Bazzite is seeing an insane amount of growth right now
Traffic cost must be insane. Hope they have good hosting and won’t be paying through the nose and go broke.
I’m surprised they don’t have torrent downloads for it. That would save on bandwidth costs and it’s more reliable since torrent clients verify the checksum and automatically redownload any corrupted blocks.
I would seed…
Same, I have 100Mb up and only use a fraction of it.
Cloudflare would host it for effectively free
This whole thread had me wondering how much I’m costing them so I could at least pay my share. A quick search got me this page to donate. There’s some information about how they are using that money, but it doesn’t seem like they’ve spent much, and it makes me feel like they’ve got funding from somewhere else that covers their hosting costs.
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.
Besides the reasons others 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.
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It’s the most plug-and-play Linux has ever been from my experience.
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?
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
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
I wish people stopped recommending Mint to Windows users
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?
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
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.
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? ;)
How about
yay
Even more simple, and now guess the update command
Yea, it is just
yay
Damn I love endeavourOS (Arch for lazy people)
Edit: ohh, automatically, yea, for that I use opensuse TW as it updates automatically prior shutdown
Cinnamon is the second of five attempts to defuckulate Gnome that I’m aware of, and my personal favorite.
Yep. Mine too. At this point it’s the best modern take on Gnome 2.
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 like bazzite-kde because it’s similar to windows. Gnome bothered me - in particular not being able to set a blank desktop easily.
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)
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Mint is great! It taught me the basics of linux.
Meanwhile SteamOS bewildered me with no printing support
You trying to print screenshots of your game or what lmao
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 second
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.
Mint is based on Ubuntu LTS. The packages aren’t THAT out of date. Most people don’t give a shit if they’re running the bleeding edge of kernels or what version of mesa is installed. If it works with their hardware, they’re good.
Fedora Kinoite is, probably, the best recommendation.
If you’re looking for the immutable Plasma experience, Kinonite IS the best choice. Bazzite, Aurora, and I think Zoran, are reliant on whatever their foundation distro is doing. Other than having some presets you might like, they offer little else.
But if you like one of them, more power to you, use it and enjoy!
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 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)
Mint’s mouse acceleration was what killed it for me. Setting acceleration to “constant” still felt rubber-bandy and fucked up, and there’s no obvious “Off” option. That was a hard stop. It never felt like I was using my PC but instead a rubber-bandy immitation. I immediately switched. It’s frustrating considering that the rest of the OS seemed OK, I could have seen myself using it if not for that.
Bazzite immediately felt “good” to use right out of the box. No baked in acceleration weirdness. Kudos to the team for really putting in the effort to make this old gamer feel right at home in it. Now going on over a year of it and still loving it.
Thanks, Steve
I’m out of the loop here, what’s the context?
Gamer’s Nexus has heard a lot of interest in their community about gaming on linux. So they’ve been working with Wendell from Level1Techs to put together a Linux benchmarking workflow. They chose Bazzite for those efforts.
Gamer’s Nexus likes to make frequent use of a clip from an Intel presentation where one of the presenters says “Thanks Steve,” because the main personality on Gamers Nexus is Stephen Burke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovOx4_8ajZ8
Watch around 00:45 ☺️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovOx4_8ajZ8&t=44s
There’s a link with the time appended.
Mostly all thanks to Gamers Nexus, I’d wager.
Also thanks to windows for continuing to double down on being dogshit
That contributed to all Linux. Gamers Nexus exclusively using Bazite for their Linux game testing is giving them specifically, a big bump.
I am looking forward to GNU+Linux usage share numbers a year from now. I think it is very likely to pass 5%.
I had such a good experience switching to bazzite (from arch btw) that I put Aurora on my wife’s Ryzen 2500u laptop when windows 10 was taken out to a nice farm.
That went well until she said her friend’s kids couldn’t play games anymore. I quickly and flawlessly rebased it to bazzite and set up games.
A few hiccups with lacking Microsoft Office and having to learn the alternatives was the only issue she has had but that only took a few days for her to get down.
I distrohop every now and then, but usually when I have a convincing argument for it. Anyone want to try to convince me to switch either of my computers (one on Tumbleweed and one on NixOS) to Bazzite?
its closest to nixos in functionality, but basically its just a very simple distro that doesnt require much work to maintain and comes with lots of useful premade scripts and configurations for gaming and making immutables easy to work with. if thats what youre looking for thats what its good for.
Can I setup docker containers on it?
Yes, but the beauty of it is that it plugs in Steam immediately. If you’re installing it on a machine that uses Steam and sometimes browses it is a one-stop shop.
I offloaded Windows 10 entirely, installed bazzite, and played Hollow Knight and the entire Dark Souls trilogy from the same installation on the same harddrive I’d had them on Windows. Didnt even need to reinstall.
To me that’s impressive. I only had a few crashes overall too.
You can with the developer oriented spin, bazzite-dx (I think the plan is to unify them). On base bazzite there is no docker but there is podman I believe.
I didnt know they had multiple versions of bazzite, thats good to know. Appreciate the advice!
podman works well, docker is a little finicky due to some systemd weirdness and the whole immutability of it all.
it mainly tries to get you to use distroboxes which are awesome. you can even install something in a distrobox and expose it to the host.
Are distroboxes, podman, and docker all names for the same type of program? I’ll have to start researching the ones you mentioned and see if it fits what I’m doing.
they’re all containerization programs yes. I believe they differ in some minor details but thanks to the OCI standards a image built with docker will run in podman or vice versa.
distrobox is a little more feature rich for development, meant for exposing services and are interactive by default, vs dockers run and forget methodology.
Distrobox is more like running an entire other Linux distro to run your program, so like before my laptop died completely I had Bazzite and needed to install something locally that was way easier to do in an Ubuntu Distrobox, any time I wanted to run that program I open up my distrobox and run it, felt very native and the app and its files were still in my normal home directory yet ran with dependencies and such I had in the distrobox only.
Definitely nifty but different from the goal of podman/docker imo
Oh thats cool, I can make use of that for sure. Thanks for the explanation!
If you’ve got actual work to do, don’t.
I’ve got Bazzite on my TV PC, and it’s pretty cromulent for that, but Flatpak alone doesn’t have everything I need to do actual work.
Does this count torrent downloads?
probably not
Thanks gaming jesus
Gamers rock
How is Bazzite for NVIDIA users?
I put it on my gaming desktop and ROG Xbix Ally X and love it. Works great. The Windows Rog Xbox Ally X portable experience sucks. Also I’m not missing the intrusive updates and AI junk jammed into absolutely every Microsoft product.
While I didn’t use Bazzite I did put Steam OS on my wife’s Ally. Yes the windows handheld experience is (was) atrocious
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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.
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.
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’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 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
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.
Hmmm I’m not super into Bazzite being more locked down. I might have to look into CachyOS tho
Bazzite is good for gaming, do you game?
Yes I do, and Pop OS seems to do a pretty good job. AMD drivers are so easy it’s awesome
Why do people use PopOS? I genuinely don’t get it.
Idk, it was recommended as a more entry-level distro for people who are used to Windows and Ubuntu. Seems pretty good and looks pretty professional
Why don’t you recommend it?
I don’t even know what it does.
