Bazzite: The next generation of Linux gaming
Recorded: Nov. 30, 2025, 1:04 a.m.
| Original | Summarized |
Bazzite – The next generation of Linux gaming Become a Supporter Features Community & Docs Press News Our team ✕ Features Community & Docs Press News Our team Download Bazzite Features Community & Docs Press News Our team ✕ Features Community & Docs Press News Our team Download Bazzite The next generation of Linux gaming Bazzite makes gaming and everyday use smoother and simpler across desktop PCs, handhelds, tablets, and home theater PCs. Play your favorite games Bazzite is designed for Linux newcomers and enthusiasts alike with Steam pre-installed, HDR & VRR support, improved CPU schedulers for responsive gameplay, and numerous community-developed tools and tweaks to streamline your gaming and streaming experience.Own games outside of Steam? Lutris (Pre-installed) and other launchers can not only run games from most game stores, but cleanly integrate them into Steam Gaming Mode, including: Xbox Game Pass (via battle.net), EA App, Epic Games Store, GOG.com, itch.io, Rockstar Games Launcher, Ubisoft Connect, your dad's old CDs, and more! Sea of Thieves Forza Horizon 5 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Marvel Rivals New to gaming on Linux? Check out Bazzite's Gaming Guide for up-to-date tips and tricks. Wondering if your favorite games are compatible? Check the community-maintained compatibility lists: Visit ProtonDB Visit Are We Anti Cheat Yet? Want to protect your games and your ability to play them? Check out Stop Killing Games for information on how to help. On all your favorite devices Bazzite works for you whether you prefer to game on your handheld, chill on the couch with your home theater PC, lug your laptop to the LAN party, surf the subway with your tablet, or pretend you're getting work done on your desktop - no judgement, we're hopelessly addicted to Deadlock too. View Compatible Hardware Take your game library anywhere Your MicroSD card game library can be shared between multiple Bazzite installs no matter which devices you're using. UpgradeRollbackUpgrade fearlessly Bazzite is image based meaning that after every update the previous version of the operating system is retained on your machine. Should an update cause any issues, you can select the previous image at boot time. Modern app stores provide attestation, sandboxing, and the most officially verified applications of any Linux application repository. Work with your hardware, not for it Bazzite focuses on hardware compatibility out of the box, with full support for accelerated video encoding and decoding, built in Nvidia drivers, additional HID drivers, and just about every udev rule you could need.Let your operating system work with your hardware so you don't have to. Game Controllers GPU Support Additional Drivers Complete Handheld PC Support Bazzite features Handheld Daemon, offering enhanced functionality and support for handhelds from manufacturers such as ASUS, Ayn, GPD, and Lenovo - all accessible by double tapping the quick access menu button. Customize your handheld experience with in-depth controller emulation, including paddles, touchpad, rumble, face buttons, RGB lighting, and more. Control all aspects of your hardware from a clean and intuitive UI, including GPU frequency, TDP controls, and CPU scheduler. Use your favorite desktop environmenthandheld experiencecouch gaming setupdesktop environment The latest and greatest by the KDE community built from Fedora Kinoite. KDE offers a highly customizable and modern UI that Windows users would find right at home, with a bottom taskbar, start menu, and widgets. Valve's themes and customizations present in SteamOS come pre-installed. A modern and beautiful desktop by the GNOME Foundation built from Fedora Silverblue. Optimized for touch input, this desktop environment feels right at home on handhelds and tablets, with rounded corners and thoughtful design choices that would make even a die-hard Apple user blush. We provide a lightly customized GNOME experience with tweaks that can easily be undone if desired. From your handheld to your home theater PC, Steam Gaming Mode offers the premier console-like experience, and can be extended with community-developed plugins and themes thanks to Decky Loader. Waydroid brings the Android apps and games you love to Bazzite, working side by side with your other Linux applications. Visit our Waydroid setup guide for more information. Run your favorite applicationscontainerseverythingapplications Bazzite utilizes the Bazaar app store, allowing for easy installation and management of all your favorite applications from Flathub and a curated list of apps we think you'll love. Additionally, Bazzite brings Brew and the tools and techniques created by the cloud native community to your desktop. Built in container support means packages for any Linux distribution can be installed and used as if they were native applications. The included Ptyxis terminal and DistroShelf provide first-class access to your Distrobox containers, letting you focus on what matters - your software.Running a game, a development environment, a container for your Jellyfin server, or a utility only available on the Arch User Repository? You can rest assured it works here. Bazzite is developed on