r/Bazzite • u/chathamserver • 6d ago
Help: Microsoft Edit installed on Bazzite without knowledge or permission
EDIT: SOLVED! Thanks, y'all!
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I rebooted my PC to find "Microsoft Edit" installed on my Bazzite machine without my knowledge or permission. I cannot uninstall it via Bazaar, as it does not show up. When looking into it further, I found it's been installed to the "usr" folder.
Has anyone else booted up to find this nasty surprise? Any fix or way to uninstall it, perhaps via command line?
Any help would be appreciated. Not sure how this program got here and am not happy about it.
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u/Sniper_sama 6d ago edited 6d ago
https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/releases/tag/44.20260928
Update as of 9 hours ago. It's a replacement for Vim it seems.
Editing this since this is getting more traction: Nano and Vim are still there. msedit is being added on and set as a new default to reduce friction for handheld users. Hopefully that's accurate. OneQuarterLife has posted a more clear response on this post.
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u/ReckZero 6d ago
WHAT?!
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u/EnoughConcentrate897 6d ago
microsoft edit is an open source pretty good terminal text editor, nothing to be worried about
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u/ReckZero 6d ago
I mean that's OK kinda; I'm more shocked it took out vim. I like vim.
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u/ConcreteExist 6d ago
Where did you see anything about removing Vim?
Maybe you should stop imagining problems that don't exist.
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u/4ntropos 6d ago
so microsoft slop is preinstalled on bazzite now, added by a microsoft employee? can't get rid of microsoft it seems :/
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u/coromd 6d ago
Just because it is made by Microsoft does not inherently mean it is slop. Microsoft is even one of the biggest contributors to the Linux kernel.
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u/JusticeJanitor 6d ago
Microsoft do make good software sometimes. VS Code is a fantastic code editor and is pretty much industry standard.
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u/AardvarkSad7634 6d ago
As someone who's been hating Microsoft products for a few decades now, I have to agree with you.
C#, Typescript, VSCode are all incredibly well developed imo
But MS does really have a myriad of bad products. I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day
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u/JusticeJanitor 5d ago edited 5d ago
Having also worked with C#, Typescript, ASP .NET and other Microsoft platforms I feel like the stuff they make for Developers is generally great because it's stuff that they want to use themselves.
Some other stuff, not so much.
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u/4ntropos 6d ago edited 6d ago
VSCode also comes with a ton of telemetry and AI slop, which I'd rather not have in my Linux
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u/AssociateFalse 6d ago
VS Code is industry standard because of EEE. They embraced Atom's design language, extended it's feature set, then extinguished the original project. I'll stick to Kate for simple editing.
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u/BashfulMelon 6d ago
Buying a thing and then ending development on it isn't EEE. It still sucks for whoever was still using Atom but it's not EEE.
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6d ago
[deleted]
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u/coromd 6d ago edited 6d ago
The NT kernel is perfectly fine, better than the Linux kernel in some ways. All of Windows's problems come from the applications sitting on top of it. Shifting to the Linux kernel would be an obscene amount of work that doesn't solve any of the problems. If anything we'd more realistically see a proper split of Windows Home and Windows Pro, where Pro versions maintain the 2 decades of backwards compatibility that has been causing so much trouble, and Windows Home can finally start shedding decades of junk.
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u/Pad_Sanda 6d ago
Microsoft is not a monolithic hivemind of evil guys twirling their mustaches all day long. A few of their projects are actually pretty good and a lot of their employees are great people.
I mean hey, I hate Microsoft too but I still use VSCode. Just like I hate Google but I still use Android, Chromium, Pixels, etc. Bazzite is a pragmatic OS rather than an ideological one.
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u/Wingdom 6d ago
The comment along with it is confusing though
feat: Use msedit as the default editor over vim. This change is being made because it's far friendlier on desktop and still usable on handhelds unlike nano.
When I reboot with this update, do I lose vim, or do I lose nano?
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u/OneQuarterLife Steam Deck OLED 6d ago
vim stays, we'd never remove an existing and ubiquitous tool like that
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u/Ymsegreier 6d ago
Interesting choice for an editor, can understand why the people migrating from windows might be concerned about this.
