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Decided to try out Bazzite on my desktop PC - Distrobox feels like magic (ttrpg.network)

submitted 10 months ago by AldinTheMage@ttrpg.network to c/linux@lemmy.world

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My distro of choice is Debian (I like their philosophy and it works great on my laptop) but I have an nVidia card in my desktop PC, and driver management was kind of annoying. Decided to try Kubuntu, which worked ok, but I didn't really love, and then I didn't update for a bit too long and had some repo issues trying to install updates. I didn't bother digging into what the fix would be, since I had been considering Bazzite for a while, as it has been talked about a lot for gaming.

Knowing literally nothing other than "Bazzite works out of the box with nVidia" I figured I'd give it a go. First off, I was surprised at the size of the image, and how long the install took. I did some reading about atomic distros and began to understand why things were set up that way. Seems pretty cool! I still don't love that as soon as I logged in on my fresh install, Steam opened up and asked for a log in, but that is what I signed up for with Bazzite, I guess. The nVidia drivers out of the box worked fantastic, as advertised, and I love a good KDE desktop, so it's not all bad.

Initially I was frustrated that some things weren't working in the flatpak versions of the app (couldn't get to my 3d printer using the .local address from the browser because flatpak has a bug with mDNS) and layering a package with rpm-ostree seems like overkill and not a good experience. Then I watched some videos on distrobox.

I can just distrobox create --image debian:latest debian-box and then use apt install for whatever packages I want, export them and use them as if they were natively installed on Bazzite??? And this works on any distro??? I have been using Linux exclusively for a few years (and on and off for more years), but I have been totally out of the loop with distrobox and atomic distros. This feels like the same level of magic I felt when I first dual booted Ubuntu back in the Windows Vista days. This seems like it will fix 99% of the issues I run into on Linux.

I know distrobox isn't exclusive to atomic distros, but I wouldn't have discovered it if not for Bazzite.

Anyway, none of this is really new info, but I just wanted to nerd out about it for a bit with people who will know what I'm talking about.

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[-] TheMadCodger@piefed.social 23 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

If you're not primarily a gamer, Bazzite has a sister ~~Kinoite~~ Aurora (or Bluefin if you want Gnome, but you said you like KDE), which is the same underlying OS, but not preconfigured for gaming. I use Bluefin on my laptop and Bazzite on my steam deck, and yeah I love not having to think about it.

Also, have you read about rebasing?

edit: Kinoite and Silverblue are Fedora's default atomic distros. Aurora and Bluefin are the equivalents that are preconfigured out of the box for ease of use and related to Bazzite.

[-] eodur@piefed.social 3 points 10 months ago

I think Aurora is closer to Bazzite and Bluefin for KDE.

[-] TheMadCodger@piefed.social 2 points 10 months ago

Oh you're right. I don't KDE so I gave the Silverblue equivalent accidentally. I'll edit it.

[-] AldinTheMage@ttrpg.network 2 points 10 months ago

I have heard of rebasing but I haven't dug into it. Sounds really cool!

I do use my PC for gaming, but Bazzite did come with a lot of other "gaming" software that I don't use, so it's good to know there is a lighter weight alternative that otherwise has the same benefits.

[-] TheMadCodger@piefed.social 3 points 10 months ago

I'm no expert, but I think of it as two layers: your layer on top (where you keep things important to you) and the system layer on the bottom (what makes the computer actually run). Most people don't care about that bottom layer, so may as well make it immutable.

Rebasing is like lifting up your top layer and pivoting it onto a new bottom layer of a similar "os". Updating is the same thing, it just pivots to an updated version of the same os. In either case, if something goes wrong, you reboot and choose the previous version and it pivots your top layer back.

It's been a while since I installed Bazzite but I remember it having an on boarding where you selected what you needed and it installed it for you. I skipped most of it. And I know Bluefin has a command you can run to install basic gaming programs. So you have options.

[-] Mikina@programming.dev 16 points 10 months ago

I also highly recommend looking into https://www.winboat.app/

It might be a pain to setup on Bazzite (it's probably better to just use ostree-rpm for the prerequisities), but it's exactly the same kind of magic, but for Windows apps!

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Is that a compatibility layer thing, or a full Windows VM (requiring a Windows license) integrated into the Linux desktop environment? Being able to run the Affinity suite without having to switch to Windows is appealing.

Edit: There's no GPU access so it's unlikely things like Affinity Photo would run well.

[-] Neptr 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Full KVM in Docker but doesnt require a Windows license.

[-] StopSpazzing@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Still beta and its on the top of the todo list i hear.

[-] AldinTheMage@ttrpg.network 2 points 10 months ago

Huh, I may look into this. Sounds neat. Thanks!

[-] melfie@lemy.lol 2 points 10 months ago

Haven’t heard of WinBoat and looks pretty slick—thanks for sharing!

