nicer UI and less commercialization, so I see it as a great alternative to Ubuntu LTS. Ubuntu non-LTS may be more up to date though.
mostly customizability and good support for new hardware
if you’re running a pc with no major components newer than ~2-3 years old then mint is fine
the idea that it’s “bad for gaming” is nonsense unless you’re running near-bleeding edge hardware or are exceptionally sweaty about eking out an additional couple of frames per secondMint is great! It taught me the basics of linux.
Meanwhile SteamOS bewildered me with no printing support
Bazzite is great. I wish I’d tried it sooner. It is great for a “steam machine” or just as a very stable regular desktop.
What about steamOS for a steam machine that has all AMD hardware so Nvidia drivers will not be an issue.
I’m building an htpc that will never be used in desktop mode just couch gaming used by kids too. Still trying to decide which os to go with.
Just want to know what the downsides if any of installing SteamOS if I just want valve to handle it for me.
To my knowledge Bazzite is basically SteamOS with more flexibility under the hood if you’re looking for it. By default it boots right into big picture mode. I imagine if you get an HDMI-CEC dongle it would work great as an HTPC once you get Big Picture set up with the streaming apps.
For general user maybe but honestly I would prefer kinoite ,I don’t like bazzite replacing all their apps with gtk4 libadwaita while KDE written in qt apps looks much better that’s why I switched to kinoite
My understanding is that one of the upsides to Bazzite is that Nvidia drivers are pretty easy to install and manage. That was the thing that turned me off of Fedora when I tried making the switch to that a couple years ago.
Is that easy to do in Kinoite? This is the first I’ve heard of it, and it sounds like exactly what I would want out of Bazzite.
They’re so easy to install that you don’t have to, it’s built in
Closed source driver of nvidia in fedora kinoite by default? It’s not true u need to install them
You can install Bazzite with KDE also if I’m not mistaken
Yes but they force you to use GTK apps by default for the core apps.
They even replaced Discover with Bazaar where you can’t see certain package types (like mangohud) and have to install them manually, can’t browse by category and just get “selected” games shoved in your phase, as well as getting no update notifications and it will silently fail sometimes in the background with no notifications or messages.
Bazaar has the best search by far, try them all, youll actually find stuff using bazaar, like fps will actually show all the fps, the rest wont, tried them all trying to find the best appstore
The first thing I noticed was how bad the search was on kde and gnome for the software stores. (Tried cosmic, appcenter, etc. also)
By “core apps”, you mean literally only two applications.
The terminal is replaced with one that has a container workflow because that is the recommended and expected workflow for anyone working in a terminal.
The store is replaced with Bazaar because it is the only one that is even trying to provide a good flathub experience.
That’s it. Everything else is stock KDE.
Kinoite is also great and usually what I recommend someone coming from Windows who wants a distro that “Just works”.
I spent a little bit deciding between Bazzite and Kinoite when I got my PC and ultimately went with Kinoite since I still have some work stuff to do every now and then. Not a single issue on my end so far.
Cool thing is you can rebase anytime to any other flavour you want with one command and keep everything that’s yours!
i like it too, but the ublue scripts are extremely handy so i hate leaving anything ublue
Can you explain more? What are ublue scripts and what makes them so handy? I’m still new to this space.
They just do nice simple little things that people want in the command line. Like a rollback helper for example
Very cool thanks for pointing them out, I will look into them.
This is amazing news. Hopefully they’re getting enough donations to cover this.
Eh costs likely basically nothing. They appear to use cloud flare CDN which has unlimited bandwidth.
So really all they’re doing is getting their money’s worth from their subscription. Lol
Can someone ELI5 why Bazzite is so popular? I’m a Linux longtimer (since 2006!) but never heard of Bazzite.
As I understand it, it’s atomic Fedora with virtually everything you might need to game on Linux baked in (no need for layering) and more or less preconfigured. Off the top of my head, proprietary Nvidia drivers, Steam, Lutris, Hero launcher, support for Xbox One wireless controller dongle, plus a number of useful tools like Tailscale. An app with a catered list of gaming-oriented flatpacks, one click updating. Also a lot of effort into replicating the Steam Deck experience for handheld devices or devices connected to a TV.
I believe they also do Aurora, which is similarly geared toward workstations with a ton of container-related tools like distro box readily available to easily use containers instead of layering where possible. The same tools may be available in Bazzite but I never checked. I have Aurora on my laptop and use a dedicated gaming device with Bazzite.
I’m not a Linux veteran by any means but I was hopping distros looking for something I could install on my family’s computers I tried atomic Fedora. When using it for myself, I became frustrated with the number of tools I use that needed to be layered or run in a container and eventually found myself on Bazzite and Aurora. So far so good.
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Immutable distros are currently the flavor of the month and it’s basically just that. Bazzite is just a worse cachyOS. But because it’s immutable it’s the flavor of the month and therefore it’s the hype new thing.
