Generated via https://github.com/ublue-os/countme
10k added users since last post. Here are upstream Fedora numbers only
I am a container evangelist, I find excuses to convert my jobs into Kubernetes workloads, and I frequently use the likes of podman for one off apps/processes and development. I use Flatpak frequently to isolate dependencies for the likes of Steam and Heroic.
I really wanted to like Bazzite or Bluefin, but I can’t deal with the overhead from the rpm os-tree updates. I would frequently notice hitches for my use case (sunshine streaming), and the hoops I had to do to configure Nvidia drivers (for it to then not work as good as other distros) was tiresome.
I went back to Arch (EndeavourOS), and I improved sunshine performance and had a driver that worked with less fiddling.
I’m saying all this because, while I’m glad to see any Linux distro grow, I hope it starts delivering what it says on the tin eventually without compromises that I experienced. Markering on it being immutable and container focused is true, but I dont see the benefit (aside from more stability which as others pointed out, is already stable is most cases)?. Right now, its a simple to configure (assuming most defaults work for your setup) distro that is finding a growing niche amongst some users (obviously by the data shown). And thats good enough for now at least.
I will hypothesize why:
Bazzite is the Trendy Distro Of The Month, like Peppermint or Endeavor or Nobara or a frillion others. CachyOS is apparently next. Nearly constantly, you’ll hear about some trendy new distro which is a fork of Ubuntu or Fedora or Arch that has a feature or two targeted at newcomers or gamers, and for awhile it gets heavily recommended on Reddit or Lemmy, then you stop hearing about it forever as the rest of the ecosystem adopts that feature or fixes the thing that feature was meant to be worked around, and then the cycle repeats.
Bazzite is targeted toward gamers, it emphasizes a solid onboarding experience with a configurator to choose/build your install media based on what you want to do with it, do you want a handheld or home theater experience or a keyboard and mouse desktop? Do you want it to boot to SteamOS or to a DE? Which DE? What hardware do you have? So their gimmick is to steer users through the initital config and setup process. Which as gimmicks go, that one is pretty solid.
MEANWHILE
Fedora’s Atomic editions have no gimmicks at all. You have to independently learn that immutable distros exist, independently decide you want that, and then go hunting on their website through their godforsaken marketing wank to find it.
Fedora likes their bullshit branding. You go to their website, and there are big buttons for Fedora Workstation right next to Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop. “Workstation” does not mention that it’s just the Gnome version. You have to stroll further down, past server, IoT and “Core” versions, to a section that looks visually different labeled “More Fedora Options” including Atomic and Spins. You’re a new Linux user, you’ve just used the OS that came with your computer your whole life, explain to me what the difference between Core and Atomic is and why you should choose one over the other?
The Atomic versions, which is kind of a synonym for “immutable”, you click on that, and you’re presented with five options: Fedora Silverblue, Fedora Kinoite, Fedora Sway Atomic, Fedora Budgie Atomic, and Fedora Cosmic Atomic Nowhere in its name or description does Silverblue mention that it’s the Gnome desktop one. Kinoite starts with a K and also mentions in the description it’s the KDE atomic version. Also, “kinoite” is a godawful word, they should have gone with Kyanite instead, which is a different blue crystal. Or they should have just called it KDE Atomic or Plasma Atomic. The others just put the DE’s name in the title LIKE A NORMAL PERSON, ROWAN.
That’s a really dismissive way to say “It’s an OS built to fit a demand that wasn’t being met by the other distros”.
I am wary about invoking Apple here, but say what you will about the company, there’s a lot of value in a braindead setup process. Many, many users just want something that just works - it was literally something I asked for when Linux was recommended to me (knowing some hate Ubuntu, I’ll out myself: using Ubuntu Budgie - setup was super simple. I guess there must be demand for that niche in the broader Linux community, so that’s a very smart move by Bazzite.
CachyOS is apparently next.
I’d argue that this is already the current trend. I can’t count the number of random Indian youtubers I recently got recommended to watch as they glaze CachyOS as the second coming of christ.
