Garuda is an Arch based non immutable distro with a similar gaming and performance focus to Bazzite. It’s where I went when Bazzite felt off to me.

For anyone thinking of a switch, it’s worth a look.

Garuda should be up near Bazzite

For me it was that all you did in your email was talk about how you didn’t want to compromise your ideals. All that stuff your told us about how hard you tried, how much you compromised, how many times you were blocked then reset aren’t there. Those are the things that make your experience actually meaningful and relatable.

It would have been a lot better to send your preamble and wrap up with, “if you are able to provide a functional setup with the required environment for me to continue my application, I am happy to continue, otherwise I am afraid I must withdraw.”

They don’t publish your DOB, birthdate, or DL/SSN though, and WA doesn’t keep a party affiliation as part of the voter registration.

With what Texas just shared though, anyone with that database could call and impersonate any voter and change or cancel their registration.

Washington State refused the request because the feds wanted socials, license numbers, signatures, birthdates, and other information protected by state law. They happily shared the general info like name and address, but the feds are trying to sue to get the protected parts too.

Other than the fact that you are investing way too much time on the opinion of one random person on the Internet…

The easiest thing to point to is that systems are complex. While you are attributing the problem I had to specific programming which may have been changed, the fact is that it could easily be a symptom of a completely different problem. Overlooking common needs? Behind on updates? Accidentally breaking things in the software?

Trying to account for and analyze everything can be a mental trap.

Sometimes you just have to say “ok, that’s a data point” and see if of indicates a trend without getting dragged into the black hole of trying to account for everything and resolve it.

I don’t care if my leaving Bazzite was justified or premature, the important data point is that it doesn’t work for all beginners. Bazzite didn’t feel right to me, it felt awkward and forced in a way Garuda never did.

Pointing out that they may have fixed a problem doesn’t undo the experience I had. Proving they fixed something specific doesn’t undo that problems can and do exist.

I am happy if others love Bazzite, out want great for this beginner.

Clearly.

I think you’re overthinking it.

Whether you like it or not, “I had trouble with that distro but not this other” is always valid info.

Look, I’m not going to study immutable systems for other potential problems just to argue with you. I’m just pointing out that sometimes you can’t predict what will cause a problem for someone and there are other easy to use options out there, so people can make well-informed decisions.

I’m sure Bazzite is great, I liked it well enough while I was using it, but it wasn’t until after I switched to something else that Linux started making sense to me. Bazzite may be harder to break, but for me as a Linux newbie, it wasn’t “better” and it felt weird to use in a way Garuda never did.

Great, maybe they fixed it. Still don’t care because I moved on to a great system a few years ago where that didn’t need to be fixed.

It would be nice if it were that easy, but the login screen settings are in the immutable portion.

I don’t care anymore though, I switched to Garuda and everything works as expected out of the box.

Immutability is a double edged sword. I bricked my drive permissions trying to get Bazzite to let me change my login screen background. Everyone assumes that immutability will prevent these sort of things, but for me, switching to a non immutable distro (Garuda) meant I didn’t have to muck about in the more touchy settings because I didn’t have to fight the restrictions in the OS anymore.

I think it’s absolutely going to disenfranchise some people, and for some that’s a welcome side effect, but I’ve seen these trends with the post office long enough to believe that’s just a secondary effect.

There’s been an effort for years to make the post office more profitable by centralizing things more and more and that means downsizing local offices and centralizing processing. That means nothing gets processed until it gets to a regional facility.

I think the issue is not that they are doing this specifically to disenfranchise voters so much as they don’t care that it does.

The USPS response to criticism that people and agencies rely on the post mark was “we’ll focus on trying to teach you to stop using it wrong then.”

In Washington State the response has been to encourage the use of official drop boxes instead. Some counties put signs near postal boxes telling people not to use it and telling where the nearest drop box is once election day approaches.

But it will absolutely result in more late ballots.

And if your goal is something to spend time on, the real hobby becomes 3D design. Start with FreeCad or SketchUp online free and watch the hours just disappear!

I mentioned it because a lot of people already have a card they need to accommodate, not to try and convince you.

I mean … it’s not required. So, good for you, I guess.

After I left Bazzite I switched to Garuda, it is also gaming and performance focused, works with Nvidia, and has been super easy as a beginner.

It may be worth a look.

KDE connect works great with Linux. You can easily put stuff on and get stuff off your phone.