Everyone loves the hype new thing. Even though in all realistic aspects, it’s more overly complicated. It’s more prone to causing issues for new users. It’s less proven.
There’s a good argument to be made that the project might just end up imploding in a year or two and dying out and f****** over all these new users who are flocking to it because of rampant suggestions.
Is also the general issue of Fedora and its family being prone to breaking itself from early adoption of new ideas. People love to give Arch s*** but Fedora tends to be the one that actually implodes itself for low-skilled users.
Got to love flavor of the month
There’s a good argument to be made that the project might just end up imploding in a year or two and dying out
Could you make this argument?
It’s nonsense you can just use one command to swap from bazzite to kinoite if it does, it’s very easy and low effort to distro hop on fedora atomic based distros
And half of the project is mostly just automated package update pulls and compiling them into images
No they can’t, they can only say “flavor of the month” nonstop until another parrot catches it and repeats it
I can counter argument their non-existing argument, if bazzite dies tomorrow you are free to rebase to any other Fedora Atomic distro
Along with what others have said about it being a great ootb experience for anyone looking to play games. It is also immutable so you can’t fuck it up too easily. And the very popular YouTube channel gamers nexus has started doing their Linux testing exclusively on bazzite. I think the latter is playing one of the biggest parts, while the previous two points are specifically why they choose bazzite.
Imagine you like video games. You install Bazzite. You have Steam, with only a little checkbox (to allow playing on linux). It works, you can play, you have a “playstore” if you need something. You have really little to do if you don’t go outside Steam and the playstore.
Problem generally is that the moment you do have to leave steam. It’s infinitely worse and basically impossible to use for a low skilled or new user compared to other gamer distros that do the exact same thing as bazzite but arnt immutable.
Immutability is great till you need to actually do anything at all. It’s such a catch 22. To a new user, it means you can’t accidentally f*** anything up, but also to a new user basically means your computer is a glorified console and you can’t do anything with it because you lack the skill set in knowledge to actually do anything in looking. Anything up basically isn’t going to be helpful for you cuz basically every guide and written account anywhere you find isn’t going to be geared towards an immutable distro.
The immutable gimmick that’s currently going on right now is still way too flavor of the month for new users who are trying to learn from a ground set of nothing.
If I was giving a computer to like a kid who I didn’t want to be able to do anything I would give it to them as a form of parental control more than anything.
The immutable gimmick that’s currently going on right now is still way too flavor of the month for new users who are trying to learn from a ground set of nothing.
New users aren’t going to administer their computers either. there’s no “flavor of the month” it’s just teaching new users how to administer linux systems properly. And of course directions on the internet are going to be incorrect, the only correct solution is to follow the documentation, not random guides on the internet.
I never say it has no problem. I’m on bazzite and every time I want something that’s not in the playstore, it’s a fucking hell and it never works. I just stopped.
You couldn’t just layer it on, or use distribox and container it? I have plenty of Linux on machines I work with, but my gaming rig is Bazzite, and it literally does it’s job perfectly, which is to game, and the few other misc things beyond its regular scope I have done in the couple’s years it’s been on that machine I have had no issues with?
Maybe I could if I had an idea what it was x) That’s ok, I do with whatever bazaar has. My main frustration is for the VPN I paid, and can’t use, but I tried things for days with the support and all failed, and since I don’t understand what I’m doing and had to go in admin mode, I let it go. It’s not a call for help.
I just switched to Bazzite recently and have been using containers through podman/docker for anything not on Bazaar. But what do people mean when they say “layering” on an immutable distro? I’m very much still new at this
You can layer packages not in the base image. This effectively installs that package. Except by default the “installation” will not take effect until the next boot.
Besides the reasons other mentioned, it’s also popular as an OS for gaming handhelds, like the Steam Deck, Lenovo Legion Go, ASUS Ally X and what have you.
A lot of things are built into it fto be easily installable with less user effort. Has nice defaults. I use cachyos on my pc but on my handheld a lot of stuff wasn’t working by default, like the handhelds buttons/joystick. On bazzite everything works by default. (Think it’s one terminal command to install what is needed for controls in cachyos, but it didn’t work by default) You can still download whatever using rpm ostree, as a user idr know the difference. Grabbed gparted that way. Bazzite has the ujust command which gives you a lot of options for modifying and installing stuff easily like waydroid, emudeck, plugins, etc.
Also prefer gnome with extensions on touchscreens and handhelds, whule everything else comes with kde and it’s apps by default. Kde isn’t bad at all and only 1 extensions on pc (window thumbnails to pip any window) has me staying on gnome, but gnome works so kuch better for touchscreens and smaller devices.
It’s the most plug-and-play Linux has ever been from my experience.
It’s the “just works” distro for people who want to play games.
Atleast 20 of those are mine, I simply delete the ISO after flashing and ive absolutely flashed one singular USB 10 times with the same nvidia build, let alone other ones