[-] artyom@piefed.social 13 points 10 months ago

I still don't love that as soon as I logged in on my fresh install, Steam opened up and asked for a log in, but that is what I signed up for with Bazzite, I guess.

Yeah, it's a gaming distro and anyone who games will be using Steam, especially on Linux.

I do wish they would release a non-gaming version.

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

Bluefin and Aurora are the original distros. Bazzite is a spin of bluefin.

[-] petrichornetrainfall@piefed.social 5 points 10 months ago

uBlue is the original or base distro. Aurora, bluefin, and bazzite are spins of uBlue.

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Ublue is not a workable system image. It's the general cloud native process to make distributions. There's a bare bones starting point oci image called ublue-os. But that's like saying the hammer is the original chair. It's confusing a tool with the final product.

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[-] artyom@piefed.social 2 points 10 months ago

I'm aware but those don't have what Bazzite does.

[-] MadameBisaster 7 points 10 months ago

Isnt aurora from the same devs?

[-] artyom@piefed.social 2 points 10 months ago

I don't know but it's missing a lot of the things Bazzite has, like the ujust commands and OOTB configurations/optimizations.

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[-] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 10 points 10 months ago

Linux noob here, I've been running Mint for about a year and constantly bitching about my Nvidia card's performance vs. Windows. I have the most updated closed source drivers installed, but cooking shaders on games still takes a half hour and many games run like trash even after precompiling said shaders. Space Marine 2 comes to mind, runs like butter on my Win10 partition but is basically unplayable on Linux.

Am I hearing that I just need to switch to Bazzite and this problem disappears?? Because on God I will do that literally tonight if that's true. I had been holding out for a new batch of Nvidia proprietary drivers to hit the scene or else just resigning myself to having to buy an AMD card.

I'd expect that Bazzite and Mint would use the same Nvidia proprietary drivers without much noticeable change in performance, but to be honest I don't know jack about shit about their back end behind the scenes processes so I could be wildly off base.

[-] Lumisal@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Yes

I got a 3090 card and have her 0 issues so far. Wouldn't even consider another OS for gaming at the moment with how well everything works.

Even my monitor works better with Bazzite than with Windows 11.

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[-] blipcast@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I had used Ubuntu in the past, but ran into some wifi driver issues when installing it on my new laptop, fast forward a few years, and I was ready to give Linux another go. I read that Bazzite was pre-optimized for gaming, and I figured everything else I want to do should be relatively easy in comparison.

I've been impressed by how clean and no nonsense the interface is, and is just a solid daily driver OS. I've been slowly learning the nuances of what it means to be an Atomic Desktop, but I still get confused about the proper way to install things if they can't be found in the flatpak discovery tool. Pretty sure I have two versions of Chrome installed right now. That's not a problem with Bazzite though, just a new-to-linux problem.

[-] glitching@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago

I'm gonna hate on the thing. had high hopes from all the rave reviews so my disappointment was commensurate.

you missed to state your config, and Imma assume it's a high-end system. how do I know? because I ran it on weak hardware and it was molasses slow. Ryzen 4650u, 16 GB DDR4, 500 GB NVMe and whatever graphics it has integrated, some rando controller, connected to a 40" 4K display, let's see what the hubbub is all about...

the install process, forgetaboutit. can't believe they piggy-backed off of the broken-est installer out there, fedora's calamares. dog help you if you need anything but the vanilla-est install, as any changes to partitions result in unrecoverable install errors. as I understand it, there's a whole-ass fedora install that isn't needed for anything but to run the installer - hence the hefty size, about twice that of a regular install ISO.

once installed, what everyone and their uncle forgot to mention during the rave reviews (and you kinda glossed over) is that a steam account is fucking mandatory. like, you can't even log in, switch to desktop mode, change resolution, nada. if you just want local-only games - get bent, you hafta go through us to access shit on your own computer! not only does this rub me the wrong way, I got no such spy/adware on any of my other devices.

I got no windows with the mandatory online account, no Google TV with the mandatory online account, ditched Plex because it won't run with no internet, got no Android with a Google account... why would I make an exception in this case? what, gabe the yacht owner is "our people"? he isn't and I won't.

it's highly impractical for everyday use (will it behave without internet?), not to mention - it's fucking superfluous. I got no games on there, no intention or way of getting them from there and I give a total of zero fucks about the chit-chat rooms and achievements and other crap presented therein.

handling "alternatively" acquired games is a fucking chore. switch to desktop mode, do the thing there, then manually add and tweak them in steam's UI and add missing graphics and stuff and switch back and forth until it's all in order - you best believe the switch isn't instantaneous. it's not really a huge deal as you don't do that multiple times per day (or even daily), but I don't see why this couldn't have been a controller-only-interface activity.