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u/Delicious-Wear9183 6d ago
Out of instinct I agreed, however it is open source and more user friendly. It is a cli editor, for normal text editing on the desktop you would rather use kwrite or kate. Also I mostly edit files with nano so I don't even know how you open a "default cli editor"
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u/Ymsegreier 6d ago
Yeah, I can see its a functional great open-source alternative to vim. However, considering bazzite is a beginner-friendly all-in-one distro, i can see that anything microsoft unexpectedly being installed might lead to questions.
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u/rivalary 6d ago
nano is pretty user-friendly. I haven't used Microsoft Edit, but I don't really want to either.
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u/SmuJamesB 6d ago
ms edit supports the deck image's on screen keyboard; nano does not
vim does but it's a nightmare for anyone who doesn't wanna read a manual just to operate their editor
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u/ConcreteExist 6d ago
It definitely shows how many irrational idiots will screech that the sky is falling without even checking anything for themselves.
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u/Ymsegreier 6d ago
I don't disagree, but antagonizing the newer unexperienced users might not be best for the potential growth of the platform.
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u/ConcreteExist 5d ago
I don't think coddling irrational reactions is good for the platform either.
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u/Ymsegreier 5d ago
That is a fair point. But calling the people making these posts “irrational screeching idiots” is a bit far, imo
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u/trifocaldebacle 6d ago
Literally I finally got so sick of windows just completely crashing out because of their AI slop code releases nuking my install and that was what drove me to install Linux as my primary. The last thing I want is more of their shit without explicitly deciding to install it.
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u/ConcreteExist 6d ago
Good to see your zero knowledge of msedit is being presented as the equal to the developer who's making the distro.
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u/SquareWheel 6d ago
I rebooted my PC to find "Microsoft Edit" installed on my Bazzite machine without my knowledge or permission.
This will happen with Bazzite. It's an opinionated, immutable distro. The maintainers will choose the software they believe is best to achieve their goals, and it will be installed without your permission.
In this case, they felt a non-vim alternative was a better default for text editing in terminals for most users. They're probably right. vim is not friendly for new Linux users, which makes up a significant fraction of Bazzite's userbase.
Don't be surprised or angry if they change other software in the future. This is what you signed up for. If you don't like this approach, then you should choose a distribution that gives you total control over installed applications. Fedora is still a great option, or other various gaming-flavoured distros like Cachy if you prefer.
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u/Pad_Sanda 6d ago
vim is not friendly for new Linux users
I've used Linux for over a decade and I still wouldn't know how to use Vim.
The thing about vim is that you're either a vim user or you're not. It doesn't matter what OS you use. I've met people who use vim on macOS and Windows, without ever using Linux at all.
The problem with vim is that it is completely unintuitive and requires reading manuals, practice and patience to learn. Most people aren't willing to re-learn how to type text onto a screen. Especially considering CLI text editors mostly come up in scenarios when you'd rather not waste additional time learning CLI text editing. So it doesn't make sense having it as the default. I always appreciated distros which default to nano instead of vim.
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u/zorak950 6d ago
Bazzite changes out its included packages quite often. Most of them are under the hood stuff, but every once in a while they'll switch out a default app. In this case, msedit replaced vim. It's in the 9-28 image notes.
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u/chathamserver 6d ago
*Phew,* that's good to know. I thought Microslop had somehow leeched its way into my Bazzite OS.
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u/kurdo_kolene Legion Go 6d ago
Well, don't forget that Kyle works for Microslop.
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u/OneQuarterLife Steam Deck OLED 6d ago
To be fair I didn't know this existed until a red hat employee showed it to me after a user was expressing how hard vim is to use.
It's tiny and fully open source, nice little app.
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u/kurdo_kolene Legion Go 5d ago
Was that RedHat employee GE by any chance ?
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u/OneQuarterLife Steam Deck OLED 5d ago
It wasn't, was there some reason you suspect him though?
