Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming • Hacker News Board

Re: Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming

#231

Post by GaryBluto » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 7:18 AM UTC

Why are there so many of these "specialized" hobby project Linux distros that people are using as daily drivers? Are people too lazy to use an operating system that they have to do even a minor amount of configuration to use? Do people really need every program built in?

Projects like this fit all the criteria of what I've nicknamed "Mastodon projects", because they always have either (or both) Mastodon and Discord links on their websites and are primarily developed by people with "alternative" social media accounts. They always implode within a few years due to some form of ridiculous community drama that other FOSS projects don't suffer from (because other open source projects usually have a somewhat serious "community", or lack of a cohesive one altogether).

Re: Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming

#232

Post by alfanick » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 7:18 AM UTC

alfanick wrote: post #228

The comments here are hilarious. Something to go with my morning coffee. We live in the universe where you cannot distinguish between a human or an AI.

The more I read, the more confused I get. Either I live in some bubble, or I truly don't understand the world. It's a Linux distro based on Fedora, for gamers or smth - did all Linux gamers gather on HN today!? I'm not into gaming, hey I'm into Linux, I don't understand why this gets so much traction. Like yeah, I cannot comprehend that.

Re: Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming

#233

Post by ThatPlayer » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 7:22 AM UTC

wiradikusuma wrote: post #126

I want to create a "gaming streaming platform" like Stadia as a weekend project, does anyone know where to get started? Basically where the input device and the game are in different machines.

Haven't tried it much myself, but there's Wolf if you want to do it from Docker containers: https://github.com/games-on-whales/wolf

Re: Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming

#234

Post by alfanick » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 7:23 AM UTC

alfanick wrote: post #228

The comments here are hilarious. Something to go with my morning coffee. We live in the universe where you cannot distinguish between a human or an AI.

Is this an experiment? Is my mind broken? If 1) cool, if 2) I probably need help. @dang wtf is going on in here!?

Re: Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming

#235

Post by tommica » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 7:23 AM UTC

udev4096 wrote: post #224

LelouBil wrote: post #2

Great distro ! I have been using it for the last 2 years on my Framework laptop 16 without any issues. I even have a "fork" of sorts that adds Hyprland + all of my "desktop" config, which I think as being part of the OS. I really think immutable distributions are the future of linux desktop, and maybe distributions that use OCI images, beacause they are a lot easier to work with than say, NixOS for example. If you wa…

Immutable is very good for new linux users but I personally don't like the restriction and find rpmostree extremely slow to install literally anything. It does make sense to use immutable distros in routers, firewall, etc

I try not to use rpmostree to install anything (only steam-input, codecs and nvidia drivers), and rely on homebrew, appimages, flatpaks and toolbox for my app needs. It works so far...

There is something about immutable linuxes that feels right, and I cannot pinpoint why exactly, but it's like things are segregated correctly.

Re: Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming

#236

Post by gethly » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 7:24 AM UTC

GaryBluto wrote: post #231

Why are there so many of these "specialized" hobby project Linux distros that people are using as daily drivers? Are people too lazy to use an operating system that they have to do even a minor amount of configuration to use? Do people really need every program built in? Projects like this fit all the criteria of what I've nicknamed "Mastodon projects", because they always have either (or both) Mastodon and Discord l…

as far as i understand, it is about specific game and performance related tweaks in the kernel. so it goes beyond just a distribution where you just string together few programs, desktop environment and some config files and call it a day.

this is why linux, after all, is still where it was 20 years ago. all those endless distributions and fragmentation make it non-competitive against the mainstream desktop operating systems. ubuntu was doing good work by becoming the de facto desktop linux by sheer branding. but they dropped the ball really hard and that opportunity to make linux desktop a serious competition is gone. now games are leading the way so maybe steam os or one of these gaming-tuned distros might pick up the momentum.

Re: Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming

#237

Post by gethly » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 7:27 AM UTC

haunter wrote: post #21

As much as I love Bazzite at end of the day it's still a custom distro and every single day there is a chance they just close the project down and move on. Happened to so many distros in the past, this is not out of question. I’m not saying “big corporate” distros are better but personally I'd rather stick to something more mainline. Hopefully Valve will release a general version of SteamOS with Steam Machine coming…

I wonder if people would be willing to pay 10€/$ for a yearly update so that there could be some commercial force behind a distribution that would provide security and stability for desktop users. with windows, you pay one large amount upfront. with macos, you get it with hardware. so having something like this, i think, has a potential to succeed and a place in commercial market.

Re: Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming

#238

Post by gfaster » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 7:28 AM UTC

dlivingston wrote: post #170

__aru wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I'd define the atomic Fedora variants as "distros" in the traditional sense. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but Bazzite, Bluefin, etc, are basically just Dockerfiles that use Atomic Fedora as the base image. So you are basically getting a pre-built docker container that is "Fedora + various configs added on top", and then you are booting that docker image. Since it's just a container file, anyon…

Interesting. So Bazzite could be, theoretically, remade as just a NixOS configuration file.

Ironically, I'm considering installing Bazzite alongside NixOS because it's proven to be nearly impossible to run SteamVR properly with how Steam is packaged

Re: Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming

#239

Post by jtrn » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 7:28 AM UTC

I have a special spot that gets extremely annoyed when I feel I have to spend a necessary time just figuring out what something is. The page suffers from "developer-brain" marketing, where they describe the technology used to build it (cloud-native images) rather than what the product actually is. Why not just lead with that it is a Linux distro/version focused on gaming. In the beginning, I thought it was new hardware, then I actually thought it was a streaming service. the website does a poor job of simply stating what it actually is. Then again, I might be stupid, but the problem is that a lot of people are stupid. And I guess many non-developers are going to have a hard time just figuring out what the hell this thing is. I’m probably being too cranky now, but the page reads like a combination of the worst from developers-speak combined with the rest of marketing-speak.

Re: Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming

#240

Post by alfanick » Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 7:28 AM UTC

GaryBluto wrote: post #231

Why are there so many of these "specialized" hobby project Linux distros that people are using as daily drivers? Are people too lazy to use an operating system that they have to do even a minor amount of configuration to use? Do people really need every program built in? Projects like this fit all the criteria of what I've nicknamed "Mastodon projects", because they always have either (or both) Mastodon and Discord l…

This. We could be good buddies.

I'm not understanding this OS and I'm extremely confused that this post got so much traction on HN. Gosh, either I'm too young, or too old, or too nerdy.

I'm not critiquing the project itself, more like, I'm surprised [very surprised], that it got so much traction on HN, not usual news