If you're wanting something similar to SteamOS right now that has much wider hardware support for your gaming handhelds like the Lenovo Legion Go, ASUS ROG Ally, GPD, Ayaneo or even your laptop / desktop then Bazzite is likely one of the best choices.
Would this be a good distro for a noob who’s thinking about switching from Windows? Or is this more advanced to maintain and use as a daily driver?
Yes, it’s designed to be as easy as possible to manage and exceedingly difficult to break in a permanent way.
It’s also turnkey in comparison to Windows, in the sense that you already have all of your hardware drivers and have Steam installed right from the get-go.
I advise against using Bazzite as a Windows convert, unless you’re happy to do a lot of reading to understand what you’re actually signing up for. The founder doesn’t really care about Windows Gamers (or anyone outside of the professional linux world), according to a comment they made earlier today in response to criticism of the description “cloud native”.
To save you a click, the conversation was about the description of Bazzite as “cloud native” on the bazzite homepage* can be confusing or even misleading for people who assume it means “will run in the cloud”. The founder explicitly commented they’ll keep doubling down on the term until people no longer complain about it.
Their argument was that there is an entire foundation for Cloud Native Computing and that the concept is “an incredibly common thing in any professional paid Linux job.” They understand that Windows Gamers in particular might have the aforementioned misconception, but they don’t care if you get it.
That doesn’t necessarily make Bazzite a bad distro, but I’d be wary about the level of assistance you can expect from people who think that a technical word soup featuring terms like “build our images” and “deploying Linux environments to users” is enough to explain that “cloud native” actually just means the development process and the end product has nothing to do with the cloud.
*Specifically, the homepage’s text opens with:
“Bazzite is a cloud native image built upon Fedora Atomic Desktops that brings the best of Linux gaming to all of your devices - including your favorite handheld.”
I don’t know why they’d lead with the development method, rather than describing what the OS actually does, but apparently that’s what they care most about.
As an aside, I don’t see any obvious description what “atomic” means on the Fedora Atomic site either.
Cloud native is the end product too. The point of my firmness with you was not to express that I don’t care about windows users – quite the contrary, none of this would exist without that – but to express that I don’t care about your issue with the definition of a defined word.
Thanks for that insight, Lucifer
Yes, with one caveat: it isn’t going to work like a lot of other distros when it comes to installing packages. If you need help, use the uBlue forums.
Otherwise, it’s great, and very stable.
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