Thanks for that insight, Lucifer
Comment on Bazzite the popular SteamOS-like Linux gets NVIDIA support in Beta
luciferofastora@lemmy.zip 1 week agoI advise against using Bazzite as a Windows convert, unless you’re happy to do a lot of reading to understand what you’re actually signing up for. The founder doesn’t really care about Windows Gamers (or anyone outside of the professional linux world), according to a comment they made earlier today in response to criticism of the description “cloud native”.
To save you a click, the conversation was about the description of Bazzite as “cloud native” on the bazzite homepage* can be confusing or even misleading for people who assume it means “will run in the cloud”. The founder explicitly commented they’ll keep doubling down on the term until people no longer complain about it.
Their argument was that there is an entire foundation for Cloud Native Computing and that the concept is “an incredibly common thing in any professional paid Linux job.” They understand that Windows Gamers in particular might have the aforementioned misconception, but they don’t care if you get it.
That doesn’t necessarily make Bazzite a bad distro, but I’d be wary about the level of assistance you can expect from people who think that a technical word soup featuring terms like “build our images” and “deploying Linux environments to users” is enough to explain that “cloud native” actually just means the development process and the end product has nothing to do with the cloud.
*Specifically, the homepage’s text opens with:
“Bazzite is a cloud native image built upon Fedora Atomic Desktops that brings the best of Linux gaming to all of your devices - including your favorite handheld.”
I don’t know why they’d lead with the development method, rather than describing what the OS actually does, but apparently that’s what they care most about.
As an aside, I don’t see any obvious description what “atomic” means on the Fedora Atomic site either.
Nastybutler@lemmy.world 1 week ago
doomcanoe@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
I would be skeptical of Lucifer’s insight on this. By his own admission, he has never actually used Bazzite, and is basing his opinion on a single argument he had with one of the many dev’s in another post. To quote Lucifer directly :
I don’t have an accurate sense of how much you’d have to learn about bazzite, so I’ll have trust you on this
Obviously switching to Linux will cause you to encounter new terms you won’t be familiar with, or terms you are familiar with used in new and novel ways, devs and users will be opinionated and have arguments over these terms (and everything else an opinion can be had on frankly). And Lucifer’s concerns on this front are not without merit, but he is overstating the severity in this case and painting a wildly inaccurate picture. And you don’t actually need to gain a deep understanding of all these terms anyway. (Right away or at all depending on your goals)
But through all of that, what really matters at the end of the day is how useable is it, and how solid is the community surrounding it. And on that front I can say Bazzite has been hands down the easiest distro I have ever used for plug and play Linux gaming, and the community has been endlessly helpful and beginner friendly. I’d recommend it fully, and if you hop into their Discord, or read over their homepage and guides, it quickly becomes apparent how hard they work to make it beginner friendly.
There are some good alternatives, Mint for example is a very easy distro to make the switch from Windows. As is Pop_OS!. And with how easy steam has made running games, it’s harder to find a bad choice in general nowadays.
To shift topics, I’d say the most important thing to a “smooth switch from Windows” is less the distro you choose, and more the Desktop Environment. (Which, for the point of this recommendation, is the catch all term for what your OS “looks like”, where the “Start Menu” is, where your “tool bar to switch apps” is, etc) For a new Windows convert, I’d say find one that uses “KDE”, as it is very similar to Windows. Bazzite offers this when you are downloading the installation image. But it’s quite popular, so many others will anyway.
Sorry for the extended rant, hope this initial mess didn’t make you less likely to try Linux! I was a Windows convert just a couple years ago and can say it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made! Feel free to ask any questions, or hop over to the Bazzite Discord to get some helpful insights!
Nastybutler@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Sorry for the extended rant, hope this initial mess didn’t make you less likely to try Linux!
No apologies necessary! That’s very helpful and makes me more likely to take the plunge. Thank you for the rant!
quarterlife@lemmy.sdf.org 1 week ago
Cloud native is the end product too. The point of my firmness with you was not to express that I don’t care about windows users – quite the contrary, none of this would exist without that – but to express that I don’t care about your issue with the definition of a defined word.
luciferofastora@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
What bearing does it have on use of the end product? If I am a German Native, but move to France, and someone asks me where I live, what difference does it make whether I’m German Native?
