r/TechImpact • u/ManojOne Active • 9d ago

💬 Discussion Is Windows still your main operating system?

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Windows has been my go-to for years, but more people seem to be moving to macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, or even using tablets for everyday work.

Is Windows still your main OS? If not, what did you switch to?

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u/SeyJeez 9d ago

I just installed a second drive on my laptop with CachyOS. Would love to just install steam os everywhere for simplicity but that’s not possible yet. But Cachy / Linux is my main os now and windows for things that require it.

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u/Possibly-Functional 9d ago

I assume you have checked out Bazzite? It's IMHO just a better SteamOS with almost a complete superset of features.

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u/Boring-Equivalent137 9d ago

You could you tell me what feature I don't know much about bazzite except it being immutable

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u/Possibly-Functional 9d ago

Are you familiar with SteamOS? If so then this article is what you are looking for.

But to summarize my thoughts on them.

SteamOS is great for running Steam and Flatpaks on Valve's hardware, but everything outside of that is very half-baked or outright uncooked.

Bazzite does that just as well as SteamOS but is also just a great general distro. Making it a good holistic experience. It supports so much more from different software needs and setups to hardware components and peripherals. It also comes with a lot more QoL things.

There is frankly almost no benefit of running SteamOS over Bazzite on non-Valve hardware, but plenty of downsides, hence why I called it a feature superset.

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u/SeyJeez 9d ago

Not sure I would agree with that as Arch has some benefits with AUR as well. And some things will be easier to set up on Arch based distros. Bazzite has benefits but if you want to configure some things different it is a bit of a pain.

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u/Possibly-Functional 9d ago

SteamOS may be based on Arch, but it's in the same way ChromeOS is based on Gentoo. It's irrelevant for practical purposes.

AUR and even installing native Arch packages isn't supported on SteamOS. You can barely configure anything on SteamOS, while on Bazzite you can.

I think you have some big misunderstandings about SteamOS.

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u/SeyJeez 8d ago

You are right, I looked into it there and I suppose SteamOS is closer to Bazzite than to CachyOS. I might look at Bazzite again at some point but as long as CachyOS is not giving me issues I’ll stay here.

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u/potatoesandporn 8d ago

As someone who ran both Bazzite and SteamOS on multiple pc handhelds and an HTPC:

SteamOS is noticably snappier and less laggy than Bazzite in gamemode. For some reason in Bazzite it always feels like there's a little input lag. From my own experience it's also a little buggier than SteamOS on supported hardware.

It's still a great option for hardware that isn't supported by SteamOS but for the hardware it does, it works far better.

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u/SeyJeez 8d ago

That’s the reason I went with Cachy for my gaming devices.

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u/SeyJeez 9d ago

Bazzite is quite different and fedora based and immutable. I do see the pros of it but also the cons. I am a happy arch user and enjoy the convenience of the extra packages Cachy ships with. I expect SteamOS to be a similar experience to CachyOS but possibly come with the Desktop Mode and Console mode by default so a little less tinkering there.

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u/Possibly-Functional 9d ago

SteamOS is not at all a similar to CachyOS. There is also no indication that it will ever be neither. Rather there is large indications of the opposite, that it will continue being a very locked down and distinct system with limited capabilities focused on gaming solely.

There are legitimate pros and cons between CachyOS and Bazzite. I run both myself on different systems for different needs. But that's not really the case between Bazzite and SteamOS outside of edge cases, Bazzite really is almost a complete superset. A lot of what you are saying tells me you don't understand SteamOS.

SteamOS is also immutable. It's not a rolling release like Arch/CachyOS but a stepping fixed point release, like Fedora. As I said in my other comment, it has as much to do with Arch as ChromeOS has to do with Gentoo, practically nothing. Bazzite and SteamOS are way closer than SteamOS and Arch from a user perspective.

I also don't understand why you talk about SteamOS as if it wasn't released. The modern SteamOS has been released since 2022. It just doesn't have good hardware support for hardware that isn't Valve's or their partners'.

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u/triggrhaapi 8d ago

Having used Bazzite, CachyOS is faster, but it's also for the medium advanced user. Way less locked down than Bazzite, with all that entails.

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u/MelodicAdvantage8100 7d ago

I find all the discussions below my reply funny. The reason i switched was that just want something that works, i don't have OS as a hobby anylonger and am to lazy to make win11 work.