What about my alternatively acquired games? I’ve tried using Mint and Steam with whatever that is that runs compatibility. Sometimes doesn’t work for them.
I tried that but then there was a launcher and the launcher loaded okay but then when you tried to run the game from the launcher it didn’t run but just crashed…
Heroic Launcher, Lutris, Bottles, or just launching them through the command line if you really want to for some reason, are your options. Heroic I just started using and it’s great. It’s especially good for games from other stores, but you can add anything to it. Lutris is pretty good, but you have to add everything manually (which you’ll have to do no matter what for what you’re asking about). Bottles is functional, but it is much harder to use than the others, but probably lighter weight if that matters to you at all (and I’ll tell you now, it doesn’t).
What about non steam games? Maybe I’m in the extreme minority, but my most played games are things like Microsoft Flight Sim, DCS, Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous, which not only have their own launchers etc (one of which is tied directly to MS), they also require peripherals… sometimes lots of em, that have config and/or telemetry software that is all built in windows.
Unfortunately this is one of the cases where you’re going to have to do some research.
Check ProtonDB to see how a game plays on Linux. I’m assuming the flight simulator would be problematic.
Usually the periferal drivers are built into the Linux kernel. Your keyboard and mice will just work, gamepads as well. Niche stuff like wheels and flight controllers will likely not work out of the box and you’ll have to find a community based software to support it. Sucks.
If I were you I’d boot a virtual machine or a live USB drive and try it out. If you’re not comfortable with the amount of compatibility just don’t install it. Nothing lost
Currently, my favorite ways of running non-Steam games are the Heroic Games Launcher and Bottles. Heroic is especially nice if you have games from GOG or EGS. However, looking at ProtonDB, it seems that both DCS and Flight Sim 2024 don’t work too well on Linux. Overall it sounds like it might be challenging for you to switch to Linux, but you can always give it a try and see how much works.
There are plenty of ways to run non-steam games and most games work out of box. Wine/Proton, the software that steam uses to translate windows calls to linux calls, can also be run outside of steam. Wine can also just run generic windows programs so config software will probably run fine.
The peripherals is where you may run into some issues as I’m not sure how well supported they would be on linux. I wouldn’t know as I don’t use any special peripherals.
You can quite safely jump onto any distro recommended for gaming. From me I would recommend PopOS, especially when 24.04 releases - easy install and Nvidia drivers work out of the box, and the super rare issue Linus encountered is long fixed
Anecdote alert: I mean, I went to Mint thinking this to be true. The first release I tried didn’t even support my (years old) WiFi drivers, and then the second couldn’t run levels in Hitman. (Bazzite did, however, so distro apparently matters)
Interesting, what year was that? Before Ubuntu shipped with pipewire by default I do remember it having the worst Bluetooth experience, so maybe something similar was the case with WiFi?
Anecdote as well: the non-working Bluetooth lead me to perform my very first (successful) dive into system files to replace Alsa with Pipewire
The comment above says they want to replace their W10 desktop, so it isn’t what they want. If it’s what you want then fine, but I was writing the comment for someone who wants a desktop, not a console. If you want a console, go ahead and wait or use Bazzite. If you want a desktop then the best options are already available and SteamOS isn’t going to be it.
Bump for Garuda. It’s decent, as simple as any installation I’ve ever had to do, comes well configured out of the box, and has a very active forum that the Devs keep an eye on and answer questions quite quickly.
I’ve heard linux has problems with laptops with Nvidia cards, like I have. Is this still an issue? I’m getting pretty fucked off with windows but frankly don’t have time to embark on an ongoing technical challenge.
I’ve been running pop_OS! on my Razer Blade for a few years with no issues. They install Nvidia drivers by default and also have power profiles that support hybrid graphics out of the box.
On my desktop gaming PC (with an APU and NVIDIA 10-series GPU), I’ve tried EndeavorOS and Garuda but I haven’t been able to get waking up from sleep to work on either, it crashes my graphical session everytime
I’ve got a laptop running Garuda, it has and Intel APU(so integrated graphics) and a dedicated Nvidia 1660. Working better than with Win 11 on it. I did have to configure Heroic launcher to default to the dedicated gfx card, but that was about 7 mouse clicks tops. Steam games tend to just assume that you’ll be wanting the dedicated gfx to do the work, but some games ask. That said, out of the box, I had to fight win 11 for about 25mins to get it to agree that yes I did in fact want the Nvidia card to be used to run games.
I think that’s mostly fixed at this point. I have AMD, but I’ve heard Nvidia is handled better now. Nvidia keeps everything closed source, so everyone is fucked, but support is improving. Make a Bootable USB of Garuda (or whatever distro you choose, but Garuda Dragonized I’d expect to have the drivers) and try it out. It’s very low effort to try.
AMD open-sources everything, so their stuff works everywhere. That’s why FSR is always available, because it works on any device and is open source, so it’s easy to support. DLSS only works on Nvidia devices and requires a lot more effort for developers to support, so they often only do it if Nvidia pays them because it costs them money to implement an extra solution and not everyone will even be able to use it.
Hmm yeah I was thinking about possibly trying to boot from a usb. Haven’t done that with linux since the 90s, I guess I assumed the linux os thingie would be too big or too slow. Maybe I’ll give that a try, thanks for the suggestion.
Yeah I’ve been out of the loop with tech for fuckin decades. Bought the laptop a while back without knowing about the Nvidia ting. TBH I mostly start the laptop up maybe once a week for spreadsheets, calibre, and as a file transfer medium. I’d planned on using it for gaming too but then I got a steam deck. But yeah, there’s some stuff I can’t easily do on steam deck and I’m really getting sick of fuckin windows. Every time I start the machine it’s trying to install some new AI shit or something. I don’t need that, just want a working computer!
