I Gave It My Best Shot

General
1

I ran Bazzite for 8 months on a Lenovo Legion laptop - new expensive hardware to give it the best chance possible. Everything worked generally, however, I had endless issues with my USB speakerphone dropping in and out for audio. The device would disconnect and reconnect endlessly. Also, getting audio to sound decent on Teams is a part time job.

Furthermore, I found it incredibly difficult to use either Libre Office or Only Office after using Microsoft Office. I am sorry but there is a HUGE quality difference. The email clients (Thunderbird, Evolution) don’t even compare to Outlook. I used Evolution as my client and it wasn’t bad but adding invitees and dealing with Teams meeting links was not fun.

In all honesty, I could have probably dealt with the software had I not run into the endless USB audio issues. I tried for 2 months to fix the audio issues including forums, using opencode AI, etc and nothing would resolve the USB dropping out. I bought a new USB hub, plugged the devices into the USB ports directly, etc. I really did give it everything I had to make it work because I didn’t want to waste the time going back to Windows.

So after my last conference call of endless audio issues and missing a very important meeting, I gave up. I went out and bought a new laptop - another Lenovo Legion and loaded Windows just so I could keep Bazzite on the 2nd laptop in the hopes one day it will work.

There are things I REALLY like about Bazzite such as the updates, stability, desktop and widgets. But without clear audio and stable USB audio, what is the point. Furthermore, I felt like I was selling myself short by using Evolution and Only Office when Outlook and MS Office exists and my company pays for the licenses anyway. Again, I could have probably lived with Evolution and Only Office and Libre Office but searching for emails in Evolution with Office 365 is it’s own adventure. I also ran Thunderbird which was good for searching but the calendar support was not great (Missed appointments). I did buy the Office 365 connector.

This was the speakerphone I used that endlessly connected and re-connected to the USB:

So I am unfortunately back running Windows. I miss the stability of Bazzite but am happy to have MS Office and Outlook back along with a slew of other programs such as Claude Desktop and others that simply don’t exist on the Linux desktop. I had a real challenge figuring out how to replace Ableton.

So I was able to work with it for about 8 months but during those 8 months I did have nonstop audio issues. I am going to keep it on my 2nd laptop in an effort to see if I can get it to work. If I can ever get the USB audio stable, I may go back.

2

Did you install the Linux Studio Plugins? Have you tried things using Easy Effects?

Just curious, I’m no expert.

I’m a Bazzite newbie coming from Linux Mint. I like Bazzite a lot because it’s so damned smooth and configurable.

I have issues with the wifi disconnecting once in a while (usually associated with something trying to update that can’t… but it doesn’t happen but once or thrice a week.

If your audio gets choppy once in awhile (mine does sometimes) I’ve fixed it on the fly by changing the active sink to and back from the troublesome one.

Here’s my script that I made to toggle sinks (My sinks in the code are my HDMI, my Sennheiser Headphones, and my Bluetooth Boomerang Shoulder speakers):

#!/bin/bash

#This script swaps (toggles) audio output between line out audio ($Phones) and HDMI cable audio ($Tv), and Boomerang Neck Speakers
#This script is called when the Mute multimedia key is pressed on the keyboard (configured as a Custom Keyboard shortcut)

#Set variables - syntax text derived from running terminal command: $ pactl list sinks
Phones=alsa_output.pci-0000_09_00.6.analog-stereo #Declare variable Phones and set it to represent the PC line out audio
Tv=alsa_output.pci-0000_01_00.1.hdmi-stereo #Declare variable Tv and set it to represent the HDMI cable audio
Boomerang=bluez_output.F4_4E_FD_FC_FE_41.1 #Declare variable Boomerang and set it to represent the neck phones
Current=$(pactl get-default-sink) #Declare variable Current and set it to represent the currently active sink

#Toggle the active sink
if [[ “$Current” == “$Phones” ]]; then #If on phones,
pactl set-default-sink “$Tv” #Change to Tv (HDMI)
sleep 0.25 #decouple
pactl set-sink-volume 0 40% #Set volume to good TV level
notify-send “HDMI” #Report
elif [[ “$Current” == “$Tv” ]]; then #If on TV,
pactl set-default-sink “$Boomerang” #Change to Boomerang (Bluetooth)
sleep 0.25 #decouple
pactl set-sink-volume 0 40% #Set volume to good Boomerang level
notify-send “BOOMERANG” #Report
elif [[ “$Current” == “$Boomerang” ]]; then #If on Boomerang,
pactl set-default-sink “$Phones” #Change to Phones (analog out)
sleep 0.25 #decouple
pactl set-sink-volume 0 70% #Set volume to good headphones level
notify-send “PHONES” #Report
fi #Endif (fi = if backwards)

Change the needed sink identifiers as commented in the code and see if toggling the sinks fixes anything?

