Bazzite would shut down if Fedora goes ahead with removing 32-bit

More to think on for the Fedora Linux change proposal to drop 32-bit support - as the popular Bazzite would have to shut down. Note: read the previous GamingOnLinux article first to get up to speed on what's going on.

As a major update on all this the creator of Bazzite, Kyle Gospodnetich, jumped into the official Fedora Forum to give some of their thoughts and they didn't hold back on what it would mean for Bazzite. A distribution that has become increasingly popular for handhelds with their gaming focus.

Gospodnetich stated it pretty clearly a post:

As much as I’d like this change to happen, it’s too soon. This change would kill off projects like Bazzite entirely right as Fedora is starting to make major headway in the gaming space. Neal Gompa already pointed out basic use cases that would be broken even if someone built the packages Steam itself needs to function.

It’s also causing irreparable damage to Fedora from a PR standpoint. I have been inundated all day with people sharing news articles and being genuinely concerned Steam is gong to stop working on their Fedora/Bazzite machines. I would argue not only should this change be rejected, the proposal should be rescinded to limit further damage to Fedora as a project.

Perhaps open a separate one to talk about changing build architecture to build fewer 32-bit packages?

And when pushed further Gospodnetich stated it again, plainly:

I’m speaking as it’s founder, if this change is actually made as it is written the best option for us is to just go ahead and disband the project.

Ouch.

For people repeatedly saying to just use the Flatpak of Steam, that wouldn't work either for the use case of projects like Bazzite and how most of their users actually use the project to be like SteamOS, where it boots into a special gamescope session for Steam Big Picture Mode - it just wouldn't work with it.

Right now, I don't believe the proposal will go through as-is for Fedora 44, it's simply too soon.

The ideal scenario would be for Valve to be convinced to bring the Steam client on Linux to 64-bit, which would solve a lot of problems for everyone. It's not all about Steam though it would also cause issues for OBS Studio game capturing, FEX for Fedora's x86 emulation on aarch64 and more.

Realistically though, as I pointed out in the initial article covering it on GamingOnLinux, Fedora's user share on Steam is low to the point Valve likely won't care until more distros do it which will delay it even further.