But you’re right - next time I buy a laptop - if I need to - I’m thinking AMD for sure.
Edit - also because of my living situation (I don’t live in a house, all my electric comes from a solar panel) power consumption is a real issue for me. And that laptop is power hungry.
Trying from a USB or virtual machine is just a good idea in general. Use Ventoy to put several distros into a single USB stick and try them out. Try your hardware, check which UI you like the most.
The main thing stopping me is that I only use my PC for gaming, and I know the support for drivers etc isn’t as good on Linux (though I know this is debated).
However if Linux became more centralised, with a “gaming first” distro like this, the graphics drivers would have a “main test case” to work with.
If you have the exact hardware supported by the SteamOS then you’ll be fine. However, I don’t even know of they support nvidia video cards yet, I believe most of their stack is optimized for AMD cards.
In that sense, installing a more generalist linux distribution will net you a better driver compatibility.
Linux gaming is at a fantastic state right now, you install steam and games work. 20 years ago I would have never believed it to be possible.
I’ve recently gotten sick of windows and changed my gaming rigs to Nobara and Mint, both with AMD processors and 3090s. Zero issues gaming, or modding games, on either one.
Edit: you could dual boot into a Linux distribution just to try it and keep your windows just in case you don’t like it.
Yeah, the driver thing is pretty much solved at this point. If you have AMD there’s literally nothing to worry about. If you have Nvidia, you’re probably also good to go, but slightly less guaranteed. Make a Bootable USB of the distro you choose and try it to see if your hardware is supported. It’s low effort and no risk.
Something you might not know is the drivers come packaged with the kernel, so you literally never have to worry about updating your drivers. They’re just there in the background up to date. It awesome.
The experience with Linux is so much smoother than Windows because the system manages most things for you. All your applications will be updated by the package manager, so you don’t need to go to websites to download updates. Graphics drivers are just there. Everything is just handled for you.
Man, Steam has a real opportunity here to make Linux desktops more palatable. Imagine a SteamOS computer that’s as easy to use as Windows for people who don’t know Linux…
I think that the big thing for the general public is not that Linux will now be easy to use/accessible, it currently is pretty much there with many different distros, it’s that there’s a known face behind it. In the general public Linux is just this weird thing that isn’t really attached to anything besides the super tech savvy, so they think they can’t use it because they aren’t super tech savvy. By making it steam’s Linux, they can go “oh I know steam, they do stuff really well for people like me! This is probably easy enough that I can use!”
Another thing that will help is a centralization of support. With enough people using it questions and bugs will be more common and more accessible as well as answered. Currently for you to find help for your issue you need to look for your specific distro and try to also parse if the answers for other distros would help you with your issue.
Except not really and about half the time there are breaking bugs that the average person cannot simply fix. Shit gets serious when a company like valve spends a load of programmers on this and gets it up to standard.
If you are tech savvy enough to install Windows, you can easily install Linux as well. If you install any of the big distros you will have a good time.
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.
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’ve also been able to find 99% of what I need through discover.
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
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).
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.
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.
What makes Bazzite difficult to get up and running for you? I just installed it for the first time and didn’t need to do anything else to get up and running.
The fact that it’s immutable isn’t necessarily good for people new to Linux. If something does go wrong, or the user wants to change something significant, most of what they read online about how to do that will not work like many other distros.
For experienced users, sure, there probably isn’t much difference.
Successfully, many times, it’s extremely rare that I have to actually talk with someone directly because so much has already been accurately documented.
I work with windows and those forums don’t do shit
I work with windows and those forums don’t do shit
I’ve gotten to the point that every time I’m directed to Microsoft Help I automatically downvote whatever the MS rep posts, because it will never not be garbage
They just keep saying shit like “what version are you on?” Motherfucker, the latest, and honestly, we know there isn’t a version where you fixed this problem thousands have been trying to solve for months and in a lot of cases years.
Idk how accurate this is, my boss had mentioned it, but apparently they’ve outsourced that shit to a third party, and they just keep opening tickets and solving them and keep asking you simple shit so they can bill per ticket solved. It’s a godamn mess. I’m just hoping Linux catches on enough to enter the corporate world at the user level.
We’re at a point where when something breaks, usually a Linux update fixes it, and it’s windows equivalent just keeps further breaking itself.
From what I’ve heard at work and from others, MS uses version queries to stall tickets because they constantly release updates that they can point to and say “you need to update before we can help”.
It’s built on top of Arch. The distro I’m using is Garuda, which is also built on Arch, and there’s a gaming version that includes everything you need to play games immediately. No one should use SteamOS probably for a desktop. They should use something like Garuda. SteamOS is for a console-like experience.
You cannot let someone else control your screen. This is fine by me, I never want someone controlling my screen anyway. If I want to collaborate with them, I use any number of better ways to get them shared access.
You cannot control other folks screen. This is often a challenge as too many people offer this up as the only way to remotely help them. I hate doing this because even in Windows the experience is utter garbage, but sometimes the other party just forces my hand.
Because W10 will hit EOL sooner than later; and I have to support that shit professionally.
Doesn’t matter that no one is testing or building applications for W11, no security patches mean any employer worth their salt will switch over to W11, despite not having the infrastructure to do it.
Admin VS IT. I’m nearly 40, and that story is older than I am.
Don’t use SteamOS as a desktop OS, that’s not what it’s meant to. You might be used to Windows and think that a different distribution of Linux is just a different customization of the OS, but it’s almost an entirely different OS that happens to run the same binaries.