The removal of KDE Discover has me considering going back to plain Kinoite on my HTPC. I figure I can build a sysext with the handful of bazzite bits I actually use and keep the unbutchered plasma experience
Would you be willing to say more about what you know / experienced about the removal of Discover? Preferences included? I only noticed it recently, been away from things for a bit, and you sound like your brief info would probably be at least as fruitful as the reading I was gonna look for :)
the ublue project / bazzite decided to make their own flatpak first app store called Bazaar. Fair enough its their distro. However they created it with GTK4/Adwaita libraries, so its a Gnome native app and looks completely ugly on a KDE Plasma desktop. Also as a flatpak first app store it doesn’t update anything else on your machine like what discover is capable of (cant update ostree, knew stuff etc). This means you have to use the ujust terminal app to access updates, which I dont agree with.
I think technically you could layer it back in with rpm-ostree install kdediscover - however this pulls back a couple of hundred meg of plasma dependencies, which if you’re not aware, when you update your system would be redownloaded and reinstalled with each new ostree snapshot, slowing down the update process even further. I I tried doing it as a sysext (myrepo) but it keeps segfaulting and I havent worked out the issue. Sysexts are new experienmental alternative to package layering which hold a lot of potential (check out tim ravier’s development of them here https://travier.github.io/fedora-sysexts/)
You don’t use the terminal to do updates, updates are automatic by default.
We also completely removed discovers ability to update OSTree. It’s never been present in a single build of Bazzite.
This is why I don’t pay attention to people that complain about toolkits. You don’t like the way it looks so you make up absolutely disingenuous points to argue about it.
I also said ublue is free to do what they want, why are you attacking me for suggesting I want to put something back the way it was? I never asked for your attention, I’m not pestering the developers about it, instead I attempted to author a fix for anyone who also is not a fan of the change.
Yes, I dont like a core system tool not being part of my desktop, I dont want my updates to fire via a timer, and I have updated my ostree via discover on my bazzite box. I understand a lot of your target audience does want those things, an appliance type experience - I even suggested 2 posts up that perhaps bazzite was no longer for me as the target audience.
I appologise for drawing your ire
edit: FYI I’m not some bad faith poster, having defended bazaar - Also my particular bazzite box has been rebased between Fedora and Aurora, probably accumulated some artifacts in the process, which may explain why my discover had not been previously hobbled. Have a good night
There’s a toggle for the store in ujust command iirc
Only on Aurora, we don’t ship that.
Ah ok
I couldnt see one - I also dont want to layer it, because it will pull in a couple of hundred megs of kde dependencies every time you update. I tried doing it as a sysext (myrepo) but it keeps segfaulting and I havent worked out the issue
Sysexts are something I’ve been meaning to get in to. Have you had much success in general with them?
Yes I use Kinoite as my work machine and I’ve used Tim Ravier’s sysext repo for adding libvirtd, distrobox, wireshark and vscode to that machine. I also authored my own that adds nmap, iperf, telnet, screen and a few other command line tools I make use of at work. I find this easier than juggling toolboxes for it
Lots of shit-talking Bazzite…
I don’t game much but when I do it’s on Fedora.
What distro do you all recommend for my Windows buddy looking to switch to gaming on Linux?
Bazzite is the option for Windows converts that want a gaming focused Linux desktop. A lot of people are going to nitpick it to death, because they want “Literally Windows but without Microsoft”. Which isn’t happening while Linux has the market share it has. You either accept a few annoyances (while advocating for those annoyances to be fixed), or go back to Windows and accept Microsoft’s authoritarian control of your computer.
Bazzite is a solid desktop that’s going to be really hard for a regular user to break, comes with Steam, Lutris, and Heroic built in, proprietary nvidia drivers installed, and is based on Fedora (Modern, stable, well supported).
The only downside is KDE can be really easy to break if you’re a new user unfamiliar with how customizing it works, but if you leave it default you’re fine.
