Announcing Bazzite 2.2.0

Welcome to a Bazzite Buzz #11

Bazzite 2.2.0 was released today, here's everything that's new.

Before we get to the news, we have some important news for existing users:

NOTE TO EXISTING BAZZITE USERS:

Secure Boot Users: Manual Intervention REQUIRED

The recent kernel changes will require users using Secure Boot to have added the "akmods mokutil" key.

Most users should have this key already due to degraded functionality without it.

If you have Secure Boot and you haven't enrolled the key, you can do this by entering this command in the terminal:

ujust enroll-secure-boot-key

If it asks for a password, enter:

ublue-os

More information can be found in this thread.

Preface

Bazzite is a custom image of Fedora Linux 39 utilizing Universal Blue's custom image framework designed to bring users the best in Linux gaming for their PCs, including the Steam Deck and other handhelds. Bazzite's newsletters highlight all of the work we have been doing to bring our users the best features ready to go for their PCs, home theater setups, and handheld gaming devices.

If you are new to the project, then here's how this technology works: Bazzite and other Universal Blue images follow the continuous delivery methodology of development, which means we're constantly adding new features and squashing bugs to the image through updates. These updates also include anything directly from upstream (Fedora and Universal Blue) and upgrades from the packages we include.

Several improvements that have been in the works have finally landed today! This can be considered a major update to Bazzite with new hardware support and some new defaults. The new changes are a recent milestone for the project.

Major Improvements for Handheld PCs

Handhelds should generally have better support now. Users will still have to install Decky plugins and find workarounds for some other issues due to limitations with Steam itself on most handheld PCs that are not the Steam Deck, but overall Bazzite should function on most of them.

Steam Deck OLED

The Steam Deck OLED support is out of the :testing branch!

The installer has some issue with the OLED Steam Deck:

• Non-functional Wi-Fi, requiring the use of a dock w/ Ethernet to install
• Incorrect screen rotation, we recommend that users install using the basic graphics option

The Steam Deck OLED is ready to use with two major caveats.

• There is an unfortunate bug that causes the audio system to crash when resuming from sleep
• The refresh rate is locked at 90hz.

Otherwise, once you get past the installation, then it should run games and have feature parity with SteamOS outside of the current bugs mentioned above.

Bazzite still works perfectly fine on the LCD models outside of the 64GB Steam Deck without an upgraded drive, but support will improve over time on the OLED.

Improvements with Other Handhelds

General fixes such as incorrect screen rotation, built-in support for Decky plugins using ujust, and better hardware support has been applied in today's update.

Official support has been added for the AOKZOE A1 handheld PC with its own image.

Bug fixes for the Legion Go and ASUS ROG Ally is also part of this new update. Legion Go users can install the -deck images, but the Asus ROG Ally users need the specific -ally images for full functionality.

The Anbernic Win600 is now supported as well and should function with the -deck image.

A useful Decky plugin that we mentioned on the previous Buzz, SimpleDeckyTDP, can easily be installed with ujust:

ujust get-simpledeckytdp

As a refresher, this new plugin allows you to change the TDP limit among other settings on other handhelds.

AMD and Nvidia Driver Improvements

AMD has had ray-tracing performance improvements with this patchset which is now merged into the image. This is documented to giving up to 30% better performance in Ghostwire Tokyo.

Bazzite is also prepping for NVK initial driver support for modern Nvidia GPUs. There will be a terminal command that allows users to switch between the proprietary and open source drivers. This will have a separate announcement when this new driver is ready to use, but keep your eye out Nvidia users.

Read more about these new changes in this thread.

New Applications

Prompt Terminal

Prompt Terminal is a terminal that is intended for container workflows. It is now the default terminal on all images replacing Konsole and GNOME Terminal.

Bazzite is focused on having better integration with container management as time progresses, so adding this terminal as the default is the first step to integrating containerization to the end user.

If you would like to restore Konsole or GNOME Terminal, then enter:

ujust restore-original-terminal

Pods

We know it can be a bit cumbersome managing your Distrobox containers using the terminal, so we added Pods. It is a GUI to manage containers, designed to be easy to use, and to blend in with the design language of GNOME. Of course it works great on KDE too!

Linux Mint's Webapp Manager

Linux Mint's Webapp Manager is now part of Bazzite as a pre-installed application. Ever wanted a webpage to be its own standalone application shortcut, but did not want to create your own .desktop files? Here's the easy solution!

UI/UX Changes

New Boot Screen

Bazzite has a new custom boot video on Steam Deck/HTPC/Handheld-PC images! It is a slick boot animation that will replace the original SteamOS branding that we were using.

Thanks to SuperRiderTH for creating this animation for us and letting us use it by default!

We now have a specific brand for this project instead of relying on the default Valve branding.

