PSA: If you use Bazzite on your deck, you need to do a manual fix to get updates
PSA: If you use Bazzite on your deck, you need to do a manual fix to get updates
Bazzite, the popular version of Linux powered by Fedora and Universal Blue that's great for handhelds including the Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go and others needs a little manual user effort after a bit of human error.
Bazzite is an alternative OS to SteamOS for the deck and other handheld PCs. Unfortunately due to a mistake, anyone who installed Bazzite before July 3rd 2024 won't get automatic updates.
If this affects you, I'd suggest checking out the article to get instructions on fixing it.
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Is there a benefit in using it over the default OS?
It has all the advantages of steamOS, can boot straight into game mode, supports Decky plugins, etc.
However it also supports installing traditional Linux programs permanently (which steam OS generally won't let you do), and has other benefits too.
Does it also have the power-limiting features?
Yes and they apply while the device is off too.
Because it's based on fedora atomic it uses rpm-ostree, which lets you layer packages to persist between updates. Good for stuff that isn't available as a flatpak or doesn't work as well when installed as a flatpak. Beyond that not much, maybe if someone doesn't trust Valve with their OS?
On SteamOS you can still kind of have non-flatpak packages persist by using distrobox.
It's still a sandbox, just one that hasa bit more latitude in what you can install than a flatpak.edit: distrobox seems more integrated with the host OS than I thought
Yep, distrobox is a wrapper for Podman, which is also installed by default.
But I agree, there's actually not a ton of functional difference between SteamOS and Bazzite, unless you want/need to use your Deck like a laptop. If you are only doing gaming, SteamOS is actually the better choice, because Valve has patches and modifications that aren't yet included in upstream that maximize the hardware's capabilities and stability.
Including the xone kernel driver for proprietary Xbox dongles is quite nice
(you can connect Xbox gamepads via bluetooth but that will often times give you a higher input lag for Xbox pads anyway)main one for me is installing software from distro repos that aren't in flatpak and having it persist through updates.