If you’re interested in getting an alternative to Windows, try some beginner friendly Linux distros on a Virtual Machine or an old laptop. I recommend Linux Mint to newcomers, but if you’re used to the desktop mode on SteamOS maybe Kubuntu. The closest you can get is Bazzite but that’s also not a desktop OS so I wouldn’t use that unless it was for a Steam Machine. The second closest (that’s also somewhat beginner friendly) is Manjaro K DE version, but being Arch based I don’t tend to recommend it to new Linux users, but of you’re dead set on getting something as close as possible to SteamOS that’s it.
Yes, for you and me who understand what that means it’s just the same, but for someone with no Linux experience is going to be very different. Googling any issue he has will direct him to alter config files or install packages, neither of which would be permanent on SteamOS, while the OS is the same the usage of it is completely different, so for a person with no Linux experience to try to use it as their daily desktop system it would be frustrating because none of the help online would apply to him.
Cool, so did I a while back, what’s your point? It’s still not a great replacement for Windows as it’s not the intended use of the OS, and will be frustrating for someone without Linux experience.
I don’t want a replacement for windows and steam OS is about as intuitive as Linux gets. If it’s too complicated for someone they probably shouldn’t be using Linux.
Some of us legitimately want to build a gaming PC around steamOS. Stop telling us what we do or don’t want. Stop treating people like they’re tech illiterate because they’re not doing what you would do. I have 3 different distros on 3 different machines running right now - I know what I want and i know what steamOS can/can’t do. You do you.
SteamOS even now is a decently capable desktop OS. If you want more than gaming as the central focus then sure look elsewhere. But you’re just being obnoxious and condescending about it.
Isn’t Bazzite an immutable OS with very limited package availability outside of gaming? At least that’s what I remember from a while back. If so it’s an excellent distro for getting a Steam Machine just like ChimeraOS, but I’m not sure it would be a good experience for someone just getting into Linux, since most of the help he will get online will direct him to edit config files which would get overwritten on update.
For example, say the person wants to install Skype, or something that is not in the graphical UI store on Bazzite.
Most guides they would find for Linux would tell him to add a PPA, or download a .Deb, or if he manages to find something that works it would be to download an RPM and they would need to redo it every update, or they could find a guide on how to install it via flatpak (but for that they would need to know what flatpak is) or snap (and go into a lot of troubleshoot figuring out why he doesn’t have snap). We take a lot of Linux knowledge for granted, but people using it for the first time won’t know all of this.
Isn’t Bazzite an immutable OS with very limited package availability outside of gaming?
Nope. It’s basically Fedora Atomic with a lot of special sauce to make onboarding as pleasant as possible. Especially if you want to use it for gaming; be it as a HTPC/console or on desktop. Thus, like Fedora Atomic, you’ve got access to many different package managers to get your needs covered. Heck, Bazzite and its uBlue siblings actually improve upon Fedora Atomic in this regard (at least by default). Refer to this entry in its documentation for the finer details.
but I’m not sure it would be a good experience for someone just getting into Linux, since most of the help he will get online
We’ve all been faulty of this (read: searching on the internet), but we should instead consolidate Bazzite’s documentation first. Only after it isn’t found there, should one consider going to their discussion platforms; be it their own forums or their Discord server. Searching on the internet is IMO a no-go, especially if one isn’t well-versed yet.
will direct him to edit config files which would get overwritten on update.
This doesn’t apply to Fedora Atomic. Perhaps you’re conflating this with SteamOS.
My experience with Bazzite is very limited, so I appreciate the corrections. Since you seem to know a lot about it let me ask you a couple of things:
Bazzite is immutable, right? I’m sure I saw that somewhere and Fedora Atomic is also immutable IIRC
Assuming it is immutable:
How does the config changes not get overwritten? The whole point of an immutable distro is to prevent changes to files to ensure things keep working
How are packages installed? The docs you sent recommend flatpak, which while very good in theory still has a small fleet of apps available. Also they suggest using distrobox among other things, that’s definitely not beginner friendly, although an interesting concept for an advanced user to have your main machine be an immutable host to any system you want.
Regardless of that, yes one’s first intuition should be to go for the docs for your distro, but we know that’s not the case and that most people will just Google their problems with Linux in front because we keep telling them that all distros are the same (which they are, once you know what you’re doing).
Since you seem to know a lot about it let me ask you a couple of things:
😅. I’ll try my best 😜.
Bazzite is immutable, right? I’m sure I saw that somewhere and Fedora Atomic is also immutable IIRC
It is correct that the contents of / is immutable at runtime aside from /var and /etc. However, note that a lot of folders like /home and /opt are actually found in /var in response. This is later ‘fixed’ with symlinks and whatnot. In effect, only the contents of /usr (aside from /usr/share) is off-limits (or ‘actual’[1] immutable).
How does the config changes not get overwritten?
I believe my previous paragraph already answers this. But, to be even more elaborate, Fedora Atomic makes use of libostree (read: git for your OS). With this, only the pristine images are ‘swapped’ in-between updates (or rebases[2]). Your changes to the system are found in /var, /etc and in so-called ‘layers’ only and are not swapped out. Some of these changes are kept track of[3], but most of them reside in /var and will not be touched by libostree.
The whole point of an immutable distro is to prevent changes to files to ensure things keep working
Kinda. The important part is that changes are prevented for the sake of a functioning system. But the entire system doesn’t have to be locked down in order to achieve this. This does mean that it’s actually not that hard to break your system. Just rm -rf /etc and your system will probably fail to boot into the very next deployment. But, as Fedora Atomic keeps at least two deployments, you will still be able to access the previous deployment in which you tried to delete /etc. So you’re protected from accidental mishaps as long as you’ve got at least one working deployment. Thankfully, you can even pin working deployments with the ostree admin pin command. And…, just like that, the distro has basically become dummy-proof. I’m sure it’s still possible to break the system, but you’d actually have to try 😉.
