I only used windows on my desktop for gaming. Having a Steam Deck, I was really eagerly waiting for an official SteamOS distro for my desktop. And then I tried Bazzite. I have been playing games on Bazzite for a couple of months now and I’m super happy. So glad to get rid of Windows’ constant nagging and Microsoft’s worsening practices. Every time I booted my desktop there was a new shitty surprise either to make my local login profile into a cloud one, forcefully update to win11 or some other unwanted bad UX. Bye bye Microsoft, at long last!
Same experience as Steam Deck. It boots to a sort of Big Picture mode, and in the Power Menu you have an option to “switch to desktop”. They are separate modes and I believe you get logget out from either in order to switch to the other. It’s fast though.
Note that there are a couple of iso download options depending on what experience you want with Bazzite, I chose the one that most closely resembles the Deck’s.
Before this I had tried Ubuntu and I had lots of issues out of the box, with VRR, crackling sound and other stuff. Bazzite worked out of the box, and required nrarly zero setup. There are minor issues, but nothing even close to a dealbreaker - for instance the default audio device on boot was always the PS5 controller’s speaker, so I disabled it (I’m sure there are better solutions), or Steam always shows there’s an update (even though you might be on the latest version).
FWIW I boot Bazzite in desktop mode with two 27" displays and have been very happy. Mixed use, not nearly as much gaming as it’s really intended for most of the time, and occasionally patchy experience but (un-)usually great. So many quality of life little doodads.
For instance, the screens brighten and dim effortlessly with my scroll wheel on a widget in the taskbar, just by default. Discovered it by accident lol, what else don’t I know?!
I only used windows on my desktop for gaming. Having a Steam Deck, I was really eagerly waiting for an official SteamOS distro for my desktop. And then I tried Bazzite. I have been playing games on Bazzite for a couple of months now and I’m super happy. So glad to get rid of Windows’ constant nagging and Microsoft’s worsening practices. Every time I booted my desktop there was a new shitty surprise either to make my local login profile into a cloud one, forcefully update to win11 or some other unwanted bad UX. Bye bye Microsoft, at long last!
whats bazzite like installed on a desktop system? is there a hotkey that lets you switch between the steamdeck mode and the desktop?
There’s a desktop iso available for Bazzite with either Gnome or KDE plasma and both work normally.
Same experience as Steam Deck. It boots to a sort of Big Picture mode, and in the Power Menu you have an option to “switch to desktop”. They are separate modes and I believe you get logget out from either in order to switch to the other. It’s fast though.
Note that there are a couple of iso download options depending on what experience you want with Bazzite, I chose the one that most closely resembles the Deck’s.
Before this I had tried Ubuntu and I had lots of issues out of the box, with VRR, crackling sound and other stuff. Bazzite worked out of the box, and required nrarly zero setup. There are minor issues, but nothing even close to a dealbreaker - for instance the default audio device on boot was always the PS5 controller’s speaker, so I disabled it (I’m sure there are better solutions), or Steam always shows there’s an update (even though you might be on the latest version).
FWIW I boot Bazzite in desktop mode with two 27" displays and have been very happy. Mixed use, not nearly as much gaming as it’s really intended for most of the time, and occasionally patchy experience but (un-)usually great. So many quality of life little doodads.
For instance, the screens brighten and dim effortlessly with my scroll wheel on a widget in the taskbar, just by default. Discovered it by accident lol, what else don’t I know?!
It’s excellent. Folks should use it.
I believe bazzite offers that feature if you want it. You either select it during download or installation
No, it works just like Steam Deck.