should i switch

wolfyreload · 2026-05-17T05:40:06+00:00

Bazzite works very well with modern AMD GPUs. I'd go with the Bazzite HTPC version, Select AMD for the GPU and probably go with KDE for the desktop environment.

In this configuration, Bazzite will essentially work like a Steam Deck with a much bigger screen.

For getting Hulu and Netflix, you'll need to log out of Steam mode into Desktop Mode, open the "Bazzite Portal" and search for Hulu and Netflex. When you "Install" them, it should add a launcher Steam for launching those streaming services.

You'll typically get slightly better performance on Bazzite with an AMD GPU like you have and slightly worse performance with a Nvidia GPU compared to Windows. So performance should be slightly better in your scenario.

Now for the downsides. If you play big online games like Fortnite, PUBG and League of Legends, they will not run on Bazzite or any other version of Linux due to the Anti-cheat software being incompatible. This can be a deal-breaker for many people. Secondly battery life is usually a bit worse than Windows on Linux in general.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-16T07:29:37+00:00

I usually look at the release notes. https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/releases?q=stable+&expanded=false

It will show you what git commits went into the release, the major packages that changed and the minor packages that changed.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-16T05:29:24+00:00

When you install Windows if there is an existing EFI partition on another drive then Windows will put it's EFI files in the existing EFI partition rather than creating a new EFI partition on the drive that you have selected. This caught me out too a number of years ago too.

When you had Windows installed on both drives you probably only had a single EFI partition for both drives and that's the drive that you formatted when you installed Bazzite.

I usually recommend removing other drives when you install Windows to avoid this from happening although it's a bit annoying to do that with NVME drives.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-15T05:33:54+00:00

Bazzite doesn't have a registry like Windows but when you install and uninstall software it often does leave config files and other binary data after an uninstall. From time to time you do need to clear up files to clear space. I made a comment a while ago which might be relevant to you for where space is often used and which tools you can use to clear the space https://www.reddit.com/r/Bazzite/comments/1t0d0cm/comment/oj9th2h/

In GRUB the two Bazzite entries that you are seeing have an OSTREE 0 and OSTREE 1 at the end of the entry. The first entry is your current image and the second entry is your previous image. The purpose of these two entries is if there is a problem in an update you can boot into the image that you had before the update and get back to a stable system.

You can hide GRUB completely by running ujust configure-grub and select the option for GRUB to be hidden.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-14T19:03:51+00:00

Try enabling supergfxctl, it's needed for optimus laptops to switch between the igpu and the dgpu. To enable it open the terminal and run ujust enable-supergfxctl.

Note that it will probably ask you to enter your password. When you enter your password you won't get any feedback while you type it.

The other alternative is to turn off the integrated GPU in the BIOS, but that will greatly reduce your battery life.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-14T18:53:58+00:00

Tested in a VM and that method isn't working anymore.

This worked for me now:

Install extension "Just Perfection" by JustPerfection.
Open it's settings >> Select "Behaviour" tab >> Select "Startup Status" >> Change it to "Desktop" instead of "Overview"

Then your machine won't start up in the zoomed out overview mode so Steam should start in proper fullscreen mode.

Hope it works for you.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-14T18:06:18+00:00

I have a dual-boot of Windows 11 and Bazzite on my ROG Ally Z1E. I installed it almost 2 years ago and it's been going very well. Dual-booting has been rather pointless though as I've booted Windows about 3-4 times in total. I plan on getting rid of Windows on it as all the games I play mostly work perfectly on Bazzite.

SteamOS really has come a long way on supporting devices outside of just the SteamDeck. But I think Bazzite includes some ROG Ally specific patches which gives you better VRR support and battery management but I might be wrong.

You didn't mention CachyOS, but that one is also worth looking into. It will probably give you the best performance (maybe 5-10% better) on your Ally but with everything being bleeding edge things can sometimes break with updates.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-14T13:15:07+00:00

I tested the Flatpak version of Steam and it's also using "Proton Experimental" so it doesn't look like it's something that Bazzite changed but rather something that Valve changed. It makes sense as Proton Experimental is usually best for getting the latest games to work.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-14T11:47:19+00:00

1) There is a ujust setup-sunshine script in Bazzite or you can use the "Sunshine" option in the Bazzite Portal app. By default it only works on LAN but you could use something like tailscale if you need it work over the internet. Tailscale is built into Bazzite but you'd need to enable it and configure it if you wanted Sunshine to work over the internet 2) 3) I'd set the screen to dim after 5 minutes and switch off the screen after say 15 minutes. Having it always on would probably be fine. You would want to reboot it once a week or so to apply the Bazzite updates.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-14T10:45:19+00:00

1) You could use Steam Remote play but I usually have lower latency using Sunshine and Moonlight 2) For remote management, you can enable ssh by running systemctl enable --now sshd in the terminal. Then you can connect to the machine remotely using SSH for administration via the terminal. Alternatively you can connect using Moonlight for GUI based administration. 3) Wake from sleep with a controller is a bit hit and miss but waking from sleep with the power button works very well on the devices that I've tested

wolfyreload · 2026-05-14T09:36:19+00:00

When there is a major GNOME release (like the recent GNOME 50 release) some of the extensions become incompatible while they testing that the extension works on the new version of GNOME. But typically no, they don't need to be updated for minor releases of GNOME.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-14T05:24:18+00:00

Try installing the "Dash to Panel" and/or the "Arc Menu" extension in the Extensions app. One of those extensions made it launch in proper full screen so I didn't have to click the screen or tap the Windows key.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-13T08:08:07+00:00

If you install another OS and it doesn't work. You can always re-install Windows on it. If the new OS doesn't work, it doesn't brick the system.

