So anyway, any beginner tips?
Welcome in from the cold. We have hot cocoa and blankets.
You’ve chosen an immutable distro based on rpm-ostree. If you want to install a program/application/app then flatpak is the way.
Heroic Launcher works great for installing GOG/Epic games but if you want to install a game or other program from an offline installer then I still fall back to Lutris.For more in-depth read up on rpm-ostree and flatpak
Yeeeah, for a fresh Bazzite install I’d agree that “swap Lutris for Heroic” is solid advice.
In Bazzite flatpak is the way so much that you will open Discover and only see flatpak, so if this was really, really beginner tips I’d suggest not learning what any of that means for as long as possible and just relying on Discover for your apps until you hit a roadbump. This guy seems well informed enough that is not a problem, but hey.
I’m also mildly annoyed that ujust is important enough to still need that terminal splash screen but not enough to be baked into the config tools by default in GUI. So weird.
That’s either another thing you should try not to learn about if everything works fine out of the box or something you really should look into if it doesn’t, and that’s not great.
Also worth checking out all of the pre-made “ujust” recipes.
Just type “ujust” in the terminal for a list. Tons of useful shit.
Meh, I’ve found that Heroic works just fine for most offline installers. YMMV of course.
Execute “ujust” and marvel at what’s possible right out of the box. If you used KDE check out some simple tips on how to configure cool windows effects. A little wobble makes all the difference. Browse the apps you can install, there are some pretty neat things in there you probably never heard of before.
And don’t forget: once you got the things you want working, let the system fade into the background. No need to constantly tinker with your distribution unless you enjoy it.
Can’t live without my magic lamp animation for minimise/maximise. Feels so out of place without it
Oh so you always need a lamp do you. Can you also fly??
I’m using GNOME because I like it more
And yeah, system fading into the background is the end goal
Yes gnome > KDE
This is a hill i will die on
I’ve installed Fedora 42 KDE to try out Plasma 6.4 as last time I’ve used KDE it was 5.x… Anyhow, I’m back to GNOME after 2h of messing with settings unable to get desired results. And the KDE animations are just bad… Still better than Windows though.
⚔️ You just started a war. 😂 KDE > Gnome. 🤭
I can’t get excited about the Gnome interface. It somehow works in such an unfamiliar way. What is the advantage supposed to be?
gnome with arcmenu (I like windows like menu - the ads) dash to panel (place window menu at bottom alongside commonly used apps, date/time, and the control center), window thumbnails (pip any window) and a few other plugins is very nice looking imo feela like an os from the future, and its clean, stable. I got kde plasma looking pretty close to it layout wise, drag and drop was a bit more finnicky than enabling extensions and clicking through settings.
I just overall like the look better and it feels better to use, gnome feels like modern de, you can’t just throw something together (someone who knows what they are doing coded those extensions and how it could fit within your layout, they tested it over time) while kde plasma feels like a really feature rich de from 2012, layout placement is up to you to test and figure out, idk how else to explain it in my head
Completely agree. I find GNOME just annoying, ugly, and in some places inconsistent.
KDE/i3/Sway 4evarr!
I’ve had to use it in vocational school, and after a few months I started to like it over Windows interface. Later on I’ve touched Xfce and seen people around me use KDE, but still prefer GNOME. I’ve got no idea why.
I respect GNOME for it’s simplicity, but prefer KDE for the chaos.
I agree, Gnome 2 was better. Ever since then, however, Gnome has been the worst environment available.
I totally agree - distro hoppers who complain about the “nightmare” of finding the right distro are living in a hell of their own making.
They like it but haven’t come out of the closet
The best tip I can give you is to get rid of windows, and, well, you’ve already done that :)
Use alternativeto.net … not necessarily for just Windows programs alternatives; but it is also great for looking at popular utilities for any task in Linux.
Some programs I use a lot were not suggested anywhere else (e.g. Pluma as a basic text editor and Pinta for basic image editing).
They also have the best tech/software blog I’ve ever seen
Nice, thanks!
My best advice is:
You should never blindly copy and paste commands form the Internet into your terminal.
But...
If your hardware is old and proprietary (designed for Windows), you might someday need to copy and paste a command from the Internet into your terminal.
Joking aside, the key is to try to understand what it does, first.
And feel free to ask the community for help if you need it.
Edit: Nevermind. Your choice of immutable distro makes it less likely you’ll need this advice. Nice.
A lot of games are going to work without you having to do anything and some will need some tinkering. In that case, https://www.protondb.com/ will be your best friend, telling you exactly what you need to do to get things running.
That being said, some games simply can’t be run under Linux. They might work in the future as compatibility improves but some won’t. If it’s an issue for you, you might want to dual boot windows as a workaround.
Funnily, sometimes the pirate version of a game works whilst the official one does not…
Personally, I recommend quitting Windows cold-turkey and not dual-booting at all. If a game genuinely doesn’t work without dual-booting, you don’t need it. No game is so important that it’s worth compromising your security, privacy, and property rights over.
This 100%. Give up Windows and never look back, you will not regret it.