Bazzite. View apps on Flathub Software Management Guide Video provided by Brandon Lester and the Oreon Project Join the community Documentation Looking for support? View our documentation site for up-to-date guides on installation, general use, game setup, and troubleshooting. View Documentation View FAQ Ametrine, the Bazzite mascot, was gifted to us by Poulpi. Konqi design originally by Tyson Tan, credit to KDE. Discord Join our Discord for game nights, live community support, and discussion about games and the project. Join our Discord Discourse Join our Discourse for asynchronous discussion of Bazzite, and newsletters covering newly added features. Join our Discourse Join our subreddit for community discussions, news updates, announcements, showcases, and more. Visit our Subreddit Become a Supporter Support the continued development of Bazzite by sponsoring us on Open Collective! Your contributions help cover hosting and hardware expenses, as well as travel for our team to present, collaborate, and engage with the broader Linux community. Contribute USD Contribute Euro Contribute Assist in Bazzite's development by contributing code, reporting bugs, or making feature requests. You can also sponsor individual contributors if you'd like to contribute monetarily. Visit our GitHub Statistics provided by DNF Count Me Press & Testimonials [...] if I already owned an Asus ROG Ally X, or regular Ally, or the Lenovo Legion Go, I would absolutely install Bazzite on it right away, perhaps using a dual-boot configuration to make sure I can easily swap back. You might be surprised by how little you’ll miss Windows. You might be surprised by just how much better the portable experience can get. Sean Hollister We believe that 2025 is truly the year of the Linux Gaming Desktop. Yeah, might be. Decades coming. For gaming on Linux Bazzite's awesome [...] Nirav Patel Since I installed Bazzite, I have not had to mess with drivers, hook up to a monitor and keyboard for desktop mode, or do anything other than play games. Kevin Purdy Other people may recommend Bazzite strictly on principle, as cheerleaders of Linux and open source. I'm recommending Bazzite because it's objectively better than Windows for [the ROG Ally], and delivers a true handheld gaming experience. Jason Evangelho PC gamers can now experience Linux gaming the way Valve intended it to be Aaron Klotz While Bazzite is branded as a gaming distro—and is known as a pretty solid alternative OS for the Steam Deck, something I still need to test—it is also a very capable GNOME-based desktop experience, one where many of the hardware and software headaches are solved for you by the time you plug it in. Ernie Smith [...] based on the test results we’re seeing, you’d be mad if you didn’t choose to take the red pill and breathe new life into your machine by turning it into a vastly more powerful Steam Deck. Jason England Universal Blue has done its homework. Considering it's a non-official Steam OS it works surprisingly well and is fairly easy to install and set up. Chip Loder Many users have reported better battery life and gaming performance with Bazzite over Windows - but we think the biggest advantage is not having to wait for Windows to load before gaming. GENKI SavePoint Kickstarter [...] nothing is more authentic than using a SteamOS-based system like Bazzite to control your PC with your controller. Plus, you avoid the headaches of managing a Windows computer. Here, everything is plug & play; no configuration is necessary. EmuDeck Machines Indiegogo Campaign The entire saga of trying to get a new SSD into my Legion Go took longer than it took for Bazzite to install. Like seriously, I didn’t realize how quick the installation process is. That’s why there aren’t more pictures for you to see what it looks like. Andrew (Retro Handhelds) It's super fast, it's snappy, it's reliable, you know it is just a blessing to have coming from Windows and that is priceless for so many of you that like to play on the go Cyber Dopamine I installed it on my Lenovo Legion Go and I actually haven't been able to put the Go down since I got the operating system installed. This is definitely one of the more stable, better performing Linux operating systems for your handheld gaming PC, and in my opinion it's totally worth trying out. ETA PRIME By my testing so far, I'm not sacrificing any performance by using Bazzite. Both performance and battery life seems to be roughly equivalent to using Ally X in Windows. Fan The Deck Even a veteran like me, I still run into problems when I'm messing around in Linux with certain things and having a team of gamers [...] sitting there gaming every day, and when they find things wrong they go ahead and tweak the system so it works easily for you so you don't have to spend time tinkering, and I think that's amazing Chris Titus Tech This distro is great for any type of HTPC or any type of PC you want to transform into a console. This is for me the best of the best, the crème de la crème, I'm not even kidding. A1RM4X SteamOS itself shouldn't be installed on other hardware. This however can, and it gives you a really close experience. Hi-Tech Lo-Life I'm extremely impressed with Bazzite OS on my Lenovo Legion Go. It has transformed this handheld PC into an incredibly versatile gaming machine that can play