So, in short, Fedora Atomic definitely intends to be a more robust system and succeeds. But, it does so while giving the user agency (and some responsibility).
How are packages installed?
I think everything of importance is mentioned in the docs. What is it exactly you want to know?
The docs you sent recommend flatpak, which while very good in theory still has a small fleet of apps available.
But that’s just the first of seven “package formats” listed in the docs 😜. The other six will assure that your remaining needs are fulfilled.
Also they suggest using distrobox among other things, that’s definitely not beginner friendly, although an interesting concept for an advanced user to have your main machine be an immutable host to any system you want.
This is obviously anecdotal, but Fedora Silverblue was the first distro that I used. I was a complete Linux newb. My coding background was also just a Python-course on Uni. But, somehow, in the very newbie-hostile environment back then (read: April 2022), I managed with Toolbx. So…, yeah…, I can’t relate. Sorry*. You might be absolutely correct. But, as I said, I don’t recognize this from my own experience. I wish I had a video-tutorial back then, though. Honestly, with the amount of hand-holding Bazzite and its docs provide, I believe a newbie should be absolutely fine.
It is even possible to overwrite this. Both in containerfile (requires creating own image) and on device (very hacky, not recommended).
Rebasing is the process by which a different image is selected to boot and run your system from. For example, with this, one can switch from Silverblue (GNOME) to Kinoite (KDE) without reinstallation. This can even be used to switch from a Fedora image to a Aurora/Bazzite/Bluefin/secureblue image.
These include the software you’ve installed through rpm-ostree (or soon dnf). We call these layered packages, based on the analogy that the packages aren’t part of the image but are magically tacked on without you noticing anything finicky. It’s quite magical. Besides that, any and all changes made to /etc are also kept track of. The former you can see by invoking rpm-ostree status, the latter by invoking ostree admin config-diff.
All of that sounds really awesome, but I think I still stand by the conclusion I had even if some/most of my assumptions were wrong, it might be too much for a new person. I get that for you it wasn’t, but I’ve also seen people whose first distro was Gentoo. The rollback to a working state feature is really cool and I definitely could have used that back in the olden days when I first started using Linux and broke my system periodically, but those were different times (be glad you don’t know what a Xorg file is hahaha).
Overall in theory it seems that Bazzite is a system I would like to use, but I thought the same of NixOS and couldn’t get used to it. But I’ll definitely try it in the future.
As an anecdotal point I have in fact ran rm -rf /etc in the past, you are correct that the system doesn’t boot (had to do a full reinstall that time). And as a completely unrelated note be very careful with pressing enter in the middle of typing a command, for example trying to delete a folder inside /etc hahahaha.
I see what you mean. But I’m a Linux beginner myself and found that their package manager has everything I need. I’m guessing it’s the one from Fedora as it was the same when I installed Nobara last year.
No this is a super out of date version that was not designed for general desktop use. It is specifically designed for the steam machine which was a failure. Value really needs to take this page down so people arent downloading a 9 year old version of linux.
Well good news: They’ve also recently announced that they’re going to be updating it to be the same as what’s on the Deck. THough we probably won’t see an actual release until either just before or just after the new version of the deck is officially announced/released.
Also: The failure of the Steam Machine had little to do with the operating system and more to do with the fact there was not one singular “Steam Machine.” It was any number of prebuilt PCs with extra stupid steps. TO say it wasn’t meant for general desktop use is bullshit; a Steam Machine was nothing more than a desktop PC running this OS.
At the time of the steam machine wine was not in a good state (from what i’ve heard, I wasnt a linux user at the time) and gaming relied on Valve getting devs to port things to SteamOS 2.
Wine was in a great state, it just wasn’t integrated on Steam so it was clunky to get it working. Long story short Steam Machines only had a handful of games available (those with native binaries) unless you jumped through hoops to install steam on wine and launch steam from steam or something of the sort.
At the time we thought that the steam machines would make devs port their games, but that didn’t happen, so Valve invested heavily on Wine to make the games come to Linux regardless of the game devs. If Valve hadn’t invested most games that run today would still run, wine has always been an amazing piece of technology, their investment was mostly on a library called dxvk which translates directX calls to Vulkan instead of OpenGL, for technical reasons this was needed for any game that only supports DX12, but also gave some performance boost to other titles. I’m not trying to downplay Valve’s hand, dxvk was a much needed piece of the puzzle that Valve singlehandedly financed, not to mention all of the other stuff they’ve done that benefitted Linux gamers over the years, but if they had integrated wine on Steam without dxvk 99% of cases would be mostly the same (but that 1% are heavy hitters).
Here’s hoping it matures enough for desktop use by the time my Win10 desktop is EOL.
Not necessary, you can use dozens of distros where playing Steam games is pretty much plug and play
What about my alternatively acquired games? I’ve tried using Mint and Steam with whatever that is that runs compatibility. Sometimes doesn’t work for them.
You can just add the .exe to steam and then they are as plug and play as most other steam games.
I tried that but then there was a launcher and the launcher loaded okay but then when you tried to run the game from the launcher it didn’t run but just crashed…
Heroic Launcher, Lutris, Bottles, or just launching them through the command line if you really want to for some reason, are your options. Heroic I just started using and it’s great. It’s especially good for games from other stores, but you can add anything to it. Lutris is pretty good, but you have to add everything manually (which you’ll have to do no matter what for what you’re asking about). Bottles is functional, but it is much harder to use than the others, but probably lighter weight if that matters to you at all (and I’ll tell you now, it doesn’t).
