this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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It just works.

I'm kind of shocked how easy it was to set up. I used ventoy to make a bootable iso of Linux Mint Cinnamon on my Mini PC (Ser5 Pro), and I had zero issues with anything. Ventoy even plays nice with secure boot.

Where's the setup?

There really wasn't any. I booted into Mint, synced my keyboard/trackpad combo and my earbuds then was off to the races. It detected all my hardware including my Elgato HD60 X without any steps. The only thing I had to work around was downloading the deb build of Discord Canary to enable audio output in Discord streams since it was only recently added to Discord's dev/beta build (Canary).

Speaking of which Elgato's capture software doesn't support Linux (shocker), so I simply installed OBS, pointed the audio/video to the capture card, and it worked. Easy.

My Use Case

I have the aforementioned mini PC mainly to be jockied by a capture card for streaming Nintendo Switch to Discord. Aside from that I use it as a productivity machine in my living room for internet browsing (omg webtv!) and Kodi. The Ser5 uses an AMD Ryzen 7 5850u with integrated graphics, 16GB DDR4, and a 500gb M.2. All of the ports, HDMI audio out, etc were automatically detected by Mint.

Conclusion

Linux Mint feels premium compared to Windows 11. It's snappier, more modular, and offers a Linux GUI that's familiar/easy to use. Plus now I have the benefit of no preinstalled spyware or bloatware. Feels good to actually own my computer.

Thanks for reading!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Can you give me a brief idea of gaming on bazzite? I've done so on mint but I'm looking for something maybe better

[–] DharkStare 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Like SteamOS, it boots into game mode and provides the option to switch to desktop. There are versions of it that don't have the game mode but I'm using my PC primarily for gaming. As an atomic distro the system files are read-only. It's called atomic because the entire system is updated in a single operation instead of just updating individual packages. This means that installing new software can be a bit tricky requiring things like package layering or DistroBox.

One of the big things is the ability to just rollback your system to an earlier version if the update broke anything.

Bazzite is a custom image based on Fedora Silverblue. If you're interested in non-gaming versions of you can look at Fedora Atomic Desktops.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Bazzite and Chimera are "SteamOS-like" distros that are more focused on providing a game console like experience.

They're immutable operating systems, and the primary UI is Steam. Definitely usable as a desktop PC but that isn't really their target niche.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

It just works for me. I tried it about a year ago when I still had an Nvidia card and Wayland wasn't playing nice. I've since upgraded to an AMD and most things just work out of the box.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle gave me some trouble, but that's just typical for MachineGames's engine on Linux.

The most difficult thing about Bazzite is figuring out rpm-ostree and package layering. Luckily there isn't much I need that's not in the package library.