Bazzite’s messaging has merit, but we’d be making a mistake by regarding it as absolute. It makes more sense to take them as carefully written guide lines for a specific audience.

Furthermore. with all due respect, but OP’s writing doesn’t imply installing/managing software with rpm-ostree. Which, is actually the subject of the documentation entry you quoted. As such, I think you might have misunderstood them.

Youre breaking a core tenant of immutable distros by installing system level packages.

Finally, FWIW, I absolutely disagree with the above. The page you quoted from seems to agree with me on this: “Layering packages are mostly intended for system-level applications, libraries, and other dependencies.”

I made some changes using rpm-ostree related to zram and swap

Could you be more transparent and/or elaborate in this regard? Like, what did you actually do?

FWIW, I’ve been on Fedora Atomic since before Bazzite’s existence, but I’ve never once considered using rpm-ostree to make changes to zram and swap. So, I’m a bit confused. To be clear, it’s perfectly possible that what you did is 100% legit, but that it just happened to expose a gap in my knowledge.

I had assumed that, because I used rpm-ostree, the changes would become part of the “tree” and I could rollback to the original settings. But when I went to look at Bazzite’s rollback tools, it seemed solely focused on rolling back to previous official releases, and I couldn’t find any reference to the specific changes I made.

Basically, while rpm-ostree does offer git-like control on your base system; hence, why it’s so powerful to begin with. It does not keep more than two deployments around; at least, by default.

If you would like to keep around a specific deployment (for whatever reason), you can do so with the ostree admin pin <insert number> command. The git-like control also enables you to keep track of:

• the changes applied to /etc; invoke ostree admin config-diff to see what files have been added or modified since installation
• layered packages; simply invoke rpm-ostree status

Keeping track is cool and all, but its usefulness is in full display with powerful applications such as:

• rpm-ostree reset; this basically removes all permutations. That is, two people on the same image, will have the identical base system after this. (Note that this still isn’t as powerful as a factory reset. For that, refer to this issue tracker on bootc^[1].)

Finally, the git-like structure ensures actual reversibility. On most other systems, installing A -> installing B -> uninstalling A will yield a different state than just installing B. With rpm-ostree, the base system between the two will be identical.

For completeness’ sake, I’ve used “base system” above to just mean the contents of /usr and /etc (and maybe some other subdirectories of /). Crucially, the contents of /var are not part of the “base system”.

Fam, with all due respect, perhaps consider to not rely on the AUR at all for the time being. At least, until you’re genuinely confident in your ability to assess PKGBUILDs.

Aight. We seem to have found the culprit. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.|

I mean why would it say a stable image has a testing id and bootloader if its not testing

I’m not familiar with the Bazzite Update Tool. I tried to find it on GitHub, but failed 😅. But, if I’d have to guess, it looks at the same wrong place that fastfetch does.

A couple of issue trackers I found that may (or may not be) related:

• https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/issues/5255
• https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite-dx/issues/209
• https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite-dx/issues/198

Question: Could you paste the output of rpm-ostree status?

Yo OP, in case you couldn’t get GPU passthrough to work; vm-curator makes that a piece of cake, somehow even with a single GPU.

Thanks! Much appreciated 🙂!

Can someone please provide a TL;DW? Much appreciated!

Beyond none of its branches actually satisfying my preferences, I feel like the way it handles major version upgrades is way too involved. I suppose it makes sense; it’s paying back the accumulated debt of a couple years worth of bliss…

Having said that, my experience on Fedora Atomic is (almost) equally blissful without requiring any of that whenever a major version update strikes.

Don’t get me wrong; I definitely do believe Debian has its uses on desktop Linux. But I can’t shake off the feeling that they’re definitely more niche compared to say Fedora.

You’re right on malware finding its way onto the Snap Store. I find it hilarious to see that the employed tactics are basically identical 😜.

However, FYI, the hate on Snaps is a lot more broad than that.

You can’t however make it use other init system or other DE/WM.

You’re AFAIK correct on the bold part. But definitely not on the strike-through part. You’re probably only limited by your creativity and the effort you’re willing to put into it:

• Bazzite, but with Hyprland
• Bazzite, but with niri
• Bazzite, but Windows-themed | It’s basically KDE Plasma, but you get the point.

I have snapper and pika backing up, so in a few minutes all is back to normal, so the main selling point of atomic/immutable distro is kind of irrelevant to me

FWIW, openSUSE literally pioneered the above workflow with Tumbleweed. But that didn’t prevent them from developing openSUSE MicroOS (and its desktop-adjacent siblings). So, unless openSUSE has absolutely no clue on what they’re doing, there is more to it than that. Even if ‘that something’ isn’t relevant for you (yet).

OP, got some specs? It will make it easier for us to give good suggestions. Thanks in advance!

Do you have any ideas why the difference in RAM usage is so stark and how I could further investigate?

Assuming this is a minimal install of Arch, that’s kinda the point. Furthermore, I wouldn’t be surprised if Asahi isn’t fully optimized yet.

It has been my pleasure 😊.

Aight. Understood. Thank you!

In your case, I’d propose something like NixOS then. As your full system configuration can be contained within a (set of) config file(s), the very same ones you use to install/config stuff, a reinstall just becomes very easy. Heck, if you’re willing to embrace the “Erase your darlings”-lifestyle, then I don’t even think you’d ever feel the need for a reinstall. Because, frankly, the clean slate is just a reboot away.

EDIT: Perhaps Guix System is also worth considering as an alternative to NixOS*.

EDIT2: If you still want to explore other distros, then it’s worth noting that nix, i.e. NixOS’ package manager, is available on most distros and offers a lot of the benefits already. Like, you could configure your system using it, and then use that config on another distro to get your config back. Good stuff.

I frequently reinstall Linux.

Like, how many times in a year? And secondly, for what reason?

Thank you! Will try to look into it 🙂.

there is a lot of technical stuff thats cool about windows

Would you be so kind to tell more about this? Thank you in advance!

Can’t we focus on why/how Linux rocks instead?

I’m not at all interested to be regarded as a Linux user just because “Windows is bad”. It reminds me of all the ex-<insert religion/ideology>-crowd that somehow continues to identify themselves by their past affiliations. I don’t think that’s a healthy place to be in.