Thank you
What about non steam games? Maybe I’m in the extreme minority, but my most played games are things like Microsoft Flight Sim, DCS, Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous, which not only have their own launchers etc (one of which is tied directly to MS), they also require peripherals… sometimes lots of em, that have config and/or telemetry software that is all built in windows.
Unfortunately this is one of the cases where you’re going to have to do some research.
Check ProtonDB to see how a game plays on Linux. I’m assuming the flight simulator would be problematic.
Usually the periferal drivers are built into the Linux kernel. Your keyboard and mice will just work, gamepads as well. Niche stuff like wheels and flight controllers will likely not work out of the box and you’ll have to find a community based software to support it. Sucks.
If I were you I’d boot a virtual machine or a live USB drive and try it out. If you’re not comfortable with the amount of compatibility just don’t install it. Nothing lost
Currently, my favorite ways of running non-Steam games are the Heroic Games Launcher and Bottles. Heroic is especially nice if you have games from GOG or EGS. However, looking at ProtonDB, it seems that both DCS and Flight Sim 2024 don’t work too well on Linux. Overall it sounds like it might be challenging for you to switch to Linux, but you can always give it a try and see how much works.
There are plenty of ways to run non-steam games and most games work out of box. Wine/Proton, the software that steam uses to translate windows calls to linux calls, can also be run outside of steam. Wine can also just run generic windows programs so config software will probably run fine.
The peripherals is where you may run into some issues as I’m not sure how well supported they would be on linux. I wouldn’t know as I don’t use any special peripherals.
You can quite safely jump onto any distro recommended for gaming. From me I would recommend PopOS, especially when 24.04 releases - easy install and Nvidia drivers work out of the box, and the super rare issue Linus encountered is long fixed
Anecdote alert: I mean, I went to Mint thinking this to be true. The first release I tried didn’t even support my (years old) WiFi drivers, and then the second couldn’t run levels in Hitman. (Bazzite did, however, so distro apparently matters)
Interesting, what year was that? Before Ubuntu shipped with pipewire by default I do remember it having the worst Bluetooth experience, so maybe something similar was the case with WiFi?
Anecdote as well: the non-working Bluetooth lead me to perform my very first (successful) dive into system files to replace Alsa with Pipewire
Dude, you don’t need SteamOS for a desktop. Just download a more widely used desktop distro. I use Garuda, and it’s great for starting up gaming.
SteamOS will be great for a console-like experience out of the box, which is not what you want for desktop.
That is exactly why many of us want it. We know what we’re asking for. And yes we know bazzite exists.
The comment above says they want to replace their W10 desktop, so it isn’t what they want. If it’s what you want then fine, but I was writing the comment for someone who wants a desktop, not a console. If you want a console, go ahead and wait or use Bazzite. If you want a desktop then the best options are already available and SteamOS isn’t going to be it.
ok 👍
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Bump for Garuda. It’s decent, as simple as any installation I’ve ever had to do, comes well configured out of the box, and has a very active forum that the Devs keep an eye on and answer questions quite quickly.
I’ve heard linux has problems with laptops with Nvidia cards, like I have. Is this still an issue? I’m getting pretty fucked off with windows but frankly don’t have time to embark on an ongoing technical challenge.
I’ve been running pop_OS! on my Razer Blade for a few years with no issues. They install Nvidia drivers by default and also have power profiles that support hybrid graphics out of the box.
On my desktop gaming PC (with an APU and NVIDIA 10-series GPU), I’ve tried EndeavorOS and Garuda but I haven’t been able to get waking up from sleep to work on either, it crashes my graphical session everytime
I’ve got a laptop running Garuda, it has and Intel APU(so integrated graphics) and a dedicated Nvidia 1660. Working better than with Win 11 on it. I did have to configure Heroic launcher to default to the dedicated gfx card, but that was about 7 mouse clicks tops. Steam games tend to just assume that you’ll be wanting the dedicated gfx to do the work, but some games ask. That said, out of the box, I had to fight win 11 for about 25mins to get it to agree that yes I did in fact want the Nvidia card to be used to run games.
I think that’s mostly fixed at this point. I have AMD, but I’ve heard Nvidia is handled better now. Nvidia keeps everything closed source, so everyone is fucked, but support is improving. Make a Bootable USB of Garuda (or whatever distro you choose, but Garuda Dragonized I’d expect to have the drivers) and try it out. It’s very low effort to try.
AMD open-sources everything, so their stuff works everywhere. That’s why FSR is always available, because it works on any device and is open source, so it’s easy to support. DLSS only works on Nvidia devices and requires a lot more effort for developers to support, so they often only do it if Nvidia pays them because it costs them money to implement an extra solution and not everyone will even be able to use it.
Hmm yeah I was thinking about possibly trying to boot from a usb. Haven’t done that with linux since the 90s, I guess I assumed the linux os thingie would be too big or too slow. Maybe I’ll give that a try, thanks for the suggestion.
Yeah I’ve been out of the loop with tech for fuckin decades. Bought the laptop a while back without knowing about the Nvidia ting. TBH I mostly start the laptop up maybe once a week for spreadsheets, calibre, and as a file transfer medium. I’d planned on using it for gaming too but then I got a steam deck. But yeah, there’s some stuff I can’t easily do on steam deck and I’m really getting sick of fuckin windows. Every time I start the machine it’s trying to install some new AI shit or something. I don’t need that, just want a working computer!
But you’re right - next time I buy a laptop - if I need to - I’m thinking AMD for sure.