Bazzite isn’t cloud based in the sense of “runs in the cloud”. If you install it on your computer, it runs on your computer. It’s not a cloud resident, in the sense of that analogy, no matter whether it was born there.
Unless it does, in which case it would seem that the term isn’t quite so clear as you think.
My issue isn’t with the definition, but with the implicit assumption that it’s well known or easy to understand, as well as the way it is used. We had that discussion over in the other thread already, but the gist of your replies has always been “I don’t care if the term is useless or can be misunderstood. It’s correct, so it stays.” That stance is my issue.
doomcanoe@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Bruh, they literally link to their definition, right there where it’s first mentioned on the home page… You literally copied the link when you copied their first paragraph in your previous comment.
You may not like the way it’s being used, but you can’t get any further away from “assuming it’s easy to understand” than a link to your meaning.
And on that note, you said you couldn’t find a definition of Atomic on Fedora’s site… So I clicked just one link from your posted link their and found this.
I read your posted argument from earlier, and I want to believe you when you argue your goal is to make Linux more accessible. But the reality of your arguments seem to tell a different story. You seem more interested in dying on a pointless hills while dissuading interested converts from trying what is one of the most stable and user friendly distros I’ve ever tried.
Linux is going to have a LOT of terms a new user will have to learn. The idea of a cloud native image may cause a misconception, but no more so than any of the other myriad terms a new user will have to learn.
luciferofastora@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
You mean the link that aays
and assumes those terms already mean something to you? Oh wait, cloud native is a link again let’s see…
Great! Two more technical terms! Oh, there’s another text further down the page.
Nope, still no explanation, but we’ve got another link, this time to an actual definition:
Aaaand it’s another wall of technical terms.
What is “easy to understand” about this, unless you’re already familiar enough with that specific technical field that it really isn’t an issue in the first place? A definition directed at experts is no explanation, and hitting a reader with a wall of terms they don’t even know how to classify, let alone understand, isn’t very accessible.
Sorry, I didn’t think I’d have to “Get started” on a particular distro to find a note on what the whole “atomic” thing they advertise is about. Wouldn’t have killed them to put that paragraph on the previous page already, just a small note at the top, to explain the selling point they’re using.
That’s an issue I’ve complained about before: The entry barrier is too high still. People shouldn’t have to learn a lot of new terms, if at all possible. In that vein, it’s better to start out with distros that require less learning, and if the interest grips you, start learning and exploring from there.
But if you have to learn terms, it should be ordered from most fundamental and universal to most specific, and I’d put “cloud native” in the back half of that spectrum. You’ll need to know what a file system is, for instance, may need to learn the term distro / distribution and many more, but for the immediate operation of a system, you don’t need to know what OCI, Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, Prometheus, deploying, workloads or “loosely coupled systems that interoperate in a manner that is secure, resilient, manageable, sustainable, and observable” mean.
So I genuinely do recommend starting out with something less laden with technical terms, and working your way up from there. I started out with Ubuntu, now I’m using Nobara and plan to use my old spare drive to try some other flavours like Silverblue. It’s not that I don’t think the learning isn’t worth it, it’s just that it shouldn’t be frontloaded.
My gripe with Bazzite isn’t whether it’s user friendly, but whether its maintainers are. The founder made a point of telling people “the more I see this whining the more I want to keep it on the website”, because it’s an accurate definition, no matter how useless. I like reasonable discussion, I can accept personal disagreement, but what I’m seeing here is a user providing a prime example of the confusion the word causes and the founder replying to the effect of “now I want to use it even more”.
That’s the exact opposite of accessibility. That’s someone saying “By the way, this is a barrier” and getting the reply “Yes, and people complaining about it makes me want to keep it.” It’s not even “Sorry, this can’t be helped” so much as “I want this barrier to be there” for no good reason.
So that is a hill I will fight on, not because of the specific term but because of the culture behind it that plagues the tech sphere at large. We’re building walls of technical understanding requirements instead of bridges of explanations. Some walls are reasonable, some necessary, some harmless. Some gaps are too wide for a single bridge to cross, so you’ll need to take a detour over other concepts. But building walls out of spite, along with (not represented here, but also common) scoffing at those looking to build bridges or telling people looking for entry “just scale the wall”, are communication culture issues that serve to isolate rather than integrate.