I don’t know how that’s going to cut and paste, but it makes sense when properly tabbed for viewing…

3

Thank you for the feedback. Yes, I tried easy effects and even using opencode as a tool to adjust the audio issues. It comes down to a driver issue related to the USB ports somehow. I tried adjusting every possible audio setting without any luck. In terms of the studio software, I tried a bunch of Linux versions but they are all missing any real time stretch/warp functions. The only one that comes close is BitWig Studio but it’s still not on par with Ableton in terms of warping. I think Reaper could have done the job, but again, I feel like I am sacrificing by leaving Ableton. I have spent 10+ years using Ableton and I know it inside and out and I don’t think I have the will to learn another DAW this well at this point. Furthermore, having to use a tool to be able to use the Windows VSTs is another hurdle. There are not that many Linux VSTs out there and the critical ones I use are either Mac or Windows. I have posted many times on the Ableton forums and requests for Ableton to port to Linux but it doesn’t seem like they have any interest. Ableton moving to Linux would probably make me try much harder to adopt Linux and even try another laptop.

Truth be told, audio is a mess. On Windows, Teams and DAW audio sounds amazing. On Bazzite, you have to have a degree in Easy Effects settings to get it to sound decent. I was able to get Easy Effects setup correctly for Teams meetings. If the USB devices didn’t drop out randomly, I would have continued to use it.

I am running Bazzite on a Levovo Legion 5 laptop which has all standard hardware and is more geared toward working on Linux than many other laptops so I am shocked I am having issues. The other problem is many of my Mics have software that allows you to tune out the mic (low cut, etc) that doesn’t work on Linux. I can live without it by using the DAW for this function but it’s still not ideal.

I can’t tell you how disappointing it is I can’t fix this last issue. I put so much time and effort into Bazzite to be thwarted by this USB issue. Everything else was working. Even with the software shortcomings, I could have made it work and probably used my Mac for the DAW software. My goal was to make my Bazzite machine my daily driver because I do a lot of coding and like Linux for that purpose. But if I can’t reliably hold a Teams meeting with decent audio, that’s a deal breaker.

I am going to keep Bazzite on my Lenovo laptop for a while to see if I can find a way to fix it. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. The main issue is that my USB audio devices just connect and disconnect endlessly. I know it’s a Bazzite issue because I use the same device on my Windows laptop and it works perfectly fine so it’s not a hardware issue.

4

I hear you man. Linux has been a rocky road for me, too. I curse it sometimes, but I’m an old MSDOS 3.1 guy from the 80’s so there’s that. :slight_smile:

Look, if it ain’t working, it ain’t working. Gotta breath livable air. Sucks that Winblows 11 is DOA for anyone with a pulse man. It’s Gates’ fault all this shit, really.

However, the more Win11 sucks, the more attractive Linux Distros will become, I suspect. Too bad Bazzite can’t meet your needs man, but keep checking back. I’m committed at this point, since I just deleted my Linux Mint partition last night.

I’m a Bazzite guy now, for better or worse. I like it, and I’m gonna put effort into the forums if I can with my limited knowledge. It’s so much better than Mint and the others.

Fingers crossed for you man.

Peace.

5

I would love to run Bazzite if I can get this audio issue figured out. I have moved back to Windows because this issue is unworkable. However, if I can figure out a fix, I will definitely go back to Bazzite. I love the OS.

6

Expecting Teams to work on Linux may be naive. There is no official app and you won’t find a single positive review or comment on the available options on Linux including Flathub. Same applies to Zoom in my opinion.

Worse, expecting peripheral devices to work in Teams.. nope. For years you couldn’t even use Sony headphones/earphones properly with Teams not even on Windows or Mac.

Not sure what you do with Office, but OnlyOffice is fantastic. Works great. And Collabora Office (available in Bazaar as well) is also easy to use.

Also.. none of this is related to Bazzite at all.. it would apply on any kind of Linux flavour..

7

If that’s the case, then rule out 80% of the corporate world from using Linux. The world runs on Teams and Zoom at this point and if the OS can’t deliver that functionality, then it will never gain the corporate market or those who work in the corporate world. My entire job functions via Teams today along with almost everyone else who works. Whether the Linux crowd cares or not, this is the reality of the situation. If they don’t care to ever capture this market, so be it.

I use a speak phone, Bluetooth glasses and an ASIO audio interface regularly with Teams on Windows with no issues. Can’t seem to use any of them on Bazzite. I run all kinds of devices with Teams on Windows and have for over 5 years with no issues. When I try to use my USB speak phone on Bazzite, I can’t use it both as the mic and speaker because the audio input is too low and the speak phone connects and disconnects constantly. So I have to use my webcam as the mic and the phone as the output. In Windows, phone works perfect for two way audio.

I used OnlyOffice and while it’s nice and in my opinion, the best Office version of Linux, it still struggles with larger spreadsheets and is missing critical functions. For example, if I open a 25,000 line spreadsheet and click to format it, it takes 10-30 seconds just to format the cells. That’s an eternity when you are on a meeting and embarrassing as hell that it takes 30 seconds for your computer to do basic spreadsheet formatting. Forget about making any changes to a sheet with over 25,000 lines as it usually crashes or hangs - and this is on a Lenovo Legion 5 gaming laptop with an I9 processor, 32 megs of memory and a RTX 4060 GPU. Libre Office handles larger sheets better but is still very slow.

It lacks basic functions like group by sum and other critical basic calculations and functions. The corporate world, again, lives and dies on Teams, Excel and Zoom.

So I guess my hopes of ever using Bazzite in the current form won’t work.

8

Actually, the world runs on servers.. and those servers run Linux :slight_smile:

Your world might be smaller than you think.. since less than 25% of “the world” consumers even own a desktop or laptop… 75% “runs” without it.. but a good portion of those still rely on services that run somehow on.. Linux.