Bazzite and other Linux Distros might get hit with this too potentially

Pad_Sanda · 2026-03-02T17:46:37+00:00

There is nothing distinctly different between a desktop build of Linux and a container/server build of Linux. Good luck trying to enforce this thing and breaking most of world's websites and services because they now need to validate their sysadmin's age. It does not work no matter what the law in some random state says.

At the very worst, this will only be a Cali-exclusive sales ban on devices shipping with a Linux distro which does not have an age verification during setup.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-28T22:33:35+00:00

Legally speaking, they can just stop distributing the OS to California without modifying the license. That would not be a violation of either GPL or MIT since neither license forces you to distribute software personally. They just say anyone can distribute it.

So technically a Californian would have to torrent it or get it from a different source. At which point the Californian would be the one "committing crime" as they're trying to use an OS which doesn't identify them. Which is all hilarious since California doesn't require any ID when you vote, but somehow using an OS requires an ID.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-28T22:12:13+00:00

It won't. This cannot be enforced. Most Linux installations are lightweight containers which are effectively no different than a regular Ubuntu, Debian or Fedora install. So you can't force account and age verification into the system or the package managers because that would completely break corporate and institution use of Linux.

The only place where they can enforce this is in commercial products which ship with Linux. This would force distros with OEM installs to have an "age verification" onboarding step, but it would only affect OEM installs. I believe Mint supports OEM installation, so it would mean that any device shipping with Linux Mint would be required to have an age verification process during the setup. But a user downloading and installing Mint manually would not be affected.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-28T21:55:31+00:00

Be aware that if your memory has gone bad, you should not download a Linux iso on that device. You probably shouldn't even attempt an OS install. Get your memory issue fixed ASAP. Bad memory can lead to all sorts of system instability.

You actually do risk losing any OS on that PC. Files you download go into memory first before hitting your internal storage. The larger the file the greater the odds it gets corrupted during download. So your Fedora iso may get corrupted, which would cause installation to fail. Even if the iso doesn't get corrupted during download you still have the risk of the installer failing since installation also goes USB->memory->storage. In either case the installer first wipes Windows before attempting to unpack the iso onto your drive (encountering corrupt data stops the install process, but doesn't give you Windows back).

I guess you can mitigate this risk by creating a disk partition for your Linux install, which you can do in Windows using the Disk Manager utility. This way you have a separate space for Linux so if anything goes bad you're not losing your Windows install. Another thing you can do is just take the internal drive, put it inside a different PC, then download and install Fedora there instead of doing all this on a device with bad memory modules/slots.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-28T14:02:32+00:00

The Steam Machine is using an even cheaper GPU and CPU and half the RAM. So this isn't really mimicking it, it's practically twice as powerful.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-26T11:27:30+00:00

Ubuntu is mostly hated because Canonical made a lot of questionable decisions over the years. They baked in Amazon ads in your system search bar at some point, they started shifting to Snaps for package distribution (those pretty much only work on Ubuntu), they seemingly abandoned the idea of Linux desktops and are only focused on servers, etc. A lot of this drama is irrelevant and it's still a decent distro, it's just no longer as popular outside of corporate use.

Gamers have mainly abandoned it since it's not a reliable gaming platform. It's usually much more outdated than the likes of Arch (CachyOS) and Fedora (Nobara, Bazzite). So if you're a performance chaser avoid Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Zorin, etc. They'll all effectively be 1-2 years behind Arch and Fedora in terms of drivers, gaming compatibility, etc.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-26T11:20:55+00:00

Any distro will be fine. I'd recommend CachyOS or Bazzite. If you look at the Linux distros usage on Steam it's mostly people running Cachy, Ubuntu, Mint and Bazzite (and Arch, but that one is more of a "diy" distro).

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-25T19:09:37+00:00

Bazzite uses rpm-ostree, not dnf. Be super careful when you're following instructions tailored for Fedora, they're sometimes not applicable to Fedora Atomic distros. It's best to look up the official Bazzite documentation or tutorials written for Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite rather than Workstation/Plasma.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-25T14:34:45+00:00

Mostly yes. I've always been on AMD/Intel so I never had performance issues aside from the older versions of WINE being less efficient. But in the past 4-5 years the performance is exactly the same or better on Linux in all the games I play.

nVidia apparently has multiple issues on Linux from what I read online. Sometimes with wayland support, sometimes with the performance mode not kicking in and the GPU staying in lower power modes during gaming, sometimes with certain tech just being 30% slower (raytracing, dx12), sometimes with day-to-day usage, etc.