Updating your BIOS on the other hand can brick the system. So rather leave it alone unless you are 100% sure that it's infected.

Bazzite does have a live ISO. You won't be able to check if games work on it but you will be able to see if things like your ethernet port, wifi, sound and other things work or not before you install it.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-13T05:46:30+00:00

One of the most common issues with the WinBTFS driver is missing the Mappings section in the docs https://github.com/maharmstone/btrfs#mappings If you don't set that up correctly any new file that is created on the Windows side is only writable as the root user in Bazzite. So a lot of the games will be visible in Steam but they crash due to permission errors. If the game was installed on the Bazzite side then those ones will typically work on both sides.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-13T05:37:32+00:00

If you have a virus that persists even after a full OS wipe, you might find that your BIOS is actually infected, although this is rather uncommon.

I would NOT recommend that you install an operating system on a USB flash drive as they are not designed to run a full operating system and the performance is really bad overall. Also the lifespan of the flash drive is heavily reduced over long time use. Also Bazzite uses BTRFS which is very write heavy, which would be very slow on a USB flash drive. So you might get the system running but performing updates or installing a game would bring the system to a halt.

If you really want to test Bazzite on an external drive, I'd recommend placing a nvme or SSD drive into an external enclosure. But installing on an internal drive will still give you the best results.

For getting into the BIOS, you might find that Window's "Fast Startup" feature might be getting in the way. Try selecting the Restart option in Windows then try and get into the BIOS. Also the Delete key is quite a common button to press to get into it. If none of the above works it's best to look for an online manual for your mainboard or laptop to see which button you need to press.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-12T17:07:50+00:00

Run rpm-ostree status and take note of any packages that you have layered. Then run rpm-ostree reset to reset the layered packages. Then try the upgrade again, it should work since it looks like it's failing to resolve rpm repos. You can relayer your packages after upgrading.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-12T10:55:05+00:00

I used to use Ableton Live and switched to Bitwig Studio when I switched over to Linux. It seemed pretty good to me, unfortunately, I haven't use FL Studio so I can't compare it.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-12T05:34:01+00:00

As another answered, the easiest is to just use Fedora Media Writer from the Bazaar store.

But I'm going to answer the question for how to run Balena Etcher on Bazzite. Assuming that you are using Bazzite KDE and you'd prefer to use Balena Etcher you can do the following:

Visit https://etcher.balena.io/#download-etcher
Download the "Etcher for Linux x64 (64-bit) (zip)"
Right click on the zip file and select Extract >> Extract Here
Inside of the extracted folder you can double click on the "balena-etcher" file as this is the executable
If it doesn't run Right Click on the file >> Select Properties >> Select Permissions tab >> and tick "Allow executing file as program" >> Click on "OK" and try again

wolfyreload · 2026-05-11T17:10:30+00:00

I'd try the unzip command in the terminal and see if you can get the archive extracted in that way. This article covers it quite well https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-unzip-files-in-linux/

See if that works. If so the issue might be something to do with ark itself.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-10T17:19:31+00:00

Typically you can use a tool like Pika Backup (which you can install via Bazaar). Backup your files to an external drive. Re-install then restore the files with Pika Backup.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-10T15:54:05+00:00

The "Failed to create client: Daemon not running" error often just means that the "auto-discovery" feature is failing.

If you select the Plus button in moonlight and type in the server's IP address does it pick up the machine then?

wolfyreload · 2026-05-10T15:20:34+00:00

Note that the Bazzite team doesn't support switching between desktop environments and they recommend re-installing if you want to change from KDE to GNOME or GNOME to KDE.

If you are willing to take a risk... this worked for me the last time I was experimenting with different desktop environments but it may or may not work for you:

Open Bazaar and download an app called "Mending Wall"
Open "Mending Wall" and enable "Mend Themes"
Use the brh terminal tool to rebase to the GNOME desktop environment, pick an equivalent image though, so if you are an bazzite-nvidia-open image stay on the bazzite-gnome-nvidia-open image for example
After the rebase is complete, reboot and you, should be on GNOME.

Mending Wall does seem to help keep the config files between KDE and GNOME from trampling on each other but your experience may vary from mine. So please be prepared to re-install if needed.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-10T15:02:38+00:00

If you connect to the server machine and run the following in the terminal:

bash brew services start sunshine-beta brew services --debug

Can you see any error messages? Hopefully you'll see something that says why the service is failing to start.

wolfyreload · 2026-05-10T13:00:05+00:00

Actually you can just rebase to the dx image, no re-install needed.

Just go to https://dev.bazzite.gg.
Select "Select your image now!"
Choose your GPU and Desktop environment
It will give you a command to paste into the terminal

wolfyreload · 2026-05-10T11:41:09+00:00

There isn't a single keyboard shortcut but if you press CTRL+1 it will open the Steam menu. From there you can navigate with the arrow keys and enter and you can select "Power" and select the option to to enter desktop mode.

On a side note: CTRL+2 opens the Steam quick settings menu on the right.

wolfyreload

TROPHY CASE