So was Bazzite founded by someone’s mate Baz or what?
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Throwing a tantrum isn't how to get what you want. This is a common behavior in the OSS world from wannabe BDFLs. Linus Torvalds or Guido van Rossum earned that title through merit, not through the simple luck of your side project going viral.
Bazzite is just Fedora Atomic with some extra preinstalled software. If it dies, it'll hurt the community of Linux gamers who picked it for whatever reason, but it won't make Fedora maintain 32 bit packages forever.
As reiterated by the OP, the proposal is just a proposal and was proposed with heaps of lead time probably because they expected it to be controversial.
As also mentioned, heaps of volunteer time is spent maintaining the packages where most are barely used (even for gaming).
However, it does not seem like there is a viable alternative. Many comments say the suggested alternative, WINE's WoW64, does not work for all games.
I can see both sides here. Fedora maintainers says "this is so much work!" and (mostly) gamers saying "But older games will stop working!".
The response from the Bazzite guy does seem overblown to me. I would think the first step is to work out the impact, as I haven't seen anyone quantify what proportion of games are affected and if there are alternatives like emulation.
I'm wondering what the problem even is. I mean, can't you just put all the stuff relevant to 32 bit gaming into a 'retro-gaming' package and be like "there, now if you want updates, better find maintainers"?
If you have an old game, chances are you won't need many new features. Only problem could be other packages or the kernel becoming incompatible. I don't know how relevant that is in this instance.
Dammit - found Bazzite one week ago and love it - now its embroiled in a controversy.
See. This is why I game only on Windows. There’s never any controversy or issues there. /s
I’ll see myself out now.
Did he elaborate on why? Is it really that integral to have 32bit tools?
Afaik Steam still heavily relies on 32-Bit. And bazzite's only purpose is Steam.
The comments in the thread don't mention Steam itself, but it's that running all the 32 bit games will become a problem. Steam's flatpak packages the 32 bit packages so that can get around this change, but the flatpak is not official and does not support all features. Steam themselves only provide the RPM for Fedora.
steam package from rpmfusion is not official
Ah you're right. It seems Steam only provides a *.deb as far as I can tell.
Yes, and from what I understood:
- Steam is still 32bit. Two-thirds of Bazzite's user base use the OS on handhelds requiring Steam's gaming mode front-end. Installing Steam as a flatpak removes the ability to boot into gaming mode, and so alienating two-thirds of Bazzite's user base.
- It will kill support for older games that are still 32bit. Wine's WoW64 isn't ready yet, and even so, building custom Proton for 32bit support (e.g. Including all the 32bit libraries inside of Proton itself) on top of the Proton provided by Valve is going to be very messy.
- OBS requires 32bit packages to capture video data from 32bit games. If 32bit is no longer supported, this'll kill streamers playing older games (OBS is probably the most widely used software by streamers and game recorders).
- It would kill VR on Bazzite, as VR still makes use of 32bit features (I'm not sure why or which ones, but that's what's said).
After Bazzite I went to Garuda, is also gaming focused and has a handy helper app that helps you install common software, run updates, and more.
If you need a new distro it's worth a look.