Unfortunately some of us need windows for more than games, and there aren’t Linux alternatives
Im a wuss and have an older laptop running windows for some things. Its really just me being lazy and not wanting to bother with the high hanging fruit.
but dont dual boot on the same drive! get a second SSD or something because windows is a big bully and always wants to screw stuff up
Good thing about the distro he chose is that pretty much every game will run fine. I love bazzite. Two months on it now and I haven’t even had to open the terminal or download a single driver. It’s definitely been my go to recommendation for anyone looking to leave windows and build a gaming PC.
I’ve seen some folks complain about its size, but it’s like 8 or 9gb. Small price to pay if you ask me for how turnkey it is. Besides storage is cheap now.
I’m so used to terminal that I’ve installed most of the apps I’ll use using it
I guess it’s more “i’ve had nothing come up that required using it,” which for some folks is very intimidating!
I’ve seen some folks complain about its size, but it’s like 8 or 9gb. Small price to pay if you ask me for how turnkey it is. Besides storage is cheap now.
Especially when you consider Windows is like 20-30GB
Yeah I think people are just kind of used to how small some distros be and eventually it stops being a game of how much space can I save and more like dogma lol.
I mean even if you’ve got some tiny machine with only 128gb you’re still talking less than 10% of the machine vs. upwards of 25%
If you do dual boot, turn on the BIOS password to prevent Windows from messing with your bootloader.
Mess around until it breaks. It’s fun.
Also checkout “ricing linux.” (There is a unixporn community here that can help you)Obligatory fastfetch is right there post
Neofetch came preinstalled, so I’ve used it
I guessed as much, I only say so because fastfetch was on the terminal prompt too - could it be both are preinstalled?
IIRC on Bazzite neofetch is just a symlink/alias to fastfetch due to muscle memory and the overall prevalence of neofetch.
May be, tbh I didn’t even read the MOTD until now
I did something similar a few months ago! But honestly it took me forever to pick between GNOME and KDE. Ended up going to KDE for certain things I wanted to customise.
+1 for Bazzite! I converted last year, and have never had to go back. My tip would be to make good use of ProtonUp-QT that should have come with Bazzite by default. Use it to get Proton GE which in my experience has been the best compatibility layer for Steam games. You can also batch update with that tool so that when a new version of GE comes out, you can set games en masse to the new version.
I’m using GNOME, so I have ProtonPlus
Nice! I recently tried KDE Plasma and I’ve been really impressed not just with the polish but with the look and feel that still kind of reminds me of Windows without being Windows.
I’ve seen Plasma, Xfce, and GNOME. I like the last one the most, so I’m using it on all of my systems.
I can’t stand GNOME, but I understand that other people like it.
Love me some Plasma. I’m still running the default styles after over a year as well. It’s just nice.
I really should spend some time experimenting with customizations though
You can blindly download and install things from the internet on Windows, you can’t in Linux. If you try, it’ll be confusing at best, destructive at worst. If you want to install something, best to look for it in your GUI software manager (the “app store”)
If you’re up for the challenge (it’s extremely tedious to set up, partially thanks to its horrid instructions), you can try installing winapps. It’ll save you a lot of time with running Windows programs
This is not totally true. Deb packages will just activate the package manager and will mimic the feel of installing something on windows.
Bazzite is based on fedora atomic, which means I don’t get debs and have to deal with flatpak, brew and distrobox
Okay, I kinda do get debs through the last one… I think. I’ve never used db before, my experience comes mostly from Ubuntu and Pop_OS!
Yea, and appimages are a lot like a single .exe
I did the same a few months ago. Installed bazzite just like you. Then installed fedora 42 workstation over it one week later.
While it’s designed to be plug and play, I found bazzite frustrating. But then again, I’m a Linux vet and I’m a tinkerer. I like to customise system configuration files. Immutable distros just weren’t for me.
But if you’re happy then that’s all that matters. Happy gaming!
Bazzite allows for tinkering just fine, it’s just different so you have to be willing to put a little time in to learn how ostree works, for example.
Of course it can be tinkered with, but it wasn’t really designed to be tinkered with in the same way that you can with a traditional Linux system. It’s designed to keep users from messing with system files with its strict containerised workflow. It’s certainly not targeted at users who’ll want to hack systemd services, customise kernel modules, tweak system files under /etc and /usr, or even compile software from source.
I acknowledge that it’s possible to create highly customised and reproducible systems with immutable distros, but it’s a paradigm shift compared to a traditional *nix system.
I’ve spent 20+ years refining my knowledge of linux and BSD, I haven’t got the patience to start over with these types of systems.
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not at all criticising these systems for being different. They serve a completely different purpose —one that’s just not for me.
Less a specific linux tip but look into Ventoy, it can carry multiple bootable ISOs and its just useful (reduces the amount of ISO Sticks to 1)
ventoy is awesome, my tip for OP is to always have a live usb in case of emergencies. you can just install ventoy onto a USB and drag and drop your bazzite ISO but having a live stick you can plug in and boot from at any moment is 100% a life saver. whether you broke something or you just wanna troubleshoot (think windows safe mode but better) you’ll be glad you kept that USB lying around :)
i would suggest looking into alternatives to Ventoy, as the community has been actively discussing the ‘blobs’ of precompiled code. What this code does is unknown so you are trusting that there is nothing that could be harmful. I personally wouldn’t trust it until the below thread provides more clarity.
