Bazzite 44

Bazzite is an immutable gaming distribution built on Fedora Atomic as part of the Universal Blue project. Version 44 completes the transition to Fedora 44, and the project calls it the biggest update in its history. We covered it when it shipped.

The custom kernel is gone

Bazzite has retired its own kernel. Every image now uses the kernel maintained by the Open Gaming Collective, currently Linux 7.2.

Maintaining a custom kernel is an enormous ongoing cost for a small project: every upstream release means rebasing patches, and every patch carried is one you have to keep justifying. Consolidating onto a shared gaming-focused kernel is the same move Garuda made when it dropped linux-zen for a CachyOS-derived kernel.

Graphics

Bazzite 44 ships Mesa 26.2.1 alongside the kernel’s VRAM overcommit and dmem cgroup functionality.

VRAM overcommit matters specifically for handhelds. Devices like the Steam Deck have limited video memory, and games exceeding it have historically hitched or crashed rather than degrading gracefully. Overcommit changes the failure mode from “game dies” to “game slows down.”

Immutable, and why that is right here

The root filesystem is read-only, updates are atomic, and rollback means booting the previous image. For a gaming machine this is close to ideal: the OS should be boring and replaceable, and the state you care about is your games and saves.

It also makes the new graphical updater safe to hand to people who bought a handheld and want it to work like a console. The worst case of a bad update is booting the previous image.

# Update
ujust update

# What image are you on?
rpm-ostree status

# Layer a package if you really must
rpm-ostree install somepackage

That last command is the thing to understand before installing Bazzite. Layering packages onto an immutable base works but is discouraged; the intended path is Flatpaks for applications and Distrobox for anything needing a traditional package manager.

Hardware

Supports the Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and MSI Claw, along with conventional desktops and HTPCs. It positions itself as a SteamOS-compatible option for hardware Valve does not officially support.

Choose the right image: there are separate builds for Steam Deck, for desktop with NVIDIA, and for desktop with AMD or Intel graphics.

Verify Your Download

Images are signed with sigstore, and verification instructions are in the Universal Blue documentation.