Edit - also because of my living situation (I don’t live in a house, all my electric comes from a solar panel) power consumption is a real issue for me. And that laptop is power hungry.
Trying from a USB or virtual machine is just a good idea in general. Use Ventoy to put several distros into a single USB stick and try them out. Try your hardware, check which UI you like the most.
The main thing stopping me is that I only use my PC for gaming, and I know the support for drivers etc isn’t as good on Linux (though I know this is debated).
However if Linux became more centralised, with a “gaming first” distro like this, the graphics drivers would have a “main test case” to work with.
This is my theory anyway.
If you have the exact hardware supported by the SteamOS then you’ll be fine. However, I don’t even know of they support nvidia video cards yet, I believe most of their stack is optimized for AMD cards.
In that sense, installing a more generalist linux distribution will net you a better driver compatibility.
Linux gaming is at a fantastic state right now, you install steam and games work. 20 years ago I would have never believed it to be possible.
I’ve recently gotten sick of windows and changed my gaming rigs to Nobara and Mint, both with AMD processors and 3090s. Zero issues gaming, or modding games, on either one.
Edit: you could dual boot into a Linux distribution just to try it and keep your windows just in case you don’t like it.
Yeah, the driver thing is pretty much solved at this point. If you have AMD there’s literally nothing to worry about. If you have Nvidia, you’re probably also good to go, but slightly less guaranteed. Make a Bootable USB of the distro you choose and try it to see if your hardware is supported. It’s low effort and no risk.
Something you might not know is the drivers come packaged with the kernel, so you literally never have to worry about updating your drivers. They’re just there in the background up to date. It awesome.
The experience with Linux is so much smoother than Windows because the system manages most things for you. All your applications will be updated by the package manager, so you don’t need to go to websites to download updates. Graphics drivers are just there. Everything is just handled for you.
Man, Steam has a real opportunity here to make Linux desktops more palatable. Imagine a SteamOS computer that’s as easy to use as Windows for people who don’t know Linux…
I think that the big thing for the general public is not that Linux will now be easy to use/accessible, it currently is pretty much there with many different distros, it’s that there’s a known face behind it. In the general public Linux is just this weird thing that isn’t really attached to anything besides the super tech savvy, so they think they can’t use it because they aren’t super tech savvy. By making it steam’s Linux, they can go “oh I know steam, they do stuff really well for people like me! This is probably easy enough that I can use!”
Another thing that will help is a centralization of support. With enough people using it questions and bugs will be more common and more accessible as well as answered. Currently for you to find help for your issue you need to look for your specific distro and try to also parse if the answers for other distros would help you with your issue.
There are plenty of distros that have been doing that for years now
Except not really and about half the time there are breaking bugs that the average person cannot simply fix. Shit gets serious when a company like valve spends a load of programmers on this and gets it up to standard.
If you are tech savvy enough to install Windows, you can easily install Linux as well. If you install any of the big distros you will have a good time.
You’re either doing too much or using the wrong distros. Haven’t had breaking bugs for a long while using Fedora KDE.
It’s been nothing but as reliable as windows. Windows can have severe bugs too BTW
It’s not going to happen in this iteration of SteamOS. It remains mostly a gaming “only” distribution.
My man, have you heard of Bazzite?
Yes we’ve all heard of bazzite and what we want is SteamOS.
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?
Or literally any other distro.
Pop is probably much easier to be up and running vs. Bazzite.
What makes Bazzite difficult to get up and running for you? I just installed it for the first time and didn’t need to do anything else to get up and running.
The fact that it’s immutable isn’t necessarily good for people new to Linux. If something does go wrong, or the user wants to change something significant, most of what they read online about how to do that will not work like many other distros.
For experienced users, sure, there probably isn’t much difference.
What’s keeping you from using a distro that’s already designed for desktop use?
Have you tried getting help on a basic question from a Linux forum?
Successfully, many times, it’s extremely rare that I have to actually talk with someone directly because so much has already been accurately documented.
I work with windows and those forums don’t do shit
I’ve gotten to the point that every time I’m directed to Microsoft Help I automatically downvote whatever the MS rep posts, because it will never not be garbage
They just keep saying shit like “what version are you on?” Motherfucker, the latest, and honestly, we know there isn’t a version where you fixed this problem thousands have been trying to solve for months and in a lot of cases years.
Idk how accurate this is, my boss had mentioned it, but apparently they’ve outsourced that shit to a third party, and they just keep opening tickets and solving them and keep asking you simple shit so they can bill per ticket solved. It’s a godamn mess. I’m just hoping Linux catches on enough to enter the corporate world at the user level.
We’re at a point where when something breaks, usually a Linux update fixes it, and it’s windows equivalent just keeps further breaking itself.
From what I’ve heard at work and from others, MS uses version queries to stall tickets because they constantly release updates that they can point to and say “you need to update before we can help”.
It’s probably a good mix of both. Either way, I hope it tanks. It’s getting ridiculous
I downloaded an extension that blocks sites I want just to block that garbage of a site
The ones on Lemmy are pretty good!
It used to be bad. In the last few years, it isn’t. We want other people to use Linux now.
A few times, why?
It’s just arch isn’t it?
No, it’s based on arch. There’s a bunch of polish on top of it that makes it more stable and such
I don’t speak polish though so that makes it difficult and scary.
You don’t have to talk to them, they just hold the thing together. Very strong men
Juyzt sprynkle some 'y’s and 'z’s whyle talking wyth them.
Dyslexia strikes again
I didn’t think it’s just Arch , though. IIRC it’s also immutable.
It’s built on top of Arch. The distro I’m using is Garuda, which is also built on Arch, and there’s a gaming version that includes everything you need to play games immediately. No one should use SteamOS probably for a desktop. They should use something like Garuda. SteamOS is for a console-like experience.