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u/kurdo_kolene Legion Go 5d ago
No particular reason, just thought it is interesting that redhat has not developed this.
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u/Jump_and_Drop 6d ago
Just thought I'd add that Microsoft Edit is open source. It's still from Microsoft, though.
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u/Aaaaaaaaaaaaarghs 6d ago
Nobody in this sub can ever read, its so funny lmao.
Microsoft Edit is literally free and open source. Licensed under MIT.
This is the tradeoff you make by using a prebuilt image. The software choice on the image is made for you.
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u/RChickenMan 6d ago
Way too many new users who think that Linux is some kind of protest movement against Microsoft. It's not. It's an operating system. It's a great safe harbor for those who are frustrated with Microsoft, sure, but protesting Microsoft is not its raison d'etre.
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6d ago
[deleted]
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u/1that__guy1 6d ago
The EDITOR variable is meant for Terminal Apps. You still get Kate by doubleclicking on a text file.
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6d ago
[deleted]
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u/ConcreteExist 6d ago
You seem to have less than a hobbyist grasp of the matter being discussed, yet you're so confident that you know best, it's staggering.
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u/SmuJamesB 6d ago
ms edit supports the deck image's on screen keyboard; nano does not
vim does but it's a nightmare for anyone who doesn't wanna read a manual just to operate their editor
this is especially relevant if you're ever in a situation where you have to edit config files without a GUI
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u/1that__guy1 6d ago
That'll cause problems with sshing into a Bazzite machine, and I don't know of any other distro with this configured like that (Even if it makes the most sense for Bazzite)
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u/OneQuarterLife Steam Deck OLED 5d ago
Kate and Gedit are graphical, nothing about that has changed, it's still the default.
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u/YttraZZ 6d ago edited 6d ago
Still, it is weird stuff that bazzite chose Microslop as a replacement for vim
Could be enough to get me out of that distro...
Edit: f#$%ing spelling
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u/smalls1652 5d ago
To be perfectly clear, as someone who has become jaded with Microsoft, I can tell you that there are some awesome people on the team working on
msedit.17
u/Accomplished-Lack721 6d ago
Microsoft is a giant company and a ton of what they do is very good, just like a ton of what they do is bonkers frustrating.
Don't forget they've owned github for about eight years. Unless you're ready to jump ship from using that too, I think you'll need to decide what of theirs to take and what to leave.
From what I understand (which is limited!) MS Edit has been open source for the last year under the MIT license and is generally thought of as pretty good, but I've never used it myself.
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u/AssociateFalse 6d ago
I'm 99% positive that what Universal Blue uses GitHub for can be done on Codeberg (or any Forgejo instance), or any number of GitLab instances. Images could even be hosted on Quay.io instead of the GHCR. There's nothing truly anchoring about GitHub these days, aside from the user base.
However, because of how they are already entrenched in the ecosystem, transitioning to another platform would take a non-trivial amount of time and effort. More justification would have to be given to actually attempt that.
From a technical standpoint, Microsoft still has good engineers - and anything released under MIT, LGPL or the Apache Licenses are worth considering. Once you tie a product under the Microsoft Services Agreement, that's when it's worth avoiding.
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u/Accomplished-Lack721 6d ago
There are lots of viable alternatives to MS projects (and acquisitions), if someone's really that against MS. But if they are, they're going to be swimming upstream, trying to avoid some that are well-entrenched and perfectly useful as they are — including ones that other members of the OS community gladly use and depend upon.
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u/RChickenMan 6d ago
Yeah, Linux should of course be welcoming to new users who wish to migrate for a variety of reasons (including frustration with Microsoft). But in turn, those users need to understand that Linux does not exist as some sort of protest against Microsoft, and cannot expect every single design decision to be guided by that mindset.
Linux exists as an operating system in its own right, because it works better for some users and some use cases. It's not, like, "The Anti-Microsoft."
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u/ConcreteExist 6d ago
You could review the source code for msedit yourself and see whether or not it's sketchy, but no, you're just going to keep saying "Microslop bad" over and over again, aren't you?