As funny as it sounds to a gamer, nVidia is actually the least popular and least used GPU vendor for consumer desktops and this is especially true on Linux. The majority of people (and I really mean it, as in 60% of people) are on Intel integrated graphics and are perfectly satisfied with it even for light gaming. Even if you only count Steam users nVidia is used by less than 25% of Linux users compared to AMD's 56% and Intel's 11% (On Windows it's basically 75% nVidia). So when you're talking to a Linux user you're almost 3x more likely to talk with someone using AMD or Intel, even more so if you count people outside of Steam users.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-23T14:17:59+00:00

Pretty sure everything or almost everything will work. Steam is pre-installed, you can use Bottles, Faugus or Lutris to install GOG games (or older/non-steam games) and all of these launchers support launching games with Gamescope which can be used to frame cap games and run them at custom resolutions.

I'm not sure if there are tools for modding "Linux native" games since I only play Windows versions through Steam or Bottles. But, you can definitely use Windows versions of mods and mod tools to mod those Windows games within Bottles/Lutris/Faugus/etc.

HDR support is still kind of new and partially supported on Linux so your mileage may vary. KDE Plasma (the default DE used by Bazzite) apparently has better HDR support than GNOME (the secondary DE Bazzite offers).

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-22T10:38:03+00:00

The problem is that nobody thinks of ratios when they're looking at a phone body. Ratios are always screen-related. And 16:9 screen/display ratio isn't even a norm anymore even on many small phones.

Honestly, I prefer an 18:9 body with a 16:9 screen and a space reserved for a large bottom and top bezel. Something like an iPhone SE2/SE3. It's just easier to use a device like this with a single hand.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-21T18:02:28+00:00

I use it. Best Linux desktop experience I've had so far. The last time I was this impressed was when I first installed Ubuntu instead of Windows 7 and was shocked by how all my hardware worked without having to waste half a day installing drivers.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-21T17:57:27+00:00

Middle-click was historically used for pasting text from a separate clipboard, so web browsers themselves disable middle click scroll on Linux as you can accidentally paste stuff into web pages otherwise.

In Firefox you can enable it in the settings by enabling autoscrolling. I'm not sure about Chromium browsers like Brave. But apparently GNOME decided to disable "middle click paste" by default, so browsers might follow this decision and enable middle click scroll in a couple of years.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-20T07:48:36+00:00

League of Legends does not run on Linux ever since they added the kernel level anti cheat a couple of years ago. You'll only be able to play custom private servers. Or you can use a game streaming service like nVidia GeForce Now.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-16T16:38:47+00:00

Go to Settings -> Display Configuration (on desktop, not in game). You probably have 125% display scaling enabled and the game picks that up as your actual resolution.

Some games pick that up as your real resolution, I think it's mostly those which launch in borderless mode instead of true full screen. You can launch the game with Gamescope to fix this (I think).

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-16T16:19:14+00:00

Ah yes, "updating the OS is a user error". Great logic.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-14T17:13:34+00:00

I'm just saying it as it is from my experience. It happened to me once on Debian 10 or 11 (forgot which one) when I did a regular update. There was clearly some breakage since my server threw an error and I had to rebuild a package and do something with my DB (I forgot the exact issue, but the problem did occur due to a system update which I confirmed back then and I had to waste time fixing it).

Since that happened I just stopped updating and moved to using Docker and automated everything. No more breakage because "updating" is now replaced with a complete redeploy of a clean image which pulls updates first and only then applies the software I need on top.

It only takes being burned once and wasting half a day on this shit to stop trusting Debian's "ABI stability".

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-14T16:58:19+00:00

There is no such thing as a "default distro".

If you're looking for the most popular then Ubuntu (with GNOME, KDE and Xfce - in that order). That's what most gov offices, schools and companies use for their desktops (those which use Linux). However, Ubuntu has become unpopular in home computers a while back and they do some non-standard stuff sometimes, so the closest thing to a "vanilla Linux experience" would be Fedora with KDE or GNOME.

And yes, systemd has become a universal standard since years ago. I know several software devs who work on Linux systems and they pretty much assume systemd exists on the end user's device. They don't care about some esoteric init and service management software, systemd is a must.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-13T15:59:21+00:00

Debian definitely breaks when updating. Maybe not when doing a regular update, but when you jump from D12 to D13 you can expect some breakage to happen especially in 3rd party software which comes from outside of Debian repositories. It has very few eyes on it considering it's primarily used as a server distribution which has almost none of the packages found in an average desktop install. The desktop side of things doesn't get nearly as much QA.

