Bazzite Drops Their Biggest Update Yet

Even if you haven’t been keeping up in the world of Linux distributions, I’d be shocked if you haven’t at least heard of Bazzite in passing. The biggest SteamOS alternative has been chugging along for the past few years, steadily getting better with every last update they push out, and in case you’ve missed it, they just put out one of their biggest drops yet. Bazzite Deck 44 is the latest drop, and while it brings a lot to the table, it also brings discussion towards Bazzite 45 and a simultaneous update across all images.

As always, if you want the full scoop, I recommend checking out their big Birthday Bash post over on Universal Blue, but for every update I can muster from the full release, I’ve put them right below for you to read at your own leisure as well.

Bazzite Deck Changes

• The old stack has been replaced with the SteamOS-aligned stack
  • InputPlumber – Controller Handling, Emulation, Remapping
  • SteamOS-Manager – Handles Session Switching, TDP Control and More
  • PowerStation – TDP/Power Control on “non SteamOS-Manager” supported devices
  • Open GamepadUI – Plugin Overlay for options Steam doesn’t employ today
• TDP Control done through Steam QAM
• RGB Control done through Steam QAM
  • Some AYN and ASUS users may want to emulated DualShock Controllers
• Some devices may no longer allow fan control
  • A plugin is in development to restore them
• The Original Legion Go has temporarily lost gyro support
• DeckyLoader plugins can be used without conflict
• Game Mode Updates
  • Steam system updates function properly and provide accurate change-longs
• Upgrading is done as normal, but this is both a Fedora update, and a Handheld Stack Update so be wary on updates.

All Image Updates

• New Bazzite Updater
• The Newest Bazaar Flatpack Store has been added
  • Background usage has been reduced to as little as 3MB of RAM
• Rewritten Bazzite Portal
  • New Welcome Screen
  • GRUB menu timeout config
  • CEC mode selection
  • AMD VRR toggle
  • NVIDIA Flatpak Runtime Update
  • ProtonPlus Recipes and Portal Actions
  • Option to add Bazzite Updater to Big Picture Mode
  • Users Greeted by Bazzite Portal App on First Login
• Cadwire is the replacement for switcheroo and supergfxctl/MUX switching
• Every Image now ships the Open Gaming Collective Kernel
• Improved Security and Supply Chain
• Mesa 26.2.1 & VRAM overcommit / cgroups
• Improved Schedulers Backported from kernel 7.3
• HDMI 2.1 FRL, ALLM and VRR Support

Other Shared Changes

• HDMI-CEC rework – SteamOS-Manager handles CEC now. ujust cec-mode lets you pick between dGPU mode (libcec/cec-ctl services, for external USB adapters) and Native mode (Valve’s linux-cec/cecd backend for hardware with kernel-native CEC).
• bpftune for automatic kernel network tuning, including patches that can detect and optimize networking for games.
• Greenboot replacing home grown scripts for monitoring failed boots and automatically rolling back updates as needed.
• vulkan-low-latency-layer for latency reduction features in your favorite games.
• MakeMKV + libmmbd for Blu-ray playback
• New akmods: nct6687d, new-lg4ff, t150-driver, hid-fanatecff –
  and sc710 for Elgato capture cards
• QEMU and ROCm are removed – they’ve moved to Bazzite-DX, or use Distrobox for ROCm workloads and the Virtual Machine Manager flatpak or Brew for QEMU.

KDE

• Konsole replaces Ptyxis as the default terminal, this change was made because Konsole now has the same container functionality that Ptyxis gave us.
• Oxygen theme and icon set included by default
• A KDE SearchProvider for Bazzite Portal
• Three new wallpapers: Bazzite Blue, Glass, and Giants

GNOME

• Support for rounded blur in Blur My Shell OOTB
• A GNOME SearchProvider for Bazzite Portal
• Three new wallpapers: Bazzite Blue, Glass, and Giants

Nvidia Images

• Flatpak runtimes now update after an image update preventing the need to manually update flatpaks
• Legacy Driver images now use an LTS kernel

Armada for ARM Handhelds

• Starting now; users looking for ARM builds will be directed to Armada, and Bazzite will be supporting the project in any way they can now.

As always, be sure to give the team support as best you can. It’s incredible to see what Bazzite has been up to over the last few years and I can’t wait to see what they do next. Bazzite has been my go to for anything that I want to do actual gaming on, and with the support pushed out recently, I’m sure that sentiment will only continue. For now, we just have to wait and see what’s coming next.