this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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I hate to go against the flow here, but I absolutely do not recommend Bazzite as a desktop OS. Surely as a living room or handheld PC thing, but not your main OS.
Immutable distros create a lot of pain when you need a package outside of the also problematic Flatpak world, and whilst there are ways to install them on Bazzite, regular users with no Linux knowledge would scream.
Honestly, even for a living room PC it's a pain. My living room machine uses Corsair fan controllers, so I had to battle to get OpenLinkHub installed, and a realtek 2.5gbe card, which I attempted to get working and gave up (kernel src package does not match the kernel for some reason). Not overly fun.
Well, if you look at my downvotes and read the upvoted reply below, you'll see you do not exist! Yes, apparently regular users do not have hardware that requires any out of tree drivers. Your very reasonable 2.5gbe card probably does not exist, it's all a product of your imagination! Bazzite is perfect!
I can attest to this. I daily drive bazzite exclusively now.
Rocket league specifically only uses 40% of the GPU and 25% CPU and refuses to use any more at all. It is only a bazzite problem. Other distros are completely fine and other bazzite users have reported the same thing, regardless of settings, launch options, etc...
It is hell when trying to do embedded firmware development. Pretty much everything has to be done through distrobox related to it because JLink needs to be accessible by NRF connect which has to be accessible by VSCode, etc... vscode and oss versions simply don't work if you have to install more than the very basic UI extensions.
Plus then you have udev rules that you have to manually place in the read only file system (recommended by a Bazzite maintainer on their discord) which they explicitly tell you never to do in the docs. There is absolutely nothing regarding JLink (the most widely used industry flashing tool for ARM) in any universalblue docs, even the bluefin and aurora versions "for developers".
Also, there is absolutely no known way to handle eID credentials, crypto keys, etc in order to digitally sign documents. Also key management and access simply does not work at all in flatpak.
Network scanning simply doesn't work at all (yes, saned is set up). It is completely nonfunctional, it can't discover anything.
Outside of those cases though, it works fine. Themes work, font installation works as expected: the firewall, KiCAD, freeCAD work, browsers, media players, etc... All work fine. Distrobox, while start menu applications via distrobox sometimes simply don't start, they often work fine. However, I haven't had to worry about updating my system in 4 months because updates are in the background and completely seamless and not a single thing breaks during updates which by itself is the reason I switched from arch.
(Arch never became unbootable or seriously broken in 8 years, but I would have update problems and have to search for forum solutions to make a full update work every month or two)
Why are you still using it if you’re having this many issues? Is it just because you don’t want to go through the hassle of a reinstall at the moment or are there features that you don’t want to go without?
I'll be honest. It was a hell of a time getting things working correctly due to the lack of documentation, but now I have everything except scanning and document signing working which I rarely use anyway. (Rocket league runs fine, just with half the fps I should be getting) I literally don't have to touch anything anymore, it will just keep itself updated and working completely hands-off. That is what I want out of a system now that tweaking and debugging is a distraction from my other hobbies rather than a hobby itself.
The biggest feature that I like is Linux without having any manual update intervention at all. It all just runs and updates itself and works.
If something goes wrong in my software, I can uninstall and reinstall the flatpak delete remaining files, and reinstall with 3 clicks instead of having to search for where the hell this specific program decided to stash its files and configs and cache on my system like I had to with a traditional system. It takes the recurring annoyances out and trades them with 1-time annoyances.
That makes sense. Is there anything specific to bazzite you like or do you think you could get pretty much the same experience on any immutable distro?
Yes but people seem to really want a SteamOS like experience on their desktop. Thats what Bazzite provides.
I dont think steamOS is a good desktop experience but if that makes people feel safe enough to try linux then I think Bazzite does a 100x better job than SteamOS.
If they want an actual desktop that can game and do everyything then they should try Fedora with KDE.
For a desktop PC I'm trying Endeavour OS. Feels quite good.
Endeavour is great as well. I've heard nothing but good things about it.
Linux Mint hides and automates a little too much for my liking. Arch should be within my skill lvl but most days I don't want to be tuning the suspension while the vehicle is moving. Endeavour seem the right cup of tea for someone who has grown up using DOS and terminals and still retains the ability to touch type at 50wpm.
I'm a daily driver of Bazzite and Bluefin. I felt this way initially but it's been generally painless. I typically check flatpak -> app image -> homebrew -> distrobox when I need something. If that fails, I use rpm-ostree and reboot.
I work in development/devops/infosec by trade and to date there hasn't been a single package or program that I needed that I couldn't get running with minimal fuss. I've even run a couple of MDM packages that my work requires.
I'm not shy about Linux but my eyes glazed over reading that flow chart. Don't pretend this is okay for typical users switching from Windows
k.
But SteamOS is also immutable 🤔
If they went through this, they wouldn't.
I've also been able to find 99% of what I need through discover.
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/installing-from-source/
If what you need is Discord and Chrome, sure.
When you need specific drivers things change dramatically. And some packages technically exist as Flatpaks, but with permission issues that no regular user is ever fixing
if you need specific drivers that arent in a generic kernel you're already out of everyday user territory even on a normal distro.
I'm not sure that the NIC on one of the most popular Asus motherboards is really outside of everyday user territory. In my case, it's a realtek onboard ethernet chip.
On a "normal" distro the drivers for this are pretty easy to install, and is definitely something an everyday user could achieve (double click a single file in the download from realtek).
People will say some absurd statement like this one and then pretend to be confused when Linux adoption fails to grow faster.
Its OK for them to step out of everyday user territory no one is saying they can't. Its just that installing drivers on Linux is not common.
The nvidia driver is the only thing I can think that an average user would need to install and that is shipped pre installed in most distros.
Also I'm not confused Linux isn't growing fast enough. I'm surprised limux is growing as fast as it is. Linux is growing at an insane rate.
That's why we got dem tar and dnf
And also that's just not true. There's also Space Cadet Pinball
On Fedora, sure. Not Bazzite, on Bazzite you'd need distrobox to use it - users barely understand what Linux is, good luck with distrobox instructions.
No, on bazzite because it's a fedora distro
Edit: wasn't trying to to come off as a dick, reread it and I could see it taken that way
Also I'm relatively new to Linux, so I'm sure with some things that may not be true, but 100% of what I've had to do has been either within discover, or I've followed pages on fedora to find out and it's worked Everytime. Whatever bazzite installation you have whether it's 38/39 etc, those line up with fedora versions as far as I'm aware.
It's been solid for me. It's the same or less amount of troubleshooting I'd have to do on windows, and I'm familiar with windows. Making windows work is my job. That coupled with the absolute mess that is windows support pages, bazzite has been good for me. Arch was pretty cool too, not nearly as bad as people said it was going to be, I just had an issue with audio I couldn't figure out. I just wanted a works right now solution, and that's what it's been.
I'm with you. Love Bazzite in the living room, but no way would it be my daily driver.
I don't really like immutable but isn't that what rpm-ostree is for?