Nexus Gamers are going to test gpus on Linux (Bazzite)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5O6tQYJSEMw

97 comments

This is great. Honest people like Steve and Wendell are great for Linux. Let's make sure, as a community, we don't give them a hard time about their distro of choice. I think bazzite is an excellent choice to start until they get comfortable digging deeper into the system.
- Not everyone wants or needs to dig deeper though. If Bazzite meets all of someone's needs, good. The vast majority of people want an OS that just works out of the box.
  
  Very true. I guess I could have phrased it better. But you're right, not everyone needs to dig deeper into Linux, a lot of us want to just enjoy their system that just works. I'm actually one of those people.
- Wendell uses cachyOs on his channel.
  
  Steve shouted his channel out too, so hopefully this ends up being a "separate sides of the coin" for the audience to enjoy (if one is curious about what the other distro is like)
  
  He also mentioned Cachy as a viable option for Steve alongside Baszzite, with the caveats on both. I'm glad Steve decided on Bazzite. I'm a Cachy OS user myself, but I still like Bazzite for the purpose Steve needs it for. I think it'll be great and I hope he succeeds, genuinely
- This should be a rule anyway, no shitting on people's preffered distros!
  
  It should, but few of us follow, unfortunately. :/
- I agree and I want someone to tell them about dx12 bug from nvidia and ray tracing perf on amd gpus(not sure about this one).
  
  Honestly, see if they have forums and sign up to it. Create a post and let them know. I'm sure they'll appreciate it

This is interesting because theres not a ton of direct Windows vs. linux game benchmarking, and now there's about to be. GN churns though a lot of hardware and testing.
And excellent, because being linux, drawing attention to issues increases the chances of them getting fixed, whereas that is hardly the case for Windows.
Arch (with KDE I presume?) + Bazzite is not bad either. There's a lot of handwaving over they should have chosen this or that distro, but they're both very popular in the gaming space, so I feel that's fairly representative of many distros.
- And excellent, because being linux, drawing attention to issues increases the chances of them getting fixed, whereas that is hardly the case for Windows.
  This is the most important part of this whole thing to me. Imagine Nvidia watching Steve shitting on them for having horrible drivers on Linux and millions of people seeing that.
  
  My game randomly freezes like once an hour on linux. Thanks, Nvidia!
- although i prefer the arch distros for bleeding edge and rolling updates. Bazzite makes sense for testing because of the immutable.
  A lot of more experienced pc users might end up liking arch distros later in their life, but I would never recomnmend arch based distros to people who aren't comfortable with linux yet.
  
  Experienced here, did my time in Arch, learned a lot, perhaps even more than necessary, now retired to Fedora, then Bazzite and Aurora-dev. It just gets out of my way nicely. Something, something, Bell curve meme, plateau of enlightenment meme.
  And I would absolutely recommend Arch to a technically competent gamer newcomer as the fastest way to get up to speed.
  Horses, Courses.
  
  NixOS is bleeding edge immutable, but it's like deep in the weeds

This is genuinely a new era in gaming, so exciting!

This is definitely something that has been coming for some time. Yes, I am a little surprised it has taken this long for a major channel know for hardware reviews for gamers to take this step... I would have thought that the popularity of the Steam Deck, and all of the handhelds that are now running Linux would have been a motivator.
But it seems that Steve is really seeing that there is more of a progression of people not wanting to go to Windows 11, and the issues surrounding Microsoft's insistence on adding creepy features that no one asked for (like Recall) as the push they needed.
And I agree, Bazzite is probably one of the best choices that they could make. The immutability of the system will allow them to have consistent images that won't change on them randomly. That is a definite requirement when dealing with this type of benchmarking.

Can we count the mainstream tech tubers in recent months that have done these Linux/Bazzite videos?
As much as I hate ETA Prime, I think he was one of the first
PewDiePie
Toasty Bros
J2C
Dawid Does Tech
Ctrl Alt Rees
Digital Foundry
Lon.TV
Chris Titus
LTT soon
- Chris Titus
  Having his name on one of the most popular windows debloater was just as based.
- LTT soon? They made a few Linux videos and still love windows too much to recommend it.
  
  Yes they're supposed to be doing a video with Linus Torvalds soon.
  
  They really seem to be intent on glazing Apple at this point.
- DankPods my beloved as well. He’s not very technical with software so it’s quite interesting to hear him talk about it.
- What's wrong with ETA Prime?
  
  I assume it’s just that his channel mostly seems like advertisement for products. I like him enough, but I know what I’m getting if I watch one of his videos.
  