Desktop Changes

KDE

KDE images also have a similar Bazzite startup branding when logging in to the desktop. Users can now utilize Valve's "Vapor" & "VGUI2" themes for Gradience to theme GTK apps. Applications have also been re-organized and has new pinned applications as the default.

GNOME

GNOME images now include new default extensions out of the box and has also been revamped to have categories and new pinned applications like their KDE counterparts.

Other Highlights

ujust Changes

ujust has had some tooling changes that makes using these commands easier. Tons of Distrobox containers to pre-install and multiple options built-in are now available.

Most of the changes will not be noticable to most users besides consolidating multiple commands into toggles.

See the ujust Universal Blue documentation on what the purpose of this command-line tool is.

Waydroid SELinux Fix

Waydroid's SELinux workaround should no longer be needed now. If you have done this workaround, then you should revert it to have SELinux functional on your device.

Nintendo Peripheral Support

We have added joycond to the image for Nintendo Joy-Con support as well as other Nintendo Switch controllers.

Support for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo WiiU peripherals is also here thanks to xwiimote-ng being pre-installed.

Sunshine, Planify & Gradience Added to the Bazzite Portal

• Sunshine: a self-hosted game stream host for Moonlight
• Gradience: a tool for customizing Libadwaita applications and the adw-gtk3 theme
• Planify: a beautiful and simple app to make to-do lists

Sunshine can also be obtained with the ujust command. Gradience and Planify can also be installed from Discover.

More Language Translations for Documentation

There has been translations of our README in Spanish and Indonesian. Thank you to CharlieBros and dreamyuki/yukidream for the translations!

Some documentation on our Discourse also has been translated in Spanish as well. Although if you wish to contribute, you can avoid translating the installation documentation since that will be changing very soon.

Upgrading

Desktop Images

Desktop images usually auto-update once per day and apply on a reboot, but if you are impatient and want the update now open the terminal and enter:

rpm-ostree update

Wait for it to finish, then reboot.

Steam Deck/HTPC/Handheld-PC Images

In Steam's Big Picture, open the Settings > System and press the Check for updates button.

Alternatively, use the steps for "Desktop Images" above.

Optional Additions for Current Installations

These commands are applied by default in Bazzite now. Here are the commands if you want to add these to your existing setup:

• Greatly improve download speed in Steam (This is default-enabled in Bazzite portal now)

  ​​​​ujust fix-steam-download-speed
  

• Restore the application icon for GNOME Terminal or KDE Konsole, which were replaced with Prompt

  ​​​​ujust restore-original-terminal
  

• Add the new Bazzite Game Mode intro video for Steam Deck, HTPC, and Handheld PC images (This is default-enabled in Bazzite Portal now.)

  ​​​​ujust install-gamemode-video
  

• KDE only: Enable KDE-style corners on GTK4 applications in existing installs, will reset your gtk.css in ~/.config (Default behavior for new users)

  ​​​​ujust restore-bazzite-breeze-gtk-theme
  

• GNOME only: Restore Bazzite's opinionated GNOME defaults, same experience new users will get. This is destructive and one-way so don't do this if you've spent time carefully configuring your settings or extensions.

  ​​​​ujust restore-gnome-de-settings
  

• GNOME only: Restore Bazzite's application folder layout, same experience new users will get. Any application we don't organize will simply have no folder. This is destructive and one-way, so don't do this if you've spent time carefully organizing your applications.

  ​​​​ujust restore-gnome-folders
  

Conclusion

Thanks to everyone who has tested and gave us feedback in the :testing branch of Bazzite! Special thanks to everyone who has tested Bazzite on other hardware (especially handhelds!)

This latest Bazzite update has been in the works for a long time and is probably one of the biggest updates we have released in months.

The Universal Blue project has had over 6 million pulls so far! This is not a statistic of every user, but installations and updates users are pulling.

Thanks for using Bazzite!

Future Plans

The project still has many milestones that we plan to hit this year including:

• Developer-focused images (-dx images)
  • Intended for developers
    • Includes devcontainers
• New Fedora installer
  • Revamped UI
  • Pre-installed Flatpaks will now install during the installation process
  • Offline ISO will be available
  • May have support for local container registry functionality for local testing and development
  • Should fix known installer issues including:
    • Several installation failures
    • Installer screen rotation and resolution issues
    • Ventoy should work properly with the latest Bazzite ISO
• Default and configured toolbox containers for Bazzite
• Support for more general applications
  • More support for specific kernel modules
  • Proper sysext support
• More desktop environments to choose from
  • Budgie is on our radar and has its own unstable branch for now
• Upstream changes that allow users to download new system updates without having to download the entire Bazzite image (saves bandwidth)
• The latest GE-Proton/WINE pre-installed out of the box
• Eventually add OpenGamepadUI as an alternative to Steam's Big Picture Mode if preferred
• ARM support in the far future, but in Universal Blue's roadmap
• "Powerwash" feature to have a clean installation of Bazzite

Installing Bazzite & Documentation

Install the latest Bazzite here. Check out our installation guide on how to install it properly. Check out our FAQ and information on our Steam Deck images.