titles from Steam, Battle.net, Epic, GOG and more -- all with optimizations that include battery life, thermals, and the overall user experience. Gadget Pilipinas Including Waydroid configured by default is a pretty interesting choice, could expand what you can do on Steam Deck rather a lot don't you think? There's a lot of things there making me quite Liam Dawe Would you be interested in a distro that is tailored for Linux gaming? If yes, then we have just the thing for you. Sourav Rudra Project News Our team Bazzite is built with Universal Blue on GitHub by a dedicated group of maintainers, and contributors like you. Featuring alumni from companies like: Our sponsors: Additionally, Bazzite contributes to and includes work from our friends: Sentry's kernel-fsync, The Fedora Project, Podman, The Nobara Project, ChimeraOS, Jovian-NixOS, and evlaV's GitLab.We are immensely thankful for their support and collaboration. Download Bazzite Use the form below to get the correct ISO download link for your hardware and use case.If you're already using a Fedora Atomic Desktop, you can rebase to Bazzite without reinstalling.Are you a developer? Check out Bazzite Developer eXperience for images focused on your use case! What hardware are you using? Select your hardware Desktop Steam Deck (LCD & OLED) Framework Laptop ASUS ROG Flow Z13 Virtual Machine If you're having issues booting this ISO, ensure the Setup Utility -> USB Configuration -> USB Dual Role Device setting in your BIOS is set to XHCI and not DRD. Your hardware utilizes Handheld Daemon to handle button mapping, RGB, and TDP control. Please refer to our Handheld Wiki for usage guides. Your hardware has issues booting the installation media and requires Ventoy in GRUB2 mode to boot properly. Please use Ventoy and follow these instructions. Secure boot must be disabled for the installation, but can be re-enabled after our MOK key is enrolled and installation is complete. Who is the vendor of your primary GPU? Select your primary GPU vendor AMD (RX 4xx+ | AI) AMD (HD/200/300/R9) "Now this will run on my 486?" Your selected hardware does not support Steam Gaming Mode at this time. The Desktop version of Bazzite is still available. What desktop environment do you prefer? Pick a desktop environment Do you want Steam Gaming Mode? Choose if you want Steam Gaming Mode When using Steam Gaming Mode in a virtual machine, you must pass-through a GPU. Steam Gaming Mode support is available for your hardware in beta, but multiple known issues exist in these builds. Please note that the majority of bugs cannot be fixed except by your GPU manufacturer. Some devices with two AMD GPUs (iGPU and dGPU) cause gamescope to be unable to detect your display resulting in a black screen. If you are affected, use an image without Steam Gaming Mode or disable your iGPU. See this issue for more information. Use this form to get the correct ISO download link for your hardware and use case. If you're already using a Fedora Atomic Desktop, you can rebase to Bazzite without reinstalling.Are you a developer? Check out Bazzite Developer eXperience for images focused on your use case! Lenovo Legion Go & Go 2 & Go S Even better, detach the controllers and enjoy the same experience on the couch Having the fastest Laptop CPU AMD makes, you'll forget you even had a laptop. ASUS ROG Allies Combined with its 120hz VRR display and 800Hz gyro, the Ally is a joy to use With granular TDP controls, fan curves, RGB, and paddle support in Steam Input, Valve Steam Deck GPD Devices We support all of GPD devices (2023/2024), including GPD Win 4, GPD Win Mini, Max 2. OneXPlayer We offer great for all OneXPlayer devices. The exception is TDP Control for Intel devices, where the turbo button can be used to switch between 15W and 25W, and the 2 Pro not having speaker support. Supported devices enjoy Gyro, RGB, back button support, fan curves, and charge limitting out of the box. AOKZOE The AOKZOE A1X offers a premium experience, with a nice large 8in 1200p VRR screen, great speakers, and incredible performance. Ayn Loki MSI Claw Home Theater PCs This experience is powered by Valve's window manager, Gamescope, which is included in our Handheld/HTPC images. Gamescope has certain hardware requirements with fantastic support for recent AMD GPUs, Intel ARC GPUs, and support for Nvidia GPUs in beta. Desktops & Laptops We make sure our desktop images work on ASUS Laptops, Lenovo Legion Laptops, and on AMD, Intel, and Nvidia GPUs. What benefits does Cloud Native bring? A scenario where an update breaks a package occurs, but now you can completely rollback Bazzite is officially supported by Framework, with out-of-the-box support for all of Framework's hardware, Enjoy enhanced dGPU support on the Framework 16, no setup, no launch options, no fuss. Applications like Steam and Lutris are automatically configured to run on your dGPU for optimal performance. Using a Framework Desktop? Be sure to select Steam Gaming Mode for the ultimate console-like gaming experience. Looking to do more than game? Bazzite comes with full support for SELinux & Secure Boot, and contains helpful ujust commands for setting up TPM unlock for LUKS drive encryption and full Ollama AI workload support. Other Handheld PCs For most Ayaneo handhelds we offer controller support, but certain models