I require comprehensive gaming support (ideally capable of running any Windows programme) alongside extensive printer drivers and USB device drivers (for various USB peripherals including audio, Bluetooth, mice, controllers, laser pointers, etc.). Should I opt for Bazzite? Does Aurora offer more printer drivers? Or is it easier to achieve gaming support on Aurora versus office support on Bazzite?
Furthermore, as I intend to use it for over a decade, which is the most secure and reliable?
I’m recently getting into programming development and may also require features favoured by developers, though I’m not yet proficient with Linux.
If gaming is a priority, you definitely want to go with Bazzite. It’s a proper gaming distro with support for installing add’l apps and tools (such as LibreOffice) using Flatpak, Homebrew and Distrobox (just like any other ublue-based distro). You’ll be able to game, learn, and get work done on Bazzite with minimal effort.
If you want a workstation (with developer-focused images), you’d pick Bluefin or Aurora based on your preference for the GNOME or KDE desktop envs, respectively. Setting any of these for gaming is likely going to be an uphill battle.
Yes, Bazzite is a proper gaming distro with a separate desktop mode (you switch back & forth b/w the two as needed). This video is a good gaming demo of Bazzite on Framework Desktop and shows the desktop mode as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUje8zzMUI8
For occasional gaming, you could definitely look into customizing one of the other distros.
maybe it was a little bit bad wording, what i mean that if your main usage is gaming, then bazzite offers better tools for it included. Some of those tools might only work if you layer them (and bazzite includes them in the image).
Bazzite also adds more gaming tweaks, for like the kernel etc.
But I have no “gaming experience” so can’t really compare currently.
I note that Aurora provides ‘more printer drivers’ – are these drivers difficult to obtain? I also note QEMU and KVM. Are there any significant advantages of Aurora over other Universal Blue Projects images that I may have missed?
Are there any significant advantages of Aurora over other Universal Blue Projects
I don’t believe so. In fact, if anything, I think Bazzite has an advantage over the other images because it works both as a gaming and developer workstation with minimal effort on the user’s part.
Based on what’s discussed so far, here’s my recommendation:
Download Bazzite [0]
Install Bazzite
Update the system: ujust update (reboot if necessary)
Rebase to the developer mode (dx): ujust rebase-helper (follow prompts)
Reboot the system
[0] Choose gaming or desktop as the default experience based on your needs. This determines the experience the system boots into. You can of course trivially switch b/w the two experiences as needed.
For printer drivers, you can go to the Printers applet in System Settings. In all likelihood, your printer is already installed. If not, you can click the Add Printer button and follow prompts to install your printer. This assumes your printer drivers are already available; if not, you’ll have to source them from your printer’s vendor and follow their instructions to install on Linux.
AFAIK, there are no differences b/w Universal Blue-based images when it comes to printer support.
Hopefully this gives you everything you need to get going.
Some information I’ve found indicates that Bazzite lacks ZFS, whereas Aurora and Bluefin do support ZFS.
Additionally, I’m unsure whether Linux has an equivalent to Windows’ basic display drivers. If not, the Aurora image containing Intel and AMD drivers would make it easier for me to switch to a new computer.
Alla Intel and and drivers are embedded to the Linux kernel. So doesn’t really matter which one you choose, the drivers will be in the kernel.
Of course of you buy a new GPU right on release the support might be lacking from the start, it will have functional drivers but there can be performance etc issues.
