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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
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Anyone able to give an ELI5 to a linux noob? I'm struggling to find what the benefit is of Fedora's atomic builds (is it just containerised apps? Is this an immutable distro?)....and then also what the benefit of Bazzite is on top of Fedora's atomic spins?
Are immutable distros good for daily driving?
The ELI5 for Fedora's atomic desktops is that if Windows had an Atomic Desktop version, Program Files and most of the Windows folder would be read only, and each program you installed yourself would go into its own folder in your user directory. That's the basic idea. It's harder to screw up an Atomic system as long as you stick to containerized app formats like flatpak/appimage whenever possible. It makes it easier for everyone to diagnose problems, and easier for users to roll back if an update has problems. Even if you were to install it right now, you could use one simple command to "roll back" to any image from the last three months.
The benefit of Bazzite is you have all of the above, plus a lot of gaming-related stuff preinstalled which, if you were to install them yourself in a normal Fedora environment, you'd likely have to spend a lot of time just learning how they're supposed to be configured, how they interact, which versions have problems, and how to troubleshoot problems when an update to one app breaks a prerequisite for something else; eventually you end up in config hell instead of actually using your computer. With Bazzite, the image maintainers are the ones in config hell - they work out the kinks, app versioning, communicate with upstream to fix issues, all that, so your system should be in the most functional state that a Linux system can be, so you only have to think about using your apps.
tl;dr
Has someone tried Steam VR with an Index on Bazzite? How well does it run?
I tried some setups with Steam VR, as Steam inside Flatpak is not supported and not working, but even when installed via deb it can require some restarts and be janky.
Jorge, Kyle and the others over at ublue is doing a great job with their Fedora spins.
I run Bazzite on all my computers and if you got a full AMD system you can even get full gamemode running by installing the deck image. This in turn give you the best controller experience for games, as Desktop Steam got several issues with Steam Input valve have not fixed yet.
But not all credit should go to them for this but also ChimeraOS team, Nobara and others that are constantly working on an improved gaming experience on Linux.
When developing RetroDECK Steam Input profiles I mainly use the Steam Deck with SteamOS and Bazzite on my desktop to test them.
Linux veteran here. I use Bazzite on my gaming PC and ROG Ally. Once I figured out the quirks of an immutable distro and started using distroboxes it became an amazing experience. No complaints here.
As someone who never used an immutable distro: what are the quirks when using it?
Basically installing packages. You're fine if you default to using
Also, you shouldn't edit files in /usr, but I've never run into that limitation. You can still edit other top-level directorys like /etc .
That's about it.
This sums up all of my issues perfectly!
I'm seriously considering Bazzite now. Can you explain whether something like LaTeX with custom packages would work? I also don't want to redownload the LaTeX packages to vanish after a system update.
Also, I'm a tiling window user (i3). Will it be possible to use it in desktop mode?
Bazzite is exclusively KDE, and I honestly don't think it's possible to run a different desktop manager on it.
Edit: Sorry, my mistake, there's the option for GNOME as well. But I don't think they recommend even switching between them on an install.
As per my other comment:
Do your latex work inside a distrobox and you're fine.
I'm not sure if you can layer another window manager on top. You may have to create a custom image for that
I have been using the hell out of bazzite for the last few weeks and I've really enjoyed it. There have been a couple of minor bugs but otherwise everything just generally works.
I've enjoyed it so much that I've also installed bluefin on my work laptop.
Immutable distro...yeah I'm good.
I tried it. Gave up and moved to regular fedora at the end. I didn't see any real benefits personally
I did like many of the ideas, like gamescope is built in. But I think I had minor issues
Biggest benefit for me is automatic updates in the background which are also safe. On a normal distro, if your pc shuts down for whatever reason during kernel updates you have an unbootable system. That can't happen on bazzite
Just ran into this exact problem this morning which was incredibly frustrating. Performed a routine system update, and I'm pretty sure I had a kernel panic (all input was non responsive, couldn't even switch to a tty) in the middle of pacman's upgrade phase.
While I was able to chroot into my install and reinstall the kernel, half of my system's packages were left in an inconsistent state so I still couldn't properly boot - and so I just nuked my root subvolume and reinstalled Arch (I suspect I could've somehow got the packages reinstalled if I wrangled for a while with pacman but it was just easier to reinstall at this point).
Atomic distros like Bazzite are designed to prevent that exact situation I ran into, unfortunately I just haven't had enough time or energy to try to make my own custom image that has what I need in it (got kind of close with NixOS but that had its own issues), otherwise I'd probably be running that.
Another unsung nicety related to this one is that you can fully update your system but only start using it once you reboot. Too many times I updated the kernel on Arch only to find everything stopped working until I rebooted, hence why routine updates can just be done automatically with no issues to the user.
Same here. Ir's very bloated. You can decide on what to install,but if you do install all that bloat,you need to be prepared. I tried their AMD GPU overclock tool and after a got a black screen, I ended up with missing packages. Immediately went back to Arch.
Edit:words
I think I tried emudeck and it wouldn't install. But that wasn't their issue (turned out to be a regression upstream).
I think I had stuttering sound in audio too. But that's via HDMI.
Spdif no issue
I also used another gaming distro though so might be confusing them
They should absolutely keep developing it. It will only get better, and I'm a unique case because I've been using Linux probably since 1998 or so.
But I feel they make things a bit more custom, and it will only get better. It has a lot of potential, and is probably the best option already for many people