Bazzite is a SteamOS Clone That Supports Gaming PCs and the Steam Deck

Bazzite isn't an exact clone of SteamOS 3, but its functionality is virtually identical to Valve's operating system. On the surface, Bazzite features an identical desktop experience to SteamOS 3. Thanks to the integration of KDE Plasma — a customizable Linux desktop environment, and Valve's KDE themes from SteamOS, Bazzite shares the same desktop wallpapers, icons, and taskbar as Valve's operating system. If you didn't know any better, you'd think you were running the real SteamOS.

But under the hood, Bazzite's actual operating system is not the same, as it uses an entirely different Linux distro from Valve's operating system. Instead of using a branch of Arch Linux, which is the distro SteamOS 3 is based on, Bazzite is built using a custom version of Fedora 38, which incorporates more hardware and device support than SteamOS 3. Some of the hardware support includes baked-in proprietary Nvidia driver support for GeForce GPUs, to enable GeForce-powered systems to run Bazzite. (Sadly AMD support is unclear — but the OS does support AMD ROCm.)

usrtrv,

What does it mean by AMD support is unclear? You just need mesa which is included by default in most distros. Which is clearly included since it supports the SteamDeck.

j0rge,

This is usually an oversight by people who might not have deep linux technical knowledge. I left a polite reply to let them know that AMD is good to go.

dan1101,

That’s pretty cool but sounds like us noobs need to wait for a better installer. Too bad Valve hasn’t been able to release SteamOS 3 for PCs, I think I would be on Linux if it was out.

Andrenikous,

Maybe want to consider Nobara. I’ve been using it on my desktop and it runs my Steam library very well. Currently playing Baldurs Gate 3.

gunpachi,

I have used ublue os before it started to gain popularity. It’s basically fedora silvervlue with different desktops made available.

It’s pretty good for an immutable system and worth checking out.

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