Preface
Bazzite is a custom image of Fedora Atomic Desktop 40 utilizing Universal Blue’s custom image framework designed to bring users the best in Linux gaming for their hardware. 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.
This newsletter address awareness of recent events that require manual intervention and goes over the 3 year anniversary of the Universal Blue project. This is also going to be one of the last Bazzite Buzz articles since it will be retired later this year. Bazzite 3.6.0 will be releasing very soon with new handheld changes.
MANUAL INTERVENTION REQUIRED
If you are not aware of the recent event that broke system upgrades, then you should read the thread down below.
System updates have been broken since June 2nd, 2024. New users who have installed on June 3rd, 2024 or after do not need to do anything.
Older images are in the process of being resigned, so users can rebase to older builds of Bazzite and other Universal Blue images.
Read this thread for more information and instructions on how to resolve this:
New Secure Boot Key
If you upgrade Bazzite and run into a black screen with an error message regarding a bad “shim signature” or “you need to load the kernel first”, then you need to enroll our new keys.
Go back to the previous deployment and enter:
ujust enroll-secure-boot-key
Alternatively, read our Secure Boot Guide and follow “Method B” to continue using Bazzite.
Bazzite 3.5.0 & 3.5.1 Updates Released
Bazzite 3.6.0 is also on the way now with major changes.
3.5.0:
3.5.1:
bazzite-ally Depreciated for bazzite-deck
The bazzite-ally image will soon be replaced with bazzite-deck. The website has been updated to download the -deck image now. It is going to be retired soon, as the Ally (and soon the Ally X) will no longer require its own specific image.
See if you still use the -ally image with this command:
rpm-ostree status
Rebase to the -deck image with one of these commands depending on the desktop environment you have chosen previously.
Warning: Do not rebase between different desktop environments!
KDE Plasma Variant:
rpm-ostree rebase ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-deck:stable
GNOME Variant:
rpm-ostree rebase ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-deck-gnome:stable
Offline Documentation Soon
Bazzite documentation will soon be pre-installed and can be accessed from the upcoming “Documentation” application shortcut which opens the file manager to read them in Markdown. We are also looking into a ujust command that opens the glow command-line reader which can scoop the documentation online and be read straight from the terminal too, and we’re also looking into how this can be improved down the road too.
Open issue to improve documentation on the image:
Looking Into RSS Feed for Announcements
Similar to figuring out a way to have our documentation offline, Universal Blue is investigating a way to have announcements as part of the operating system which can be viewed locally without relying on Discord or browsing the forums for new announcements. One of the methods that is being looked into is shipping a RSS reader with an announcement feed by default.
If anyone would like to volunteer to help finish this for Bluefin/Aurora first because the backend stuff requires JavaScript knowledge, it would be appreciated. This change will most likely make its way to Bazzite later on too. We may investigate an alternative method soon if we cannot find a proper solution with the RSS feed.
Open issue:
Subject to Change: Bazzite Release Numerical
The “Bazzite 4.0.0” update may be renamed to “Bazzite 41” to keep it consistent with Fedora’s point releases. This may seem odd to current users, but it is to reduce confusion since both “Bazzite 40” and “Bazzite 3.0” are technically correct. The Bazzite version numbers are made up and marketing jumbo anyways. Bazzite’s update structure will still remain unchanged, and now there won’t be confusion on what “version number” of Bazzite you may be on after a major build releases.
3 Years of Universal Blue
Universal Blue has turned 3 on July 12th this year! 
Celebrating its third birthday with a thread to showcase your setup running Bazzite, Bluefin, Aurora, or a custom Fedora Atomic image using our tooling or BlueBuild.
Birthday Thread:
Steam Group
We now have a new Steam group to join! This will be used more for setting up game sessions with the community and less focused on support, so do not expect comments and Steam Discussions to be answered by maintainers and contributors. Our Discourse forums and Discord handle the support channels. It exists more or less as a community hub on the primary PC gaming platform that we support, and since we already have Steam as part of the image, then why not have a group too?
There is also an unofficial Reddit community, but keep in mind like the Steam group that most maintainers will not be active here to answer support threads.
Link to group:
Retiring The Bazzite Buzz Soon
All good things must come to an end.
I apologize to anyone in advance who enjoys reading these monthly newsletters, but I am planning on retiring the Buzz after the Fedora 41 builds of Bazzite release. It is preferable to announce new major changes as new Bazzite builds are pushed and write about the major highlights as opposed to a monthly newsletter. The Bazzite Buzz served as a time capsule of major changes and development diaries for Bazzite in the year of time that it had a public release. The Bazzite Buzz, at least in its current form as a monthly newsletter, will be discontinued by the end of this year.
Conclusion
Keep your eyes peeled for the next major Bazzite update coming soon. Next month will be the one year anniversary of the first public Bazzite ISO release. The team wants to focus on bug fixing, improving the user experience, and chip away at the ever-growing ideas that we have cooking for Bazzite. The next and nearly last Bazzite Buzz article will remanence and reflect on the progress that has been made over the last year. Thank you for reading!
Community Resources
General Information
Social & Support
Contributing to Universal Blue & Bazzite
Changelog
(since the last Bazzite Buzz)
Desktop Images
bazzite,-nvidia, &-asusimages
Features
- Nvidia 555 drivers added to
-nvidiaimages - Add BORE scheduler
- Use BFQ scheduler for hardware with HDDs instead of Kyber
- Mangohud upgraded
- Templates for Mangohud, DXVK, and vkBasalt added
- Base packages upgraded
- New
ujustcommand to install DaVinci Resolve - Added
wqy-zenhei-fontsfonts for GoldScr engine games - KDE: Wallpaper Engine integration restored
Fixes
- Can now rebase to older images as they are now signed with the new key
- Fixed specific performance issues on Nvidia hardware
- Cleanup of unnecessary files
Handheld/HTPC Images
-deckimages
Features
- Steam Deck OLED support
- AMD Polaris hardware improvements
gamescope-sessionupgraded- New menu logos in Desktop Mode for handheld hardware (Steam Deck, Legion Go and ASUS ROG Ally)
- Handheld Daemon now can control power profiles
- Handheld Daemon can use the overlay without Steam running
- Reduced CPU & IO priority of updates from Steam Gaming Mode
- New Bazzite sleep animation
- AOKZOE, ONEXPLAYER, and Ambernic Handhelds now supported
- No listing on the wiki and manual intervention may be required
- Please report any issues you experience with this hardware to our issue tracker
- No listing on the wiki and manual intervention may be required
Fixes
- Fixed Decky plugins that require the username to be
deck. - Fixed issues with invalid refresh rates (Thanks Matthew Schwartz!)
- Fixed quirks with certain GPD devices
- Patched Mesa to resolve color issues
- Resolved issues with TDP on certain hardware
- Bluetooth controller fixes
- KDE: Nested desktop available again as of KDE Plasma 6.1