  Way too many videos
  Many of them redundant
  Frequency shows in the quality of his work
  Never says anything about where to buy products or how much they cost
  Clickbait central

I'm a little confused by some of the discussion. Surely the problems they're talking about with variations in the test system also apply to windows. You result can be affected by:
Which windows updates have been applied
Which version of the drivers have been installed
What other software is on the system
Linux is the same, but they seem to be more concerned about it. Can someone explain?
- I think a big part of why they talked about it in the video is to explain their base assumptions for the test. They've discussed it with Windows enough that they don't need to say those anymore, but the Linux tests are new.
  In addition, they do need to change theur workflow simply because they can't use the same software and scripts for Linux.
  They're also addressing the reputation that Linux has among Windows users, even if that reputation is outdated
- Gamers nexus blocks updates on every test round. When they do update their test systems they block updates and retest all hardware in their charts. The software is also the same, besides platform or driver specific software. They truly go for reproducible and as less unknown factors as possible, hence the discussion
- Yes, if anything it seems easier to handle on linux. Just bake golden images that already have a static list of required packages.

I'm a little surprised that they are planning on testing downstream distros like bazzite. It would make more sense to just stick to the biggest upstream distros like Arch/Debian/Fedora for benchmark purposes in my opinion.
- I disagree. Keep in mind that most people seeing the benchmarks will be windows users, and seeing Bazzite's gaming performance along with it's reputation for simplicity to set up and may help convince them to switch. Plus, anyone that had experience with Linux will know the link between it and Fedora, and can adjust expectations for theur particular distro
  
  As someone using bazzite, it just works out of the box and I think that's exactly what a lot of the windows uses are looking for.
  
  Second!
  
  I disagree sort of. I find it hard to believe a new distro is easier to set up than mint or Ubuntu and when it comes time to troubleshoot, youll get less support than the upstreams. Both searching existing posts and making new posts there will be less answers. Unless you make a search fo the upstream, and then there's a chance your distro tweaked something and it's different.
  What also makes me sus is that if influencers are promoting lesser-known distros, it might be paid. Which is fine but could mean plans to monetize that distro in the future.
- They're aiming for "something the viewer can achieve themselves".
  99% of ex-Windows users won't be going for Arch, Debian or Fedora. It's supposed to be easy to get in, difficult to screw up.
  
  And it's a channel aimed at gamers. Seeing Wendell serving as advisor gives me hope that they can get good results and i agree with the choice of distro
- Bazzite would make it very easy to reproduce the same result. Just pull the exact version they used, set Proton and you're done
- If it works and helps bringing new people over to Linux, why not?
- cough cough
  cachyos
  
  Is this the new "Arch BTW"?

Nice.
Very much so looking forward to seeing rigorous benchmarks of GPUs on linux.

Thid is great, from English speaking channels I only know AncientGameplays doing linux benchmark comparisons to Windows on gaming. *Spoilers: If you use AMD you're not leaving performance on the table, if you're team green... it's a work in progress.
RT is currently still shit on Linux, but I don't use it anyway.
- Since my main rig is still stuck on Nvidia GPUs for the time being I'm still stuck on Windows. 30% performance reduction will lead to less than 60 FPS experience on my end.
  But on my Ally handheld, I've been hopping between Bazzite, SteamOS, and CachyOS.

Honestly, it's about damn time.
These technical people should be ashamed it took them so long to adopt Linux.
- This literally doubles (if not more) the workload to run these benchmarks, not to mention having to write new automation procedures and Steve just not being familiar with Linux at all, all for 2-3% (tops) of his audience.
  Be glad that he is doing them in the future and don't be a demanding, entitled prick.
  
  and Steve just not being familiar with Linux at all
  Yeah, that's the problem. Just like with LinusTechTips, these youtubers aren't half as knowledgeable as they'd like their audiences to believe.
  They should be ashamed, and you should stop being being a simp.
  entitled prick.
  Grow the fuck up.
- Let's put that in a way that isn't so off putting. It's the duty of those in the know help those who are not when possible.
  
  No it’s not. There is no duty to anyone. Go to a library or book store and read what you want to learn.
- Sometimes you gotta be realistic that the majority of the population wouldn't have found Linux as friendly as many here are, even today, while Windows or is/was kinda the obvious mainstream choice for running any software... The balance seems to tip slowly, but honestly it took decades.
  Even today you're still all debating which distro that didn't exist 10 years ago is the best, and which office suite can match Microsoft's... How am I going to convince my non-nerd friends to use Linux over Windows in that context.
  About gaming, it's a matter of being able to run AAA games without issues, like, no bugs and anti-cheat problems. It's only since SteamOS that it is getting enough programmers and mainstream attention.
  This is the way, but once again it required the power of a dominant company to move the lines.

That’s great! Love to see more GN and Lvl1 collabs!

I just ordered a new GPU. I'm going to build a PC for the first time and put bazzite on it. I'm excited.
- good luck!

97 comments