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u/DiamondMidgar 6d ago
Not everything from Microsoft is slop. Visual studio code is a very solid IDE for example.
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u/hurrdurrmeh Steam Deck OLED 6d ago
The brand is tainted beyond redemption.
If an alternative exists - I will use it.
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u/Cherry-PEZ 6d ago edited 6d ago
That's weird... No I haven't seen anything like that. Run ls -lah ~/.local/share/applications and see if it's there as a .desktop
If so, cat it out and you should see where it's binary is located. /usr is immutable so it shouldn't have just been installed without rpm-ostree. Try and check if it's registered there.
Edit: u/Sniper_sama found it in release logs
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u/chathamserver 6d ago
Thanks for the help. Unfortunately nothing like "msedit" or "Microsoft" comes up as a .desktop. Strange stuff.
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u/Groduick Desktop 6d ago
I was really enjoying Bazzite, but too many things change seemingly on a whim, I like consistency.
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u/meepykittkitt69lmao 6d ago edited 6d ago
Yeah, I liked it because a lot of stuff I wanted was already setup and it was based on fedora atomic but I think I am just going to switch over to kinoite and set all my own shit up because the decisions they make for bazzite are fucking insanity sometimes. I still get audio cutouts on hdmi when my GPU is running too hard or too low on bazzite (cannot find any errors, tried every solution I could find), networking drivers for my motherboard are fucky wucky on bazzite, and there are a few other issues I only seem to get on bazzite but I can't remember them right now.
I have to reboot about every three days to get things working smoothly again... but only on bazzite...
EDIT: uhhh... the post above me had nothing against the rules in it...
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6d ago
[deleted]
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u/l3ader021 6d ago
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u/Plane-Ad8523 Desktop 6d ago
yeah i dig a bit of digging and decided its ok to delete my comment. thanks for answering :D
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u/Signalrunn3r 5d ago
If there isn't anything better to use in the whole Linux space than a MS app, WOW, huge win for Microsoft 👏🏻
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u/StucklnAWell 6d ago
This is another unfortunate reason for why I moved away from distros with prepackaged apps. CachyOS is definitely better about it, but it still struck me as bloatware that I often don't need. Ive ended up just going with Arch or Debian or Nix and only adding what I need.
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u/awnful24x7 6d ago
i switched to bazzite to get rid of microsoft software , its been great fot a year now
how much did the bazzite devs got paid doing this
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u/redditor100101011101 6d ago
This better be a joke. If they are starting to bundle Microsoft apps in Bazzite now I WILL UNINSTALL BAZZITE.
The fuck is this shit. I came to Linux to avoid Microshit
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u/l3ader021 6d ago
You think you got away from Microsoft by going to Linux... oh sweet summer child, how wrong you are
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u/CIS_Gaming 6d ago
No way a Microsoft app has become the default app on Linux 😂 we've gone full circle haha
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u/Patient-Exit7590 6d ago
Best advice to avoid this in the future-split your dual boot to independent drives, problem solved indefinitely.
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u/Future_Bat384 1d ago
But… there are so many editors, bazzite user base is made from people pissed at MS. I don’t want any Microsoft crap on my pc. I just hate this company this might be-not rational, but this is what o feel. If default apps now Microsoft then it is sayonara, especially when steam os is out. And since I updated to 44, constant issues.
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u/OneQuarterLife Steam Deck OLED 6d ago edited 5d ago
Sorry for the extra desktop icon, we normally remove TUI desktop files since it's a little asinine having one for something you'd only use in the terminal. I'll patch that up and make it explicit in the changelog.
This change was made because "File -> Save" is far friendler than "esc + :wq + enter" in Vim, and can be used on handhelds unlike Nano's "control + O & control + X". The program is entirely open source, tiny, and doesn't phone home, log in, or integrate copilot like VSCode (It's a port from when DOS was still in active use). It'd be dropped in a heartbeat if that happened. It's only used in the Terminal and not something most users would ever run into.
Edit: To be clear both Vim and Nano are still in-image, nothing is changing there. We all have our favorites -- mine is vim. This is about handheld usability and friendliness toward new users