Bazzite Linux, a popular choice for people wanting to put Linux on their handhelds or living room PC, is getting two new editions designed to help developers.
I’ve been using Bazzite on my laptop that I use for gaming and it’s great. It comes pre-packaged (some pre-installed, others can be done any time with simple “ujust” console commands) with a ton of things made specifically for gaming. You’d probably be better off finding a list on their site than me trying to list them here. But I’ve found it to be much better for gaming (and more stable) than Arch.
It is my first experience with an immutable distro, and it took a little getting used to, but I’ve come to really like it. OStree is really cool and it’s crazy how simple it is to rollback to previous “images” (snapshot basically) or even “rebase” to a different immutable distro (haven’t tried this yet, but it’s literally just one command then reboot).
If you get really deep into it, you can even create your own custom OS image and it’s completely transferrable.
You are not limited to flatpaks at all, and it comes with distrobox which is incredibly useful for installing packages in a box without needing root write permission. Bazzite is based on Fedora, so you can install a package in a “Fedora toolbox” (that is an image of Fedora made specifically for distrobox), and then create a shortcut to run that program from your host without having to open distrobox again.
I made an Arch box and installed yay to have access to AUR.
It’s very stable, and hard to break. But still very tinker-able.
Bazzite is based on Fedora, so you can install a package in a “Fedora toolbox” (that is an image of Fedora made specifically for distrobox)
Does this work for stuff that’s looking for deeper kernelish level access? I gave up on bazzite because I couldn’t figure out how to get some system monitoring program to work
For example, I had to install the my VPN app using a local .rpm package that I downloaded from their site. This works just fine, the only issue is that it will not update automatically, so any time there is an update, I have to uninstall the old version and install the new version.
However, that’s extremely simple. Two commands and a reboot and voila.
I would say this is the order of preference with installing apps: flatpak > distrobox > layered package > local package.
I’m pretty sure you can get most stuff to work if you really want to. There’s also a good amount of stuff online if you search for “silverblue” or “kinoite” rather than bazzite when you make your queries.
I’ve been using Bazzite on my laptop that I use for gaming and it’s great. It comes pre-packaged (some pre-installed, others can be done any time with simple “ujust” console commands) with a ton of things made specifically for gaming. You’d probably be better off finding a list on their site than me trying to list them here. But I’ve found it to be much better for gaming (and more stable) than Arch.
It is my first experience with an immutable distro, and it took a little getting used to, but I’ve come to really like it. OStree is really cool and it’s crazy how simple it is to rollback to previous “images” (snapshot basically) or even “rebase” to a different immutable distro (haven’t tried this yet, but it’s literally just one command then reboot).
If you get really deep into it, you can even create your own custom OS image and it’s completely transferrable.
You are not limited to flatpaks at all, and it comes with distrobox which is incredibly useful for installing packages in a box without needing root write permission. Bazzite is based on Fedora, so you can install a package in a “Fedora toolbox” (that is an image of Fedora made specifically for distrobox), and then create a shortcut to run that program from your host without having to open distrobox again.
I made an Arch box and installed yay to have access to AUR.
It’s very stable, and hard to break. But still very tinker-able.
Does this work for stuff that’s looking for deeper kernelish level access? I gave up on bazzite because I couldn’t figure out how to get some system monitoring program to work
Probably not… There is a line I think.
For example, I had to install the my VPN app using a local .rpm package that I downloaded from their site. This works just fine, the only issue is that it will not update automatically, so any time there is an update, I have to uninstall the old version and install the new version.
However, that’s extremely simple. Two commands and a reboot and voila.
I would say this is the order of preference with installing apps: flatpak > distrobox > layered package > local package.
I’m pretty sure you can get most stuff to work if you really want to. There’s also a good amount of stuff online if you search for “silverblue” or “kinoite” rather than bazzite when you make your queries.