speaking of desktop mode, this was my first contact with the immutable, atomic, cloudnative, whatchamacallit concept and for me, this thing blows elephant fucking dick. it is so slow, cumbersome, inefficient... if you thought regular dnf and flatpak installs and upgrades are slow, installing anything here takes fuckin eons. and the constant restart prompts for this and that, dios mio!

finally, everything feels sooo slow and clunky. I get that my puny hardware can't handle modern titles, but browsing the UI and interacting with the system shouldn't be even close to a demanding task.

so mad props to the team who made this happen, I get how this is an impressive engineering feat to weld all them things together in a sorta cohesive way, but I feel some of the things I mentioned shoulda been way more prominently featured before us clueless folk decide to switch to it.

[-] M1ch431@slrpnk.net 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Have you considered that your setup can't handle a 4K monitor?

Your setup really isn't that bad, it almost makes me think something is wrong with your computer if a Steam Deck is less powerful than your Ryzen 4560u and Bazzite et al. run perfectly fine on it.

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[-] Zangoose@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

once installed, what everyone and their uncle forgot to mention during the rave reviews (and you kinda glossed over) is that a steam account is fucking mandatory. like, you can't even log in, switch to desktop mode, change resolution, nada. ...

This is not true. When you download the installer from their website there is a prompt asking you if you want a Desktop-first install or the Steam-mode first install. The desktop install boots directly into KDE or Gnome just like any other distro, and doesn't require a steam account, but will come with the steam launcher pre installed.

I get that it's not great UX to put install options like that in the website but If you're going to go on a long rant about how awful it is, please at least put a fraction of that effort into seeing if you're actually right.

If you chose to download the steam gaming mode version I think it's understandable that the expectation is that you have a steam account. The whole point of that mode to begin with is that it replicates the experience you'd get on the steam deck, so you can make your own home-console PC or install it on a handheld like the Lenovo or ASUS ones. It's not really designed around regular desktop use.

Side note, I haven't used it much yet but so far bazzite has been working fine on my i7 7700hq + 1050ti laptop with the same ram and storage as yours that I got because it couldn't run Windows 11. It should be about as powerful as yours, maybe slightly weaker on the CPU side and slightly better on the GPU side. Have you looked into it being maybe some weird driver issue with your laptop's power management? It could maybe have something to do with that.

[-] MangoPenguin 6 points 10 months ago

It sounds like maybe you downloaded the steam big picture version? The normal version just has a KDE Linux desktop like you'd expect.

[-] AldinTheMage@ttrpg.network 3 points 10 months ago

I have an older Ryzen 5, 16GB of ram and an nVidia 1070, so not cutting edge for sure. I downloaded the regular desktop version, not the steam big picture console-ish version, and steam account was not required. I just closed the steam window until I was done with my setup. I haven't seen any performance issues

[-] Dangerhart@lemmy.zip 2 points 9 months ago

I've also been using bazzite with an nvidia card since the windows 10 death, my only callout would be VR is utterly broken for me. This isn't a Bazzite problem, its due to nvidia drivers and impacts all Linux when using a wired headset (wireless is fine). I'm currently looking for a second cheap nvme to install windows to for just VR. If you have an AMD card everything works great. I've spent hours tinkering, switching to Monado and Xrizer from steamvr while tinkering with environment variables. Best I can do is get HL playable on 90hz with my index and a 3090. On windows I was doing 120hz pretty easily. Heres to hoping AMD really steps up next gen because I don't want to support nvidia.

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[-] Echolynx@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 months ago

I am currently on Kubuntu but thinking of switching to Bazzite on my PC, which does have an Nvidia card.

How much of a pain is it to switch distros while redoing setups the least amount possible?

[-] AldinTheMage@ttrpg.network 2 points 4 months ago

It's going to be a total re-install, so that depends on what kind of setups you have. Not really different than switching to/from another distro.

Bazzite ships with KDE, so you could likely copy your themes and customizations for that pretty easily.

Bazzite is fedora based, and doesn't use apt, but you can use distrobox like I mentioned in my post to get familiar ubuntu packages, if there are things that you need to be not flatpaks. You also can probably copy config files from non-flatpak apps into the flatpaks for most apps. I did this with my Cura configs. It may depend on the application.

Basically, I just backed up my user folder (~/) and pulled any configs out of there. You could just back up ~/.config and ~/.local but with ubuntu there are likely some things in a snap directory and such. Mainly ~/.config and ~/.local, but some applications may use other directories, like snap, etc.

[-] YesIAmHoomanNoCat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 months ago

I just installed bazzite a couple of weeks ago and have multiple issues. Gonna have to migrate away from it again.. Unstable WLAN, Sound Bugs and lag spikes in games

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this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025

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