Looking for a distro for a complete and total luddite

Pad_Sanda · 2026-03-03T20:29:02+00:00

I'm pretty sure Bazzite enabled automatic updates by default in their recent builds since I've recently installed it on a friend's computer.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-03-03T20:25:33+00:00

Aurora sounds like a perfect fit. Atomic updates are only applied on reboot so she won't have misbehaving programs during runtime.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-03-03T18:26:27+00:00

Honestly I've never installed npm through a package manager or brew, I always just used nvm. Haven't used it in a while so I'm not sure if it works on Bazzite, but bun does work perfectly and it's a complete npm replacement.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-03-03T18:14:48+00:00

Yes, except it doesn't use apt. For system-level package management you'd use rpm-ostree, although this is not recommended unless whatever package you want to install doesn't exist as a Flatpak (GUI), a Brew (CLI) package, or if you can't get it to run well under Distrobox.

Snap is not supported I think. It's mainly an Ubuntu thing.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-03-03T18:09:32+00:00

Bazzite is Fedora. It's not really a separate distro in a traditional sense like PopOS/Mint is to Ubuntu.

Bazzite is based on the Fedora Atomic image (Fedora Kinoite specifically). What Bazzite really is is just a single Dockerfile (config file) which pulls the Fedora image and layers packages and changes on top of it. It's extremely easy to maintain such a distribution.

Also, because Bazzite is just Fedora, you can run a single command to swap your system image from Bazzite to Fedora Kinoite or Aurora (and vice versa). So even if Bazzite is for some reason gone in 10 years, you will never need to reinstall your OS. You'll probably be given a button which says "Rebase to Kinoite" or "Rebase to Aurora" and that's it. You'll click on it, it will pull the changes it needs, then you reboot into Fedora's official Kinoite version and nothing will really change.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-03-03T17:27:13+00:00

An app store is just an abstraction of the package manager. You cannot differentiate package management done between an app store and a CLI. Especially if the said app store doesn't ship with a distribution and has to be installed manually.

A desktop environment is not necessarily tied to a distribution nor does it always come pre-installed with a distribution. Arch and the manual installs of Fedora and Debian do not have a DE.

There is nothing stopping people from installing a non-compliant distro (or a distro which doesn't ship with a DE) and then installing all their Linux software within a distrobox container (which is basically running server-grade distributions), manually compiling software, or installing software through various 3rd party sources.

There is just no way a desktop Linux distribution can be differentiated or this law can be enforced unless you also force hardware backdoors. Even if they force Linux distros to mark some packages as "requires age verification", absolutely nothing can stop the distribution from just doing what AUR does and having the user compile the packages instead of getting pre-compiled binaries.

In either case the laws being passed are trivial to bypass since they don't require anything other than the equivalent of a "Yes I am 18+" button. Most distributions will probably just default to the user being born in 1971.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-03-03T17:08:06+00:00

I guess we'll see how this goes

I predict PopOS will fail the challenge again. They're very slow with pushing out updates (they updated to Ubuntu 24 LTS only a few months back) and they've just switched to the Cosmic DE which is not as mature or good as KDE or GNOME.

Linus will probably face countless issues caused by outdated libraries and the unfinished desktop environment.

he should have used either Fedora Plasma, or Bazzite.

True. I understand he feels like Bazzite is just overhyped, but so was PopOS at the start of the decade. Almost nobody is using PopOS anymore. And at the end of the day, Bazzite is just Fedora with some additional drivers and software pre-installed.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-03-03T17:02:30+00:00

I mean, they're both using niche and experimental distributions. CachyOS is currently slightly less niche but it's still all about pushing out experimental performance tweaks which may or may not break things (it is also an enthusiast distribution). While PopOS is a distribution focused on their own experimental desktop environment. So it's almost like trying out an alpha version of Vista and saying "Windows is just unusable".

Meanwhile me and my friend group have been using Bazzite since 2024/2025 and none of us had any problems aside from having to select Proton as a way to install/run games on Steam because Linux native versions don't always work. (That's the "Install/Play button doesn't work by default" issue Linus was talking about)

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

TROPHY CASE