Meet the mind behind Bazzite - an interview with Kyle Gospodnetich

Want to know a little more about Bazzite and the original founder? Here's your chance with a brand new interview with Kyle Gospodnetich.

And now without any extra fluff or padding, here's the interview for you below!

Q: Can you first introduce yourself, and what you do for Bazzite?

My name’s Kyle Gospodnetich. In another life I was a game developer, then I became a full stack engineer with a speciality in eCommerce which led to me getting rather involved with Linux servers and Dev Ops. Bazzite was born out of my love for Linux and my love for gaming, and heavily influenced by the work Valve did on SteamOS both when it was Debian based and later the Arch based SteamOS we all love today. My work on Bazzite covers all fronts whether it be programming new features, patching packages, or helping to run a community!

Q: So uh, what actually is Bazzite?

Bazzite is a custom image built upon Fedora’s Atomic offerings that is designed to be a turn-key gaming experience without sacrificing everyday use. Thanks to being image based users are given a stable platform they can update or rollback whenever they like, and it uses the same tech you’d find in Fortune 500 cloud servers running Linux, meaning you can use containers for everything including software development.

Q: Why did you start Bazzite?

Honestly it happened by accident, I don’t think anyone of sound mind sets out to start a Linux project. I built it in about a week and so many people showed up to contribute that I felt I couldn’t stop. It’s been quite the journey from there.

Q: Why can’t we just call it a Linux distro?

My opinion is that Distro is just not a good label for this. A traditional Linux Distro does a lot more work than we’re doing. You can think of Bazzite like you would a docker container – nobody calls them a Distro but they’re likely based on Debian or Chainguard or Alpine which are Distros. Following that logic the Distro here is Fedora.

Q: Are immutable desktops the future for Linux?

I’m biased but I think so! They’ve already won the phone market, the server market, and the professional workstation market. We’re just bringing them to the Linux desktop which has traditionally refused to adopt new technologies in a timely manner.

Q: How difficult is it to actually add support for new PC handhelds to Bazzite? What goes into it?

It really depends on the handheld. Previously we used a userspace solution for handling input on these handhelds, and recently we’ve transitioned into a new method that relies more on kernel patches and custom drivers. Some handhelds are very easy to support and need little customization, and others have broken sleep, broken wifi, missing sound firmware, “unique” input systems that are hard to support, and all sorts of other small problems that take serious work to resolve.

Q: Tell us a bit about your system for developing Bazzite and playing games.

Really it’s one and the same – I play a game, I find a problem, I stop playing the game to fix it, and then about 30 minutes later it goes out to everyone as an update if it’s a brand new title. I think that’s the beauty of a “Gaming distro”, they aren’t meant to improve performance - they’re meant to make it easier for people to play games and provide a centralized place for gaming specific patches.

Q: How difficult has it been to work with hardware vendors? Have any been particularly open to working with Bazzite?

Working with hardware vendors has been an absolute joy. Most of the time they’re entirely hands off outside of maybe sending us some hardware to play with, and occasionally we’ll work with them to secure needed firmware blobs or resolve an issue in-hardware via a firmware update. Since we’re entirely non-profit they’ve always been willing to go above and beyond to get things working.

Q: What’s your favourite handheld and why?

From a hardware standpoint it’s definitely my Legion Go 2. I think Lenovo has really killed it with their hardware choices and design and it’s a very premium product as a result. That being said, my Steam Deck OLED is still my handheld of choice for grab and go. You can’t beat that battery life and the screen is incredible.

Q: You recently announced the Open Gaming Collective (OGC) - how the heck did you manage to pull all these groups together? Whose idea was it?

I can’t take the credit for it, and I don’t think it was any one member’s idea. We had a shared Linux gaming chat where we’d talk shop every now and then which formed organically. Some recent changes in Bazzite enabled us to work more closely with that group, and after a very long discussion on the state of Linux gaming we were able to come to a group consensus and kickstart the OGC. I think it’s a miracle that only the Linux developer community could possibly produce, and it’s a privilege to be a part of it.

Q: What did you think of the new screen-off downloads update for Steam Deck / SteamOS? How doable is it for other handhelds with Bazzite?

I think it’s a great feature! Valve built it into their steamos-manager package which we’re working to upgrade to now. At first it’ll likely only support the Steam Deck but we’ll have the opportunity to expand its support and hopefully contribute that work upstream.

Q: What’s the current state of and plans for Bazzite on ARM?

We started playing with this but it’s very early. The main thing driving this as a possible support target for us is FEX, which is an excellent x86-to-ARM solution. ARM as a platform is hard to support due to their lack of a UEFI standard and dependence on device trees. As a result we’d likely start by supporting Apple ARM chips via work by the Asahi project and try to expand outward from there where it makes sense.

Q: What do you think are the top problems holding back the year of Linux on the desktop?

Honestly the main thing would be the flatpak permission model. I think Flatpak is the future of packaging on Linux, but it needs extra work and extra help to reach the same level that Android enjoys where applications can ask for permissions they need instead of having to be explicitly granted by something like Flatseal. We’re able to work around this for some common flatpaks we believe have wrong default permissions, but that’s a bandaid solution while things improve upstream.

Q: What do you think of the announcement of the new Steam Machine, Steam Frame and Steam Controller?

I think Valve’s hardware department doesn’t miss, and as much as I love my Xbox Elite Series 2 w/ Chatpad, I’m buying the Steam Controller day-1. If I didn’t already have a Framework Desktop I’d probably be preordering the Steam Machine, and I’m looking forward to seeing if the Steam Frame can replace my Valve Index.

I will also be first in line for the new Steam Controller!

Q: What’s your game of the year?

Deadlock for sure, but if I had to pick a singleplayer one it’s Expedition 33. Shout out to all my fellow copium addicts that watched the game awards and came away with no Half-Life 3.

Q: Any interesting open source projects you want to give a little shout out to?

Definitely bootcrew. They’re doing the same bootc Linux images that we do, but applying it to every Distro in existence. You can get a copy of Arch Linux on bootc, Debian bootc, and so many others. Without a doubt this is helping push the immutable future I argued for earlier.

Q: Any thoughts on the anti-cheat problem for Linux / SteamOS? How can we solve it?

This really needs to be solved on the game developer side of things. In any security system rule #1 is to never trust the client, and rather than follow that rule, game developers have decided to throw spyware on people’s computers and pretend they can be trusted with that in place. The proper solution is server-authoritative net code that doesn’t allow speed hacking and doesn’t provide player positions the client can’t actually see, plus server-side detection of aimbots, wallhacks, and other client cheats via heuristics. Hopefully the day comes where most do this. VAC3 is a step in this direction, and there’s been a big push to get third party developers out of the Windows kernel as of late.

Q: What do you have to say to Windows users looking to potentially use Bazzite?

First – Thanks for your interest! Seriously, it means a lot to me. I was a Windows gamer once too and I know how daunting learning something new is, so if you really want to go on this journey make sure you’re in a place where you can be patient and are willing to learn something new. Remember that Windows was once unintelligible to you too, even if that was decades ago. Other than that if you have problems do reach out to us on our Discord – we’re here to help.

Q: Finally, the big one - pineapple on pizza? Yes or no.

I’m Italian so I’m legally required to say no to pineapple, but Anchovies are good!

You're wrong, but I'll let it slide. Pineapple on pizza absolutely rules.

Big thank you to Kyle for taking the time to answer a few questions.