Bazzite is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

that is designed as an alternative to Valve's

SteamOS SteamOS is an Arch Linux-based Linux distribution developed by Valve. It incorporates Valve's video game storefront Steam; it is also the official operating system for the Steam Deck, Valve's portable gaming device, as well as Valve's earlier ...

3. Bazzite is based on

Fedora Linux Fedora Linux is a Linux distribution developed by the Fedora Project. It was originally developed in 2003 as a continuation of the Red Hat Linux project. It contains software distributed under various free and open-source licenses and aims to b ...

rather than

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an Open-source software, open source, rolling release Linux distribution. Arch Linux is kept up-to-date by regularly updating the individual pieces of software that it comprises. Arch Linux is intentionally minimal, and is meant ...

. It offers support for handheld PC devices, including the

Steam Deck The Steam Deck is a handheld gaming computer produced by Valve Corporation, designed to run a portion of games available on the Steam storefront client. Built upon the experiences gained from Valve's earlier ventures with Steam Machine and th ...

. Bazzite is named after the

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): Mi ...

, as Fedora Atomic Desktops once had a mineral naming scheme. It aims to deliver a seamless out-of-the-box experience for both casual and advanced Linux gamers.

History

Bazzite 1.0 was initially released in November of 2023 as a custom image of Fedora 38, as a distribution optimized for Linux gaming on PC and Steam Deck. As of version 41 (based on Fedora 41), Bazzite supports "most

x86_64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit extension of the x86 instruction set. It was announced in 1999 and first available in the AMD Opteron family in 2003. It introduces two new operating modes: 64-bit mode a ...

PCs from the last decade" as well as numerous gaming handhelds, including the Asus ROG Ally or the Lenovo Legion Go.

Features

Bazzite provides a gaming-focused Linux experience with out-of-the-box support for platforms like

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

, Lutris, an
Heroic Games Launcher
It includes builds optimized for the Steam Deck and other handheld PCs, featuring controller support and hardware integration. Built on Fedora's

rpm-ostree libostree (previously OSTree) is a system for versioning updates of Linux-based operating systems. It can be considered " Git for operating system binaries". It operates in userspace, and will work on top of any Linux file system. At its core is ...

system, Bazzite uses an immutable design with atomic updates and

rollback In political science, rollback is the strategy of forcing a change in the major policies of a state, usually by replacing its ruling regime. It contrasts with containment, which means preventing the expansion of that state; and with détente, ...

functionality. It supports both

GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

and

KDE Plasma KDE Plasma is a Shell (computing), graphical shell developed by the KDE community for Unix-like operating systems. It serves as the interface layer between the user and the operating system, providing a graphical user interface (GUI) and workspa ...

desktops, and comes with pre-installed proprietary

Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

drivers as well as support for the Meta 3D stack. Bazzite emphasizes a

Flatpak Flatpak is a utility for software deployment and package management for Linux. It provides a sandbox environment in which users can run application software in (partial) isolation from the rest of the system. Flatpak was known as xdg-app unti ...

-based, sandboxed application ecosystem. A dedicated first-run configuration utility, Bazzite Portal, allows users to manage settings and install packages.

Reviews

Bazzite has been praised by gaming and tech publications for its ease of use, performance and optimization for gaming hardware.

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

has been "recommending Bazzite because it's objectively better than

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

for he ROG Ally.

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 alongside parent company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. Fr ...

said: "Bazzite provides a great

-like experience for Windows handheld users". "Directly comparing Bazzite and Windows,

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American Technology journalism, technology news website headquarters, headquartered in Lower Manhattan, New York City and operated by Vox Media. The website publishes news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, cons ...

often found games ran faster, smoother, and used slightly less power with Bazzite's Linux operating system." According to XDA-Developers, "it's not only great for gaming handhelds, but even a desktop PC could be better off using Bazzite instead of Windows". PCGH wrote: " Gamers get a

state of the art The state of the art (SOTA or SotA, sometimes cutting edge, leading edge, or bleeding edge) refers to the highest level of general development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field achieved at a particular time. However, in some contex ...

gaming

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

that combines almost all advantages of SteamOS with atomic updates and is substantially optimized."

References and notes

External links

Official website
{{Linux-distro-stub Linux