TL;DR
Switched from Windows → Debian → Bazzite. This is part appreciation post, part personal journey. Bazzite just works, and I love it.
Long story
Over the past few years, I had heard great things about Proton and Bazzite, so I decided to give them a shot. Over the course of about 6 months I migrated my gaming rig from Windows to Debian, and eventually to Bazzite.
I was stuck with Windows for years because, let’s face it, games are built for it. But I knew most titles ran just fine on Linux, and I was curious to see how it actually holds up. I started with Debian since I’ve used it on other machines and didn’t want to deal with extra admin work when I just wanted to game.
Of course, I hit a few snags, mostly thanks to Nvidia still deserving the middle finger, and my fancy gaming mouse pulling some weird non-standard click shenanigans. After switching to AMD and a simpler gaming mouse, Debian actually worked pretty well. Initially, I thought I was stuck with Steam games, but Heroic Games fixed that as well. Things have really gotten a lot better in Linux gaming!
Well, almost everything worked. Space Engineers 2 was the one holdout. I tried every trick in the book to get it running, but eventually realized I was spending more time troubleshooting than actually playing. That’s when I backed up my saves and took the plunge with Bazzite.
I’ve always kept secure boot disabled, but Bazzite’s modern installation made me reconsider. The official guide didn’t fully solve my issues, but I winged it and got it working anyway. Turns out, ignoring secure boot for years meant I had some learning to do. Better late than never.
First boot into Bazzite, and of course, I had to tweak KDE to feel like home. Still love how customizable it is after all these years, and Wayland support is surprisingly solid now.
And guess what? Space Engineers 2 just worked. No hackery or trickery required. Kudos to the Bazzite devs. Keep it up!
Lesson learned
Sure, you can game on Debian, and it’s perfectly fine for most games. If you want it to just work, Bazzite’s the way to go.
I would really love to see a new launcher that isn’t beholden to Steam. Having to exit game mode and go into the desktop to open Lutris/Heroic and configure all the necessary compatibility layers is not a great experience.
Sounds like you have a slightly different ISO image than I did. I went with the “Desktop + AMD + KDE + traditional desktop experience”. This image gives you a normal desktop KDE. It looks and feels just like a real computer, so I guess that’s what you’re looking for.
If you’re sitting on a sofa with a controller in your hand, the HTPC image, or the “desktop + steam gaming mode” image might be worth considering, but apparently that option comes with its UX issues.
Yes, I use the “Game Mode” version on my gaming PC. It’s awesome but you have to dig out the mouse and keyboard every time you want to install a non-Steam game.