Just in the name of completeness, I wouldn’t say that’s the only downside. I definitely have some stability issues with Bazzite, only when gaming though. But game crashes, occasional OS crashes, that hasn’t been exactly rare for me. But I will say, gaming is about the one thing in my life I’m almost unwilling to troubleshoot these days. Could be something specific to my setup that is uncommon for others, making my data point unhelpful.
And by and large, I’d absolutely recommend it for any Windows user who wants an easily transferable user experience and broadly fantastic gaming support with minimal fuss.
People just don’t like it because it’s different and uses new tech
CachyOS might be the easiest one that gives you something decent. It’s basically an Arch Linux with slightly better compiler optimizations and tweaked kernels. Also a tweaked version of proton in the core repos.
Started by a German dude so EU++ or something. And of course it’s based on Arch Linux, which was started by a Canadian dude.
It’s on top of distrowatch too, but I have no idea what that implies.
Easy installer too.
PopOS/Cosmis has native Nvidia support, works perfectly out of the box
Manjaro is the closest thing to Windows you’re going to get.
I recommend it with KDE.
Because it sucks? 🙃
Like, seriously, Manjaro had so many problems already that were completely preventable, makes stupid mistakes, bloats itself up with nonsense and provides no stability improvement over Arch whatsoever (which is a bad thing). On the contrary, it apparently even introduces additional bugs.
I’m not surprised they accidentally DDoS’ed the AUR, given they also have a docker script that spins up every single time an image is downloaded to push a change to git to increment a counter. Every. Single. Time. A full docker container. From scratch.
I’d only ever recommend Manjaro to people I really don’t like.
You’re doing a good job fitting in with your peers.
Mission accomplished.
Manjaro has also DDoS’d the AUR several times and is known for not keeping their certs up to date.
Say no to manjaro https://github.com/arindas/manjarno
Nice automated response. Pretty sure that hasn’t been an issue for years.
Linux Mint’s website was hacked and they served a malicious ISO, but the useful idiot crowd never talks about that.
The snowball effect is real, and if you can’t see it then you’re probably a part of it.
The main reason why people hate on Manjaro is because it makes it easy to use a historically complicated distro. Anyone rational person who has been in the free software ecosystem for a substantial period of time will recognize that there are many morons, elitists, and losers who like to make things more complicated than they need to be to feel superior to others.
Also, people don’t like when another distro is better than theirs, which Manjaro is for the vast majority of rational users.
No one hates endeavouros yet it makes arch Linux easy to use. I don’t see why endevouros isn’t the better choice over manjaro.
Bazzite is not growing because it’s immutable.
Angry upvote.
They all are
But “being immutable” is not why Bazzite is growing.
?
Bazzite’s growth is not because it is immutable, Bazzite’s growth is because it offers gamers a straightforward onboarding process.
It offers a straightforward onboarding process because it’s image based. The model is part of the success.
The upward trend is not because Bazzite is immutable.
I disagree with you fundamentally, if it wasn’t for the simple updates and stability this would not have the success that it does. The image is part of the model.
lol you’re confusing me, bazzite isn’t immutable. Do you mean to say “Bazzite is growing for other reasons?”
Wut? You’re responding to a trend graph for Fedora’s immutable (Atomic) forks.
Built on Fedora’s rpm-ostree system, Bazzite uses an immutable design with atomic updates and rollback functionality.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazzite_(operating_system)
But yes, since the trend chart is showing immutable distros and how Bazzite is growing, I am saying the fact that Bazzite is immutable has nothing to do with it’s growth.
Edit: Reading again, I realize you might not know that Fedora Atomic is the immutable base. 😉
The Bazzite team doesn’t control the wikipedia page, just the official documentation. Someone made up the term “immutable design”, that’s not a thing it’s just a container. There’s no need to confuse people just call it bazzite or a container. Atomic is a fedora brand name, it’s not a thing to classify things under.
As you can see from the comments in the thread all this does is confuse people.