Report issues on our issue tracker if you experience any major issues with Bazzite.

Contributing to Bazzite

If you are feeling ambitious then feel free to contribute to the project. Bazzite and other Universal Blue images are open source projects. Contributions of all kinds are welcome, even if it is as simple as translating Bazzite's README into another language.

If you would like to contribute to Bazzite, then take a look at contribution ideas that you can help us out with! Take a look at our guide on how to make your fist contribution to the project.

Community

Get in touch with us on our Discord, discuss in our forums, and follow us on Mastodon!

Changelog

Desktop Images

Features

• kernel-fsync is now in the :latest branch and out of :testing
  • NOTE to secure boot users:
    • ujust enroll-secure-boot-key has to be entered in a host terminal before updating
      • If it asks you for a password, then enter: ublue-os
      • Read more here: https://universal-blue.discourse.group/t/secure-boot-notice/405
• ASUS and Surface devices should work out of the box now
  • No need to use the specific images
• NVK
  • Added new NVK files and built nouveau-experimental Vulkan driver in Mesa for Nvidia images
    • Automatically set needed parameters for hardware accelerated video in Flatpak Firefox on Nvidia hardware
    • Enabled GSP firmware by default
    • Waydroid added to Nvidia images
      • This will NOT work on the current proprietary drivers until NVK is available
• Added Prompt Terminal as the default terminal emulator
  • Great for easily switching between Distrobox containers
  • If you want to revert to using the default terminal for your desktop environment then enter ujust restore-original-terminal in the terminal
• Added Pods as a default feature
  • GUI to create and manage Distrobox containers
• Added Webapp Manager to create webapp shortcuts
• Added joycond
  • Supports Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons and other Switch controllers
• Added xwiimote-ng
  • Extends hid-wiimote, providing tools and libraries that support the Wii Remote as well as the Wii Balance Board, Wii U Pro Controller and other accessories
• New items in the Bazzite Portal
  • Sunshine
  • Planify
  • Gradience
• Added patch for drastically improved RADV RT performance in AMD/Intel images
• Updated xwayland to 23.2.4
  • This fixes the current security issues that affect the previous versions
• Added p-state patched power-profiles-daemon
• Included playerctl for media control
• KDE images have been improved with quality of life changes
  • Prompt CSS theme for window geometry
• GNOME images have also been improved with quality of life changes
  • Includes the Hot Edge extension
    • Greatly improves desktop UX by making the dash behave more like a hidden dock. Apply pressure to the bottom of your screen to make it appear
  • Wobbly window effect if compiz effect is enabled
• Re-organized application categories for both GNOME and KDE images
  • Default pinned items changed
• Set up bazzite-hardware-setup to re-run if the branch changes
• Switched to self-controlled forks for anything executable we pull from GitHub

Fixes

• Several fixes to Nvidia images
• Waydroid SELinux workarounds implemented
• Restored DisplayLink
• Updated LACT installer to download the correct version and apply live to avoid having to reboot
• Temporarily dropped setroubleshoot until issues with notifications can be addressed
• Locked to previous version of btrfs deduplication script
• Corrected labels on waydroid for selinux
• Fixed issues reading performance metrics on AMD Zen processors
  • Added zenpower3 kmod
  • Blacklisted k10temp in favor of zenpower3

Steam Deck/HTPC/Handheld-PC Images

Features

• All of the features and fixes from the Desktop images
• New Bazzite boot animation
  • Thanks to SuperRiderTH
• Proper Steam Deck OLED support
  • :testing is no longer required for most functionality
• Other handheld PC support
  • :testing is no longer required for most functionality
  • The ASUS ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go has several fixes and patches applied with some caveats
    • -ally images must be used for ASUS ROG ALLY hardware
    • Lenovo Legion Go can use the generic -deck image
  • ASUS ROG Ally works with some caveats on the
  • AOKZOE A1 is now supported with -aokzoe images
    • Supports custom refresh rates
  • Anbernic Win600 is now supported
• Hide Input Remapper on -deck images by default
  • ujust command will be added soon
• Setup a user service for sdgyrodsu

Fixes

• General Steam Deck hardware fixes
  • Audio issues resolved
  • Corrected fan control (Thanks RodoMa92)
  • Corrected rotation issues (Thanks Xe and d3Xt3r!)
  • Hardware modded Steam Decks will not use BIOS updates, so they don't break compatibility
    • Hardware modded: 32GB of RAM, DeckHD screen, etc.
• Fixed several issues relating to Gamescope (Thanks m2Giles!)
• Fixed nested desktop displaying at the wrong rotation for -deck images

View the full changelog

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Editors: CharlieBros, Jorge Castro, and HikariKnight