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PayPalAn exciting new announcement is the formation of the Open Gaming Collective, a collaborative organisation between many names in the Linux sphere.
This working group pulls together the likes of Bazzite & Universal Blue, ASUS Linux, ShadowBlip, PikaOS, Fyra Labs along with ChimeraOS, Nobara and Playtron. Their mission? From the new website:
For too long, the Linux gaming ecosystem has been fragmented. Individual distributions have spent countless hours duplicating efforts on kernel patches, input tooling, and essential packages. The OGC changes the game by centralizing efforts around critical components like gamescope and hardware drivers.
An announcement for this was posted up on the official Bazzite forum, with Bazzite founder Kyle Gospodnetich mentioning:
The Open Gaming Collective (OGC) is a collaborative organization bringing together key projects in Linux gaming, including ChimeraOS, Nobara, Playtron, Ultramarine & Fyra Labs, PikaOS, ShadowBlip, ASUS Linux, us here at Bazzite under Universal Blue, and more partners to be announced soon.
The goal of the OGC is to centralize efforts around critical components like kernel patches, input tooling, and essential gaming packages such as gamescope. Instead of each distro maintaining separate patches and fragmented hardware support, improvements can now be shared across the entire ecosystem. In short: a win for one project becomes a win for everyone.
The OGC’s kernel efforts operate on an upstream-first approach, meaning all patches shipped by the OGC will be at least in review for eventual inclusion into the Linux kernel.
This means better hardware compatibility, fewer duplicated efforts, and a more unified Linux gaming experience for everyone.
A similar announcement was also posted up on the Fyra Labs blog.
For those just joining us - Bazzite is a version of Linux (just don't call it a distro…) specifically designed to making a great gaming experience for desktops and handhelds. Many people use it as an alternative to SteamOS on various devices, I also personally use Bazzite on my Legion Go and it's great!
This news all sounds quite exciting, and it's nice to see some Linux developers determined not to keep reinventing the wheel and actually come together for the greater good. We have so many projects doing the same thing just a bit different - so this sounds overall really great. Pooled resources to make Linux better for everyone.
Part of this includes some changes for Bazzite outlined by Gospodnetich in the forum post:
HHD will receive no further updates and will be phased out in favor of InputPlumber, the same input framework used by SteamOS, ChimeraOS, Nobara, Playtron GameOS, Manjaro Handheld Edition, and CachyOS Handheld Edition.
- Features you rely on (Such as RGB and fan control) will be integrated into the Steam UI, while features not supported by the Steam UI will receive a clean, streamlined overlay similar to the current HHD experience.
- Don’t worry, if your specific hardware needs to stay on older libraries a little longer our rollback and pin system has you covered. We’ll be triaging issues as they appear.
Bazzite will adopt the OGC kernel, ensuring continued support for features like secure boot, expanded controller support, steering wheel support, and more; all maintained collaboratively within the shared kernel project.
Gospodnetich also mentioned they'll be "sharing patches we’ve made to various Valve packages with the OGC and attempting to upstream everything we can".
The Bazzite team are also testing replacing Lutris with Faugus Launcher, a newer game launcher but they said they will provide "at least six months of advance notice" if they decide to make it the default.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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fenglengshun 11 hours ago
Quoting: BumadarAlthough this is very cool, I am a bit worried about their own kernel, more in the sense of anti cheat kernel drivers appearing in their kernel. But maybe I am to negative.Well, Bazzite's dev at least has stated that he believe that anti-cheat should be done server-side (paraphrasing).
For trustability on BOTH side (no potential malware for users, no need to trust that the client hasn't been tampered anyways) it does make much more sense to do it that way.
I'm a bit surprised that Nvidia or Denuvo hasn't made moves towards that. I feel like they could more easily get the data, hardware, and capital to create a moat of server-side anti-cheat of sort. They could have easily just invoked "AI" and get it moving.
mr-victory 9 hours ago
This is the way to go, I am so delighted!
The_Real_Bitterman 2 hours ago
Quoting: fenglengshunWell, Bazzite's dev at least has stated that he believe that anti-cheat should be done server-side (paraphrasing).100% agreed. I mean this whole client-side anti cheat is deeply flawed anyway. Imagine you cant brows certain websites or fullfill any payments online because your system lacks a local fraud-detector. No one in Webdev even does this. For online games it is exactly the same situation. Except the website becomes the game.
Latency also is not a valid argument here either. Which I often hear. "But it's a fast paced shooter we can't have server side anti cheat it's too slow" Mean while GamingOnLinux played BF6 using GeForce Now just fine. While the whole game was streamed and not just a few bytes of player positions and stats and it worked fine.
If you ask me, if a dev / publisher is crazy about anti cheat, then simply don't allow people to run your game locally in the first place. In Software development there is this number one rule: "Never trust the client" same goes for CLIENT side anti cheats. You can not trust them either. You can simply not know if they have been tampered with.
Locking down the customers system and installing spyware is not the way to go and even violates (some) human rights:
1. All human beings are free and equal
Not the case the user is no longer free and spied on. Also they are no longer equal, we Linux users simply locked out and considered a cheater.
2. No discrimination
Well, as I said Linux users are obviously discriminated here by being locked out entirely simply because of a personal choice. Imagine some would lock out transgender of these games to "Protect the players".
...
11. Innocent until proved guilty
Do I really need to elaborate on this one? Everyone is simply considered a cheater in the first place. Otherwise they wouldn’t install their AC on everyone’s PC.
12. Right to privacy
Obviously violated
Okay, maybe I've gone a bit too wild with this. Idk someone will sure correct me.
Last edited by The_Real_Bitterman on 30 Jan 2026 at 7:24 pm UTC
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