• 73 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 7th, 2023

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  • Maybe consider buying hardware with better Linux support in the future, e.g. getting an AMD GPU instead of a Nvidia if you want to get a new one anyway.

    I personally have zero issues with my (relatively normal) setup. Even more, I have better hardware support on Linux than on Windows! For example, I noticed that I can dim my monitor, which doesn’t work on Windows!
    Or, my GPU is more silent, because Bazzite and the Linux kernel ship some tweaks that make the energy draw and fan curve more efficient in my experience.

    Again, I think it’s just your hardware, especially the multi monitor. Multi monitor is supposed to be fine on AMD (can’t confirm, I only have one ultra wide), or single/ dual monitor is also supposed to be almost great on Nvidia, with the proprietary drivers.

    If you have a spare laptop with proper Linux support (most ones do, even with Nvidia, Surface, etc.) consider installing it and just try it out. uBlue (Aurora/ Bluefin, Bazzite, etc.) is great for that, so, maybe check that out.

    If not, then we’ll welcome you again in a few years. The OS is just a tool, use the best suited one for your use case. In yours, it may be Windows currently.


  • Bazzite offers a variant with Nvidia drivers already baked in too.

    You don’t have to reinstall anything btw, you can just rebase from Kinoite to Bazzite with rpm-ostree rebase *link to Bazzite*. (You find the instructions on the website).

    It takes about 5 minutes and you can keep all your configs and data, including Flatpaks, pictures and WiFi password. And if you don’t like it, you can revert that or rebase to some other variant, e.g. Aurora, the Sway spin, or whatever. I find it pretty neat.



  • +1 for Fedora Atomic.
    Especially Bazzite comes with Nvidia drivers already built in and everything should just werk™.
    It’s very modern and reliable. If it doesn’t work with that, nothing will.

    To be fair, the use case is very demanding. Just 2 years ago, we were glad that we can play more than one game on Steam, and now, we’re complaining that our triple monitor setup with Nvidia and VRR/HDR doesn’t work perfectly. I’m happy we’re at this point, but some things, like that, may hinder the wide spread adoption…




  • For one thing, image based distros are very convenient. If you tell someone “Just install Bazzite”, they will probably have a nice gaming experience without any tinkering, because everything is already set up for you ootb.

    You have to understand the concept first. Fedora Atomic/ image based distros are built from top to bottom, not on the same level. If something changes from “above”, your install will change too, to an 1:1 copy basically.
    Problem is, if stock Fedora isn’t allowed to ship/ doesn’t have some things pre-installed, it’s harder to iron out on the user level, e.g. by negatively affecting update times.

    uBlue is basically a “build script”, that takes the upstream image, modifies it, and redistributes that with the changes included.
    In that way, the image from other users is the same as yours, with the same bugs.
    This makes it more efficient and user friendly.

    It also allows devs to make their “own” distro with only their changes included, while offering a very solid base they don’t have to maintain themselves.









  • Now that you’ve convinced me this might be the best course (I only see less problems than other distros would have)

    Sometimes, software, especially install scripts for something, are less common for Silverblue, but executing those is very risky anyway and I never felt the need for it.

    And, as I said, some things just work differently. But NixOS is one million times worse than that in that regard, so don’t worry about it. You shouldn’t have many issues.

    any recommended reading or key concepts I should look into? Any particular flavor(s) you’d point me to first?

    I don’t know. In my opinion, my post should cover most stuff concepts and differences.

    Don’t worry about it, you’ll use Flatpak anyway most of the time, and it updates itself automatically, so the package manager (rpm-ostree) doesn’t matter much for you.
    You can still use your prefered package manager (apt, dnf, etc.) in Distrobox.

    Other than that, just don’t worry and use your laptop for whatever you want to do.

    And about flavor choice, there are a few options:

    • Bazzite is mainly if you game a lot
    • Bluefin and Aurora are the same, just in Gnome or KDE. It’s basically Bazzite without gaming stuff
    • Secureblue, which features security hardening tweaks
    • Wayblue, which is with River, Wayland, and more
    • And of course all different DE-spins, e.g. Sway, Budgie, etc.

    Just go to the uBlue homepage and see for yourself what appeals to you :)


  • I don’t know what I should say tbh 😅
    For the start, you can read my post about image based distros: https://feddit.de/post/8234416

    Imo, Fedora Atomic is NixOS made easy. You can go to the uBlue-builder and modify a custom image if you’re a tinkerer.
    NixOS is down-to-top (local config file that defines your host), while uBlue is top-to-bottom (you modify an image, image gets built on GitHub and then shipped to you).
    This allows you to fork or create an existing “distro” without having to maintain a whole distro yourself.

    Other than that, especially uBlue is extremely user friendly imo.

    • It updates itself in the background, updates get staged and applied after you’ve shut down your PC in the evening.
    • You can rebase anytime you want to another flavor, e.g. I switched to KDE 6 from Gnome after it came out.
    • You have to use containers for everything (mostly Flatpak, but also Distrobox or Nix)
    • It’s ultra low maintenance and even more reliable, you can boot into an old image if a new update broke anything or made something buggy
    • For a casual user, not distinguishable from regular Fedora
    • And much more

    I love nothing else more.