Source: I work on bazzite
“Immutable”: A term to describe Linux operating systems that do not follow the traditional filesystem layout where every single file can be removed by the user with root privileges. It is more nuanced than this in the case of Bazzite, but is still considered “immutable” from the point of view of the extended Linux community. The Bazzite team would not describe Bazzite as an “immutable” operating system.
https://docs.bazzite.gg/General/terms/
I’m a big fan of Bazzite, but as stated in the docs, “immutable” is a term the community uses to describe it.
Education is the key to reducing confusion, not pretending a system architecture doesn’t exist or matter.
After reading this I’m confused about what immutable means
Bazzite contributor here, there’s no reason to care about this. This term just confuses people you can safely ignore it.
Pretend your running a live OS off a read-only USB, yet any changes (app installs, config changes, etc) you make are saved to the HD. A new version of the OS comes out, so you write a new ISO to your USB, and upon booting it, all you changes are applied on top.
This is a simplistic view of immutable distros, but thwy wrk more like snapshots. It allows for rollback. So you install v1, then v2 is a newer snapshot of the base OS, v3 is another, always building.
The catch is they often require apps to run under things like flatpak so you don’t have to alter the OS packages. Personally, I’m not a fan for a daily driver, but it’s great for distros like Bazzite.
👑 the goat is here
Go Bazzite, there has been a lot of talk about Bazzite lately, also on YouTube many have been reviewing it, like JayzTwoCents had a feature about it, which probably helped.
I haven’t tried it myself, but it’s great to see that it’s still possible to shake up the Linux community with a new approach.
Congratulations and best of wishes. 👍 🎈Gaming will always take the lead—gamers are usually quick to chase the newest and shiniest things. Bluefin/Aurora adoption takes a bit longer because developers have to adjust their workflows, and there’s still this odd stigma around atomics. People assume you “can’t do things” on an atomic distro that you can on a traditional one, when in reality it’s mostly the same—just a slightly different approach in certain areas. Like with Nix, once it clicks, the pros far outweigh the cons. Personally, Bluefin has made me a more organised and efficient developer.
I can’t upload the images for some reason but here’s the current numbers for the ublue spins
- Bazzite: 26k users -> bazzite.json
- Bluefin: 1.9k users -> bluefin.json
- Bluefin LTS: 40 users -> bluefin-lts.json
- Aurora: 1.3k users -> aurora.json
Bluefin/Aurora adoption takes a bit longer because developers have to adjust their workflows, and there’s still this odd stigma around atomics.
Bluefin maintainer here, our target audience are container people, not people who want to adjust their workflows. The people we cater to don’t have an opinion on “atomics” because no one’s ever heard of that term. They’ve heard of docker or podman though.
Thanks Jorge the good work! I had been using silverblue for years and now I’m running machines with bazzite, bluefin, and ucore os. I really, really enjoy how easy to manage atomic distros are, and how they steer you towards better practices (in dev and sysadmin) by design. Thanks!
I actually just switched from Bazzite to Bluefin on my devices, even my gaming PC
Mostly because I wanted a more minimal/essential experience with less pre-installed packages
I’m sure I’m sacrificing a little gaming performance, but nothing noticeable by me so far
:shrug:
Joke’s on you, Jorge. I use U-Blue just for the great general purpose desktop experience.
I mean yeah sure, if you’re not a developer you can just use it like a chromebook. :D
I honestly don’t know what any of that means. I use Bazzite for automatic updates, Gnome extensions, Portal/ujust commands, update rollbacks, and game mode/Gamescope. It’s simply the most usable distro I’ve found. Bazaar is a nice bonus too. Gnome Software has infuriated me for a long time and I feel like a crazy person because no one talks about it.
I used Nobara for about a month and was constantly pestered with update notifications. There were multiple updaters, I didn’t really understand how to use either of them, and they required a lot of manual input. Eventually I tried to do something else while the updater was running and broke it.