Yeah I don’t see any need for desktop use, except for making a Steam console under your TV.
You can use Steam with Proton on whatever distro you want.
I really want to switch my main desktop to Linux, but use it for remote work too, so I have MS Teams… is there a way to reliably virtualize it?
Teams can run as a chrome app, I use it daily.
Using it from chrome is how I use it.
Two limitations:
Krdc
https://itsfoss.com/remote-desktop-tools/
https://massgrave.dev/
Here you go.
I’m on W11 with my daily driver.
I don’t like it. I didn’t like it from the start.
So why?
Because W10 will hit EOL sooner than later; and I have to support that shit professionally.
Doesn’t matter that no one is testing or building applications for W11, no security patches mean any employer worth their salt will switch over to W11, despite not having the infrastructure to do it.
Admin VS IT. I’m nearly 40, and that story is older than I am.
I already jumped to linux and I abandoned adobe as a graphic designer. I feel so free now. The tool don’t make the profesional.
Don’t use SteamOS as a desktop OS, that’s not what it’s meant to. You might be used to Windows and think that a different distribution of Linux is just a different customization of the OS, but it’s almost an entirely different OS that happens to run the same binaries.
If you’re interested in getting an alternative to Windows, try some beginner friendly Linux distros on a Virtual Machine or an old laptop. I recommend Linux Mint to newcomers, but if you’re used to the desktop mode on SteamOS maybe Kubuntu. The closest you can get is Bazzite but that’s also not a desktop OS so I wouldn’t use that unless it was for a Steam Machine. The second closest (that’s also somewhat beginner friendly) is Manjaro K DE version, but being Arch based I don’t tend to recommend it to new Linux users, but of you’re dead set on getting something as close as possible to SteamOS that’s it.
What?
As far as I know, it’s literally just an immutable build of Arch Linux.
Yes, for you and me who understand what that means it’s just the same, but for someone with no Linux experience is going to be very different. Googling any issue he has will direct him to alter config files or install packages, neither of which would be permanent on SteamOS, while the OS is the same the usage of it is completely different, so for a person with no Linux experience to try to use it as their daily desktop system it would be frustrating because none of the help online would apply to him.
I use my steam deck with steamOS as a desktop OS several days a week.
Cool, so did I a while back, what’s your point? It’s still not a great replacement for Windows as it’s not the intended use of the OS, and will be frustrating for someone without Linux experience.
I don’t want a replacement for windows and steam OS is about as intuitive as Linux gets. If it’s too complicated for someone they probably shouldn’t be using Linux.
Some of us legitimately want to build a gaming PC around steamOS. Stop telling us what we do or don’t want. Stop treating people like they’re tech illiterate because they’re not doing what you would do. I have 3 different distros on 3 different machines running right now - I know what I want and i know what steamOS can/can’t do. You do you.
SteamOS even now is a decently capable desktop OS. If you want more than gaming as the central focus then sure look elsewhere. But you’re just being obnoxious and condescending about it.
That’s exactly my point, OP talked about replacing Win 10 desktop, not about a gaming machine (for which I agree SteamOS is an excellent choice).
They just said desktop use. Not a wholesale windows replacement. You can’t use current steamOS as a desktop outside of a steamdeck.
Exactly, they said desktop use to replace Windows that is more than gaming, by your own phrase:
They should look elsewhere.
Bazzite is full fledged desktop OS. Perfect for beginners
Isn’t Bazzite an immutable OS with very limited package availability outside of gaming? At least that’s what I remember from a while back. If so it’s an excellent distro for getting a Steam Machine just like ChimeraOS, but I’m not sure it would be a good experience for someone just getting into Linux, since most of the help he will get online will direct him to edit config files which would get overwritten on update.
For example, say the person wants to install Skype, or something that is not in the graphical UI store on Bazzite. Most guides they would find for Linux would tell him to add a PPA, or download a .Deb, or if he manages to find something that works it would be to download an RPM and they would need to redo it every update, or they could find a guide on how to install it via flatpak (but for that they would need to know what flatpak is) or snap (and go into a lot of troubleshoot figuring out why he doesn’t have snap). We take a lot of Linux knowledge for granted, but people using it for the first time won’t know all of this.
Nope. It’s basically Fedora Atomic with a lot of special sauce to make onboarding as pleasant as possible. Especially if you want to use it for gaming; be it as a HTPC/console or on desktop. Thus, like Fedora Atomic, you’ve got access to many different package managers to get your needs covered. Heck, Bazzite and its uBlue siblings actually improve upon Fedora Atomic in this regard (at least by default). Refer to this entry in its documentation for the finer details.
We’ve all been faulty of this (read: searching on the internet), but we should instead consolidate Bazzite’s documentation first. Only after it isn’t found there, should one consider going to their discussion platforms; be it their own forums or their Discord server. Searching on the internet is IMO a no-go, especially if one isn’t well-versed yet.
This doesn’t apply to Fedora Atomic. Perhaps you’re conflating this with SteamOS.
My experience with Bazzite is very limited, so I appreciate the corrections. Since you seem to know a lot about it let me ask you a couple of things:
Assuming it is immutable:
Regardless of that, yes one’s first intuition should be to go for the docs for your distro, but we know that’s not the case and that most people will just Google their problems with Linux in front because we keep telling them that all distros are the same (which they are, once you know what you’re doing).
😅. I’ll try my best 😜.
