Bazzite
Fedora Atomic built for games: console-like out of the box, and it rolls back when an update misbehaves.
Facts
- Family
- fedora
- Based on
- Fedora Atomic
- Release model
- Image-based, atomic updates
- Current
- 44.20261006.1
- Init system
- systemd
- Default desktop
- Plasma or GNOME
- NVIDIA
- NVIDIA image variants ship the driver.
- Systemd-free
- No
- 32-bit support
- No
- As of
- 2026-10-09
On the DistroWatch top 10
SteamOS's cousin that moved out and got a desktop.
Bazzite is a gaming-focused image from the Universal Blue project, built on Fedora Atomic, and it has been around since 2023. The current image is 44.20261006.1. Updates arrive as whole images, and you can roll back up to 90 days, so a bad update becomes an inconvenience and not a lost weekend. On handheld PCs it offers a Gaming Mode in the style of SteamOS, and on a regular PC it gives you a normal desktop. It is named after a mineral, which is a better origin story than most. Games that depend on kernel-level anti-cheat still do not run, and no amount of image engineering changes that. It reaches rank nine, ahead of distros with far longer histories.
How the chooser scores it
Scores run from 1 to 5, and 5 is best for the user. They are opinion with a spreadsheet.
- StabilityStability: 4 out of 5
- Easy installEasy install: 5 out of 5
- Daily comfortDaily comfort: 4 out of 5
- Docs and helpDocs and help: 4 out of 5
- Fresh softwareFresh software: 4 out of 5
- GamingGaming: 5 out of 5
- DevelopmentDevelopment: 3 out of 5
- Old hardwareOld hardware: 2 out of 5
- ControlControl: 2 out of 5
- LightnessLightness: 3 out of 5
- NVIDIA, recent cardsNVIDIA, recent cards: 5 out of 5
- NVIDIA, older cardsNVIDIA, older cards: 4 out of 5
Caveats
- Image-based: you layer or containerise software instead of installing it freely.
- The base system is deliberately hard to customise.
Community
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