either have stability issues or are missing a speaker driver. Your mileage may vary with untested hardware. New Users Download Download Live ISO (BETA) FOSS Torrents View the Bazzite initial setup guide. Existing Fedora Atomic Desktop Users You may rebase to Bazzite with this command: If you're using secure boot, follow our secure boot documentation before rebasing. You may also follow the rebasing video guide. It's recommended by upstream that you stick to the same desktop environment as your current install when rebasing. Your flatpaks and flatpak remotes will not be changed during the rebase process. Once rebased, you can optionally install Bazzite's default flatpaks by running the following in a terminal:ujust _install-system-flatpaks Build your own As an image, Bazzite is able to be consumed, repackaged, and shared. Dislike our choices or want more software pre-installed than we offer? Creating your own image is easy and builds can be scheduled to keep in-sync with us, or forge your own path. Create an image FROM bazzite Create a fork of Bazzite We recommend the Pull app for GitHub to automatically keep your fork in sync with upstream. Bazzite is part of Universal Blue, a community of passionate developers working to bring cloud native technologies to the Linux desktop. Copyright 2023-2024 Bazzite Project and contributors |
Bazzite presents a compelling next-generation Linux gaming experience, focusing on accessibility and versatility across a range of devices. As a college graduate, you'll appreciate its emphasis on streamlining the gaming process and providing a unified experience regardless of your hardware. This summary delves into the key features and aspects of Bazzite, highlighting its strengths and potential value proposition. Bazzite aims to provide a “smoother and simpler” gaming experience by targeting both newcomers and enthusiasts. It achieves this through features like Steam pre-installation, HDR and VRR support, optimized CPU scheduling, and a thriving community-driven ecosystem. The core philosophy centers around integrating various launchers – Steam, Lutris, Epic Games Store, GOG, etc. – into Steam Gaming Mode, offering a consistent interface and eliminating compatibility headaches. The inclusion of tools like ProtonDB and Are We Anti Cheat Yet? directly addresses common concerns within the gaming community, simplifying the process of verifying game compatibility. A key differentiator for Bazzite is its image-based design. This allows for seamless updates without requiring a full system reinstall and crucially, retains previous versions for 90 days to allow for rollback if a problem occurs – a significant advantage over traditional distributions. The support for containerized applications via Waydroid and Brew further enhances this flexibility, enabling users to utilize a wider range of software and easily manage dependencies. This aligns with modern cloud-native development practices, offering a robust and adaptable platform. Bazzite's hardware-centric approach is immediately apparent. It inherently targets out-of-the-box compatibility, utilizing pre-installed Nvidia drivers, additional HID drivers, and udev rules designed to minimize manual configuration. This ‘work with your hardware, not for it’ philosophy reflects a more refined and user-friendly experience, a welcome change from the common frustrations often encountered in Linux gaming. The inclusion of Handheld Daemon, managing settings like TDP control and RGB lighting, caters directly to the needs of portable gaming configurations, with support provided for devices like the ASUS Ally, GPD devices, and AOKZOE. The emphasis on secure by default functionality – SELinux, Secure Boot, LUKS encryption, and TPM unlocking – reinforces Bazzite's commitment to a safe and reliable gaming environment. The integration of Waydroid and software containers brings the benefits of cloud orchestration to the desktop, facilitating the deployment and management of applications within isolated environments. This is strategically coupled with the inclusion of modern app stores providing attestation, sandboxing, and officially verified applications, adding to the user-friendly experience. The design of Bazzite shows an understanding of the frustrations some users face with patching or setting up the gaming experience. It uses tooling from the cloud native community, like Brew and Distrobox, to seamlessly transition users from the command line without requiring an immediate experience in CLI. Furthermore, the documentation and community support (Discord, Discourse, Reddit, and GitHub) are explicitly included to help in support, and to facilitate active feedback among users. The support team utilizes a pull from Universal Blue's extensive team, with external support through Fedora, Open Source, and a vibrant community of developers. Ultimately, Bazzite represents an ambitious attempt to create a universally accessible and simplified gaming experience. Its image-based approach, containerization capabilities, and hardware-focused optimizations contribute to a streamlined and flexible gaming platform. While still considered a beta, Bazzite’s innovative design offers a glimpse into the future of Linux gaming – one where compatibility, ease of use, and a community-driven ecosystem take center stage. |