Hey guys, so I installed Bazzite on my 2nd SSD last weekend and I've installed some games and searched through the OS to familiarize myself with it, but I still have a few questions about Bazzite and Linux in general that I'd like some help with! I've used Ubuntu and Linux mint in the past (2014ish) just to mess around with but never fully switched. I'm having no problems with gaming, all the games I've tested work fine and I have the latest Proton GE installed already.
I consider myself to be quite computer-savvy and tech-savvy in general, but Linux is making me question just how good I am with computers ๐ But it's honestly a lot of fun to be new to an OS and having to learn things again, feels like being a kid again and exploring everything about my old Windows 98 pc. I'm still using Windows 11 on my primary drive, but the goal is to eventually get comfortable enough to completely switch away from Windows since I don't have any games that require it.
My first question is, how do I install programs from outside the "discover store"? I can get the Plex app through the built in app store, but the Plex media server app isn't on there so I have to download it from the website, which gives me a .rpm file. I'm probably being dumb, but double clicking it just brings up an error message in the discover store saying it couldn't open the file.
I think I'm supposed to use the boxbuddy app to install it? I'm not sure. I'm not scared of using the terminal if I have to, and I'd actually like to get more comfortable with that anyways. Switching to Jellyfin isn't an option because my mom and brother use Plex through an xbox so I'm sticking with Plex for now.
Also, outside of the built in discover store, what's the best way to install programs? I know that Bazzite is built off of Fedora Atomic which is an "immuteable" distro so I can't directly install apps to the system without using rpm-ostree and that's apparently not recommended unless absolutely necessary according to what I've read.
I have a Logitech G502x plus mouse but piper won't recognize it, solaar works fine though. I can still configure my mouse in Windows when needed but I'd like to be able to do it in Linux as well, any ideas why piper won't recognize my mouse? I also have a Razer blackwidow v3 and I'm not sure what software to use to configure it in Linux.
Another small but annoying issue I'm having is with Firefox granting the RES (reddit enhancement suite) extension permissions, when I try to use it to expand a v.reddit link for example, it pops up a window asking me to "request permissions" but when I click that it simply brings me to this link without actually giving me the option to grant the permissions. On Windows I get a little popup near the extensions in the top right corner and I can simply grant the required permissions, but it's not doing that for me in Bazzite.
What are some cool programs in general to check out? My main use case is gaming, I don't program or do any work on my PC but I'd like to explore just for the sake of exploring! Also, what's a good way to familiarize myself with using the terminal? I've used the terminal on Windows quite a bit in the past, but only for basic things like unlocking a bootloader on Android and sending a ROM to it, back when I cared enough to root my phones. How would I, for example, pull a program off of github and compile it myself if needed? There's a program on github called gHub GUI by ysph that I'd like to check out, would be nice to be able to configure my mouse since piper doesn't seem to recognize my mouse.
What are some general best practices that differ from Windows? I don't really know how to narrow this question down, apologies for it being so vague.
Thanks in advance to anyone that can offer me some advice!
Installing from Discover (or to be more precise, your distribution's software repositories, for which Discover is a frontend) is usually best practice. Programs you find online are less likely to work on your distro (especially something as technologically unusual as Bazzite). That said, from what I could find online the command to install an RPM file on that distro is
sudo rpm-ostree install <path/to/package.rpm>. I have never used boxbuddy or any kind of distro container, but I imagine it would as simple as opening the terminal for one of your distros and entering the appropriate command for that distro to install your package.Generally, Flatpak packages are safe to install, and any Flatpak repos you enable will show up in Discover. Flathub contains the majority of Flatpak packages in existence, though it might be enabled by default on Bazzite.
Just look around in Discover and you'll find lots of gems. As a retro gamer, I've found RetroArch indispensable, as a frontend for all my emulators and then some. Lutris is nice if you want all of your games to be centralized under one launcher. There are lots of fun time-wasting open-source games too.
You can just ease into it, or read any number of Linux courses online. Following tutorials on Linux will be as easy as following tutorials on Windows. You can learn about programs with either
man <command>,info <command>, or<command> --help.Most projects include README files instructing you on how to compile and/or install them; the exact process depends on the program. But generally, if you see files named "configure" and "Makefile", the process is to install dependencies, then cd into the source code folder and run
./configure; make; sudo make install.Discover should be the first place you go to install programs. Don't install programs from random websites unless you absolutely have to. They probably won't work.
A lot of the programs you are used to from Windows will not be available for Linux. They might be compatible with Wine or Proton, but try to find alternatives to them before you try that. There is a KDE app and a GNOME app for most of the basic uses, and https://alternativeto.net/ is a decent resource for finding Linux-friendly alternatives to just about anything.
You probably don't need an antivirus - there are viruses for Linux, but they are extremely rare, and the anti-malware programs that are available for Linux will only detect and remove Windows viruses.
Don't have any comments on your other issues, because I don't have experience with the software you're using (I rarely if ever buy "gaming" hardware).
In terms of installing and managing apps in Bazzite there is an official guide for this, https://universal-blue.discourse.group/t/installing-and-managing-software-on-bazzite/35.
It's best not to "layer" packages as you described with 'sudo rpm-ostree', as that will add to the reboot time of the PC. At least as far as I know. Anyway, there are a couple of different ways of installing packages, best explained in the link attached.
They never read the Docs ๐ฅน
You can also use some
ujustcommands to spin up a pre-configured Distrobox as well and simply install it in one of those and then export it to your Host/Desktop ๐.For playing in GameMode/GameScope, you can even install Waydroid as a non-steam app and install Firefox inside that......and have browser back/available inside GameMode/GameScope session. ๐คฏ
Absolute rookie mistake by me to not go to the source for information first, that's my bad. Thanks for the link!
Thanks for the link, I should've browsed there before asking my questions, lots of good info there.
Thank you!
Hey that's all good dude, don't knock yourself down for it. I also used to ask questions before looking around as it felt easier at the time. Fortunately Bazzite actually has some really nice and well documented pages, not always super intuitive to find them, but they are there. Feel free to ask about more if u have further questions ๐
For building from scratch, which you will sometimes need to do for obscure programs that cant be handled by your standard package managers, I find chatGPT is actually a really helpful tool, despite the hate for it.
If you dump your error logs into it, it will very quickly point out simple things like missing flags or incompatible library versions which might take a long time to resolve yourself if you're not familiar with linux.
Thank you very much for the detailed response, it's very helpful! Browsing through the discover store is actually fun, like the good old days of checking out random programs on windows before everything went to shit.
Thanks again, it's much appreciated!