Bazzite on Linux top usage list from Stream Survey.
MacOS 26, probably using a short name because it’s still in beta.
Not specific to Universal Blue, but flatpaks (and its security) Universal Blue images use a lot.
NerdNest build a Gaming pc and used Bazzite. Another one joins us!
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Not exclusively Universal Blue… but article warn about using small new coming distributions with one or two passionate contributors.
In my humble opinion article is little bit too pessimistic. My thoughts are, it is not wrong if users use new distributions, because that is the way to learn new technologies. But it is important to understand to use tools in the way they are easily movable to new distribution if required. If using flatpaks, containers and brew then all of them are easy to move to new distribution, if current distribution becomes unmaintainable.
It’s just an outdated view. People think distributions are supposed to be this huge impossible thing because that’s the culture people propagate. And it’s very important that you pick the right one and all of this.
It’s one of the reasons we say we’re not a distribution, you take a base image and tweak it.
The support reasons no longer make sense either, it doesn’t matter what you use, you’re using distro agnostic tools. systemctl, flatpak, git, brew, none of that has anything to do with my distro why do I need to care about my distro at all?
The old mindset is that you get help for your distro from your distro. We just send you to the right place out of the gate (upstream documentation) and try to keep our toolset to a minimum.
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Some people’s perception is that Linux distributions are like Zune players - if they die, you lose all your stuff.
In actuality, Linux distributions are more like cars - if yours dies, just transfer your fuzzy dice and pine scented air freshener to a new car and carry on.
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Article about Bazzar. Few of the user’s comments bellow the article are related to Universal Blue, Blufin, Aurora and Bazzite.
By the way, I see Bazzar is now installed in Blufin LTS as flatpak, but without Curated top section. Do we really want Bazzar to be installed from Flathub without Curated section? Is there an option to set “curated” list for Blufin when Bazzar is installed from Flathub?
One more thing… what I don’t like about Bazzar is "refresh” functionality. Why does it refreshes in the frontend and not in the backend inside “Transactions Will Appear Here”. For example I would like to uninstall an app, but I need to wait for refresh to finish, why? Also why I am not allowed fo search the apps when refresh is in progress. Curated section will probably not change at all. Why isn’t refresh made in silence in background and when ready the GUI is updated in split second.
I recommend to add a new feature request issue to the Bazaar Github. There are many improvement issues already there that are being worked on and discussed.
Interesting ublue was added on Anaconda WebUI roadmap for Fedora spins.
https://gpd.hk/gpdwin56773453f
New GPD talks about Bazzite on their official page. Is that an official Colab or they use the Bazzite name on their own? Is the Bazzite devs in talk with them? I hope they are! I think that is a good thing and sets an important precedence for the Bazzite viability in the wide market if big brands addopt it!
Canonical’s vice-president for engineering, Jon Seager: “I spent a lot of time working with NixOS, and more with things like Universal Blue.”
Flatpak Happenings - by Sebastian Wick, Yesterday I released Flatpak 1.17.0…
It is now possible to define which Flatpak apps shall be pre-installed on a system, and Flatpak will automatically install and uninstall things accordingly. Our friends at Aurora and Bluefin already use this to ship core apps from Flathub on their bootc based systems (shout-out to Jorge Castro).
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Yea he says they want to make Ubuntu eventually just a a bunch of snaps.
@Danathar, that is true. Ubuntu is trying to build its “immutable” version using snap technology. At first side it looks this has nothing to do with Blufin and flatpaks, but actually they do. Both flapak and snap are using sandbox technology and need some way to get from within sandbox to operating system and they both use Portal (on desktop Linux, because snap also runs on non-GUI apps and there it uses interfaces).
It looks something like this (simplified):
Example of portals:
- file picker: user clicks on File | Open or Open icon from toolbar and file picker dialog opens up and in this dialog user points to some file and this is gateway to have flatpak/snap permission to access this file by user indirectly approving file access by choosing individual file
- notifications: there is common portal to access notifications
- web camera: there is common portal to access camera
When ever Ubuntu needs something in snap that is not available yet in Portals, then they invest into and help develop portal, but this is also going to be useful for Blufin and others.
Ubuntu and Blufin have pretty different approach, but they at least have something in common. Both sandbox technologies use portals and each investing in it, helps others too.
I was Ubuntu user like more then a decade, but I now love idea about image based systems and Blufin is perfect fit for my use case. Maybe in future Ubuntu develops something incredible with snaps and this will push flatpak further to be even better, to be more competitive.
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Andrew Cunningham tries Bazzite:
Bazzite also came painfully close to what I wanted it to be, in terms of user experience—a desktop mode to boot into on the occasions I needed one, but otherwise I could just fire up the Xbox controller I had paired to the PC and jump right into a game.
Unfortunately, he experienced bugs especially related to Bluetooth consistently being disabled after reboot, requiring him to attach a keyboard.
I HIGHLY recommend someone from the Bazzite team reaches out to Andrew. This is Ars Technica after all. They don’t judge. They are open to feedback. Let him know you appreciate mentioning Bazzite in his article. Give him background or an update on the bugs he experienced. And let him know the dedication to the goal and the milestones reached.
I’m sure he’ll write about Bazzite again soon!
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