He’s not talking about Bazzite, though. Bluefin and Aurora are built from the same cloud tech as Bazzite, but are more focused towards devs, specifically devs who use containers.
Bazzite just works when it’s a regular desktop. The HTPC (with steam game mode) one has a major issue that I don’t see them even addressing, it doesn’t suspend. It goes into a permanent black screen and the PC is still running. Nothing revives it beside a forced reboot. I reported it to their GitHub and got nothing really. I thought it was my hardware, but I had a friend of mine bring his whole tower to my house, we installed bazzite and it did the same thing. His tower has all new AMD hardware. On my laptop, bazzite is solid as hell. Works with zero issues.
It works very nicely on my legion go.
And on the Asus devices. I’ve had this WiFi issue on bazzite on my onexplayer for months until a random developer fixed it by disabling the wifi driver on the device sleeps and re-enables it when it wakes up. The device is now flawless.
I had been using Aurora-dx, but I also like to play games, so I re-based to Bazzite-dx when it became available.
Hey, I’m one of those! Started using Bazzite in July, have absolutely fallen in love. My whole gaming library is available, which has been a real first for me with Linux.
Just installed it at the start of the month on an older PC for a console-like experience in my living room. Only 2 issues really have me disappointed (and I’m not sure there’s much Bazzite can do about them)
-
No HDMI 2.1 support from my AMD card (like seriously, wtf? Had I known that I probably would have dropped a 9060 XT in instead of a 9070XT)
-
No real wake in controller support for my FlyDigi or Xbox Series controllers. I’ve messed around in udev and found no solutions.
If they can figure those things out, I’d be much more impressed with the experience…. For now it just feels like another FOSS compromise to the product you actually want (PS5 Pro)
Unfortunately, the former is not possible due to asinine requirements by the HDMI Forum: https://www.phoronix.com/news/HDMI-2.1-OSS-Rejected The only option is to use DisplayPort instead (or perhaps an adapter).
Unfortunately, my living room TV has only HDMI in, no DP. I tried the adaptor route, but it was horribly unstable… sometimes providing perfect signal, sometimes cutting to a black screen for a second or 2, every 5-10 seconds. Either way, VRR is wholly unsupported by the adaptor.
Unfortunately nothing that can be done about it unless someome creates an “illegal” kernel module which supports HDMI 2.1 despite the lack of license. That’s basically the only hope right now (and I’m all for it).
-
Surprised to see it at the bottom of the graph, but for anyone with a homelab uCore is a present from the
heavenscloud!Feel like saying more about what ya like?
Bazzite community really deserves tbe credit. Lots of work and great vibes all around!
Ubuntu used to be one of the best gaming desktops that was still very stable and usable for everything else, but Canonical has been ruining it to make it more aimed at business and making more ways to profit, so Fedora has been filling the gap IMHO. Still some better dedicated gaming build distros, but Bazzite is good at being a gaming distro that works well as a productivity desktop too.
Ubuntu literally has never in it’s history been a good gaming distro. It use to just be a popular one. But all of the Deb/apt distros have never been “good choices”
Arch and Gentoo were always the better options. And it’s really only recently that the rest become reasonable options.
Gaming has historically been best on absolutely bleeding edge distros with a bunch of hacky community patches and fixes.
As I said, it was a good distro that could do gaming and still be used as a stable daily driver workstation without needing to dual boot.
I don’t think Ubuntu is ruined so much as that Bazzite is very focused on the gaming use case and is a better choice if that’s what you want to do. I use Ubuntu and have tried Bazzite (in a VM with an Nvidia GPU pass thru). Bazzite made the Nvidia based install incredibly easy, and is a particularly good choice for VFIO. I personally use Ubuntu specifically because it’s the same OS as my cloud servers. They solve real problems in that space.
Gaming really benefits from up to date kernels. So Ubuntu just isn’t a good choice for that.
As I said, it was a good distro for gaming that was also stable enough to use as a daily driver workstation.
Dude Fedora? Really
Just use Windows if you want a voyeur.