It is correct that the contents of
/is immutable at runtime aside from/varand/etc. However, note that a lot of folders like/homeand/optare actually found in/varin response. This is later ‘fixed’ with symlinks and whatnot. In effect, only the contents of/usr(aside from/usr/share) is off-limits (or ‘actual’[1] immutable).I believe my previous paragraph already answers this. But, to be even more elaborate, Fedora Atomic makes use of
libostree(read: git for your OS). With this, only the pristine images are ‘swapped’ in-between updates (or rebases[2]). Your changes to the system are found in/var,/etcand in so-called ‘layers’ only and are not swapped out. Some of these changes are kept track of[3], but most of them reside in/varand will not be touched bylibostree.Kinda. The important part is that changes are prevented for the sake of a functioning system. But the entire system doesn’t have to be locked down in order to achieve this. This does mean that it’s actually not that hard to break your system. Just
rm -rf /etcand your system will probably fail to boot into the very next deployment. But, as Fedora Atomic keeps at least two deployments, you will still be able to access the previous deployment in which you tried to delete/etc. So you’re protected from accidental mishaps as long as you’ve got at least one working deployment. Thankfully, you can even pin working deployments with theostree admin pincommand. And…, just like that, the distro has basically become dummy-proof. I’m sure it’s still possible to break the system, but you’d actually have to try 😉.So, in short, Fedora Atomic definitely intends to be a more robust system and succeeds. But, it does so while giving the user agency (and some responsibility).
I think everything of importance is mentioned in the docs. What is it exactly you want to know?
But that’s just the first of seven “package formats” listed in the docs 😜. The other six will assure that your remaining needs are fulfilled.
This is obviously anecdotal, but Fedora Silverblue was the first distro that I used. I was a complete Linux newb. My coding background was also just a Python-course on Uni. But, somehow, in the very newbie-hostile environment back then (read: April 2022), I managed with Toolbx. So…, yeah…, I can’t relate. Sorry*. You might be absolutely correct. But, as I said, I don’t recognize this from my own experience. I wish I had a video-tutorial back then, though. Honestly, with the amount of hand-holding Bazzite and its docs provide, I believe a newbie should be absolutely fine.
It is even possible to overwrite this. Both in containerfile (requires creating own image) and on device (very hacky, not recommended).
Rebasing is the process by which a different image is selected to boot and run your system from. For example, with this, one can switch from Silverblue (GNOME) to Kinoite (KDE) without reinstallation. This can even be used to switch from a Fedora image to a Aurora/Bazzite/Bluefin/secureblue image.
These include the software you’ve installed through
rpm-ostree(or soondnf). We call these layered packages, based on the analogy that the packages aren’t part of the image but are magically tacked on without you noticing anything finicky. It’s quite magical. Besides that, any and all changes made to/etcare also kept track of. The former you can see by invokingrpm-ostree status, the latter by invokingostree admin config-diff.All of that sounds really awesome, but I think I still stand by the conclusion I had even if some/most of my assumptions were wrong, it might be too much for a new person. I get that for you it wasn’t, but I’ve also seen people whose first distro was Gentoo. The rollback to a working state feature is really cool and I definitely could have used that back in the olden days when I first started using Linux and broke my system periodically, but those were different times (be glad you don’t know what a Xorg file is hahaha).
Overall in theory it seems that Bazzite is a system I would like to use, but I thought the same of NixOS and couldn’t get used to it. But I’ll definitely try it in the future.
As an anecdotal point I have in fact ran
rm -rf /etcin the past, you are correct that the system doesn’t boot (had to do a full reinstall that time). And as a completely unrelated note be very careful with pressing enter in the middle of typing a command, for example trying to delete a folder inside /etc hahahaha.I see what you mean. But I’m a Linux beginner myself and found that their package manager has everything I need. I’m guessing it’s the one from Fedora as it was the same when I installed Nobara last year.
It originated as a desktop os and you can download it right now
No this is a super out of date version that was not designed for general desktop use. It is specifically designed for the steam machine which was a failure. Value really needs to take this page down so people arent downloading a 9 year old version of linux.
Well good news: They’ve also recently announced that they’re going to be updating it to be the same as what’s on the Deck. THough we probably won’t see an actual release until either just before or just after the new version of the deck is officially announced/released.
Also: The failure of the Steam Machine had little to do with the operating system and more to do with the fact there was not one singular “Steam Machine.” It was any number of prebuilt PCs with extra stupid steps. TO say it wasn’t meant for general desktop use is bullshit; a Steam Machine was nothing more than a desktop PC running this OS.
At the time of the steam machine wine was not in a good state (from what i’ve heard, I wasnt a linux user at the time) and gaming relied on Valve getting devs to port things to SteamOS 2.
Wine was in a great state, it just wasn’t integrated on Steam so it was clunky to get it working. Long story short Steam Machines only had a handful of games available (those with native binaries) unless you jumped through hoops to install steam on wine and launch steam from steam or something of the sort.
At the time we thought that the steam machines would make devs port their games, but that didn’t happen, so Valve invested heavily on Wine to make the games come to Linux regardless of the game devs. If Valve hadn’t invested most games that run today would still run, wine has always been an amazing piece of technology, their investment was mostly on a library called dxvk which translates directX calls to Vulkan instead of OpenGL, for technical reasons this was needed for any game that only supports DX12, but also gave some performance boost to other titles. I’m not trying to downplay Valve’s hand, dxvk was a much needed piece of the puzzle that Valve singlehandedly financed, not to mention all of the other stuff they’ve done that benefitted Linux gamers over the years, but if they had integrated wine on Steam without dxvk 99% of cases would be mostly the same (but that 1% are heavy hitters).
99% accurate, but to clarify, dxvk only translates DirectX versions 8-11 to Vulkan. vkd3d translates DX12 games.