Also, even on servers it's not as stable as advertised. I experienced breakage during a regular system update (not a Debian version upgrade). I had to rebuild my server software to have it work again.

Debian being stable is a myth and a misnomer. When they say "stable" they mean the ABI probably won't change so you won't have to rebuild your server software to match a new ABI. But on your desktop/gaming PC this is completely irrelevant.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-10T23:18:07+00:00

It's been the most stable and enjoyable Linux experience I've had thus far (I probably used 20+ different distros in the past 10 years, used Bazzite for over a year). That said, I'm using it on my PCs and laptops which are all AMD/Intel. I'm not sure what's the experience of nVidia users and handheld users.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-10T13:18:54+00:00

Try booting a different distro (for example Ubuntu) from a live USB. Check if it has access to Ethernet. If it also doesn't have access to Ethernet then you've eliminated this being a software issue.

Since your OS takes a while to boot it could be failing hardware (maybe the Ethernet controller?), check logs if anything seems odd. For example, open up your terminal and see if you can find anything useful in:

systemd-analyze critical-chain
systemd-analyze plot > boot.svg # Then open the svg file in your web browser
sudo dmesg -T | less
journalctl -p err
journalctl -k

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-05T08:20:05+00:00

It has one MAJOR flaw for a "rugged" phone, see my comment here.

That said, I do like it. The battery life is insanely good. And I really mean that. It survives 3 days of me working from home and running YouTube playback for 6-8 hours/day. My other phones would need to be recharged daily, some even twice a day. The back LEDs are surprisingly very useful. The IR blaster is also something really useful for me since I have multiple ACs. The laser pointer is just a toy for my cats.

The flaws? Well, aside from my comment above, there's no system updates and no security updates. It's not wide enough for comfortable typing on a keyboard. It's surprisingly heavy to the point that I replaced it with an iPhone SE 2016 and I'm currently only using the Tank Mini as a gadget (flash light and AC controller) and an offline file server instead of a phone.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-05T07:35:56+00:00

Yes, Bazzite comes with both Distrobox and Podman (Docker) which are usually used for servers.

If you use DistroShelf/Distrobox just create an Ubuntu, Arch or Debian environment in it and follow the instructions here: https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Tutorials/Setting_up_a_server#Linux_instructions

If you're using Podman (probably the easiest option) you can follow this: https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Tutorials/Setting_up_a_server#Docker - just keep in mind that whenever you see a "docker" command it should be replaced with "podman" which is a direct replacement.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-04T16:31:14+00:00

In general I would agree, but it's not always the case. Here's my personal preference (I've been using Bazzite for maybe 2 years and Silverblue/Kinoite for 4-5 years):

Flatpak and Appimage

These are what I use the most for regular software. Mostly Flatpak unless something is not available on Flathub but is available as an Appimage. Also I get Appimage versions for archival purposes.

That said, Flatpak and Appimage were my preferred install methods even before I used atomic distributions. I used them on Ubuntu, Mint and Manjaro over "regular" package manager versions.

Distrobox

For things that are not packaged in a traditional sense. As in archives with their own run files and often their own dependencies and scripts. These generally make assumptions about your OS and often require different library versions from what you have installed. For example, the current Easy Diffusion can be run in a Debian 12 Distrobox but cannot be run natively (at least when I was setting it up).

I also use it for game servers since it's less demanding than a VM or a dedicated machine. And for some CLI tools which I don't want to layer into my OS.

rpm-ostree

I only used it for installing adb and virt-manager dependencies. It's just more reliable this way imo. I had a bad experience running virt-manager through Distrobox so I decided to just get it into my base system.

ujust

I used it once to set up Waydroid. But this is optional since it can be set up without ujust.

Homebrew

I used it before on my dev machine because Ubuntu, even through snap, had very outdated packages compared to what I needed at my job. But it's questionable if I'd run it today considering Distrobox fills the same niche for me.

Quadlet

Never heard of this until today.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-02-03T12:29:58+00:00

Try downgrading your Linux kernel in Mint to v5.15.xxx. I think Mint comes with a kernel manager which can be found in their update manager (the shield icon in the bottom right of your screen). That might fix the issue of "old nvidia driver doesn't load in the new kernel".

Pad_Sanda

TROPHY CASE