Valve deserves a ton of credit for making Linux gaming not just viable, but actually good. SteamOS was a huge part of that; Valve spent a ton of time proving that a Linux-based gaming OS could be polished, approachable, and provide a genuinely good experience. The Steam Deck was the perfect canvas to showcase it, and despite being a handheld first, the desktop mode meant that you could use it as a desktop computer if need be.
This desktop mode doesn’t actually give you all that functionality you’d want from a desktop PC, and when you factor in that user hardware still isn’t fully supported, it’s clear that SteamOS isn’t a true replacement for Windows. Bazzite, an OS developed under the Universal Blue project, has caught on as one of the foremost choices for Linux gaming because of its great functionality out of the box, but one of its strengths is how usable it is as a normal PC.
I already installed SteamOS on the Asus ROG Ally X, and I regret it
This needs a little longer in the oven..
Bazzite gives you the part of SteamOS you actually want
The gaming-first configuration is perfect
The biggest reason Bazzite works so well on a gaming PC is simple: it understands why people like SteamOS in the first place. Bazzite’s supported images can boot directly into Steam Gaming Mode, and it also includes a proper Desktop Mode that you can access from the power menu. In other words, the SteamOS-style experience is there if you want it with these images, but it’s also there for you in the normal KDE/GNOME images as well.
It also has a lot of the parts of SteamOS that you’d want under-the-hood. The update model is very close to what SteamOS has, featuring “atomic” image-based updates, meaning that your OS is always in a usable state and rollbacks are made simple. Bazzite isn’t Arch-based like SteamOS, but it does have newer Linux kernels and more straightforward driver packaging, with separate images for AMD/Intel and Nvidia hardware. With SteamOS, there aren’t any special images besides the current recovery image.
When I started using it on my main PC, I simply chose the GNOME Intel/AMD image that fit my hardware, and it had everything I needed out of the box. Virtually every game worked without hassle, and if I had wanted it for a handheld or HTPC, the Steam Gaming Mode images would’ve been perfect for that.
Waiting for the official SteamOS 3 release? Bazzite is the next best thing you can install on any gaming handheld
It might even be better than SteamOS, to be honest.
Bazzite makes non-gaming usage feel more natural
It’s more flexible
SteamOS is built with a select few hardware configurations in mind, while Bazzite supports virtually everything, and this is where the gap starts to widen. When it comes to non-gaming usage, SteamOS isn’t built with this in mind whatsoever. Valve are pretty clear about this in the way they describe SteamOS.
Bazzite supports Distrobox, recommends Homebrew for installing non-Flatpak applications, and even offers a developer variant that is meant for software development. SteamOS doesn’t have any of this, and in fact, installing anything outside of Flatpaks are likely to be wiped in any kind of future update. You can shoehorn a lot of things into SteamOS, but there’s a reason why nobody actually daily drives it.
When I attempted to use SteamOS on my primary gaming rig, I ran into a lot of small missing pieces of the puzzle when I went to perform any non-gaming task. I still ran into some of those with Bazzite, but the difference is, getting Bazzite up to speed for work is a lot simpler than doing the same for SteamOS. Things like virtualization support and GPU-passthrough are additional things that make this gap even larger, and are key strengths of Bazzite for me.
5 reasons Bazzite will still be better than SteamOS (at least at first)
Bazzite is still the better option
SteamOS is great if you’re only gaming
Couch PCs and handhelds
On officially supported hardware, SteamOS should be your primary choice. It’s clean, does what its supposed to, and has the development might of a gaming giant behind it, which means you’ll likely run into far less small, weird issues. For example, on my Bazzite-powered PC, when attempting to switch users on Steam, it would render the entire Steam client unusable. The application itself wouldn’t open windows, and this behavior persists through reboots. Turns out that this is a known issue, which was frustrating for me. Something very core to the Bazzite experience being broken made me heavily consider turning back to SteamOS full-time, but it just lacks so many other functionalities that I simply can’t do it.
5 reasons you should use Bazzite instead of Windows on your gaming PC
It may be time to say goodbye to Windows
SteamOS is fantastic, but Bazzite makes more sense for most configurations
I really like where SteamOS is headed, and Valve have already done right by so many gamers by making it the best handheld gaming OS there is, laying groundwork for operating systems like Bazzite to even exist in the first place. But that doesn’t make it right choice right now. For me, SteamOS is still missing a lot of what makes a computer usable as an actual computer, and adding those functionalities on unsupported hardware can create a whole host of future headaches that, frankly, aren’t worth it at this time.
