Bazzite Linux F41, a Linux gaming distribution derived from Fedora Atomic Desktops, has been launched in tandem with Fedora 41. The system includes a new kernel, kernel-bazzite, which offers enhanced handheld support, backend improvements, and GNOME 47 featuring accent colors and improved touch support.

Bazzite F41 Update: New Kernel, MSI Claw Improvements, VRR Fixes, Better Changelogs, GNOME 47 & More

Bazzite based on Fedora 41 releases today alongside Fedora 41, bringing additional handheld support, a lot of backend improvements from our side, and goodies from upstream.

In this release, we debut our new kernel,  kernel-bazzite , built directly on top of Fedora’s  kernel-ark  and 6.11 with a bunch of new handheld patches for Ayaneo, OneXPlayer, Ayn, basic controller support for the MSI Claw, new automatically  generated changelogs  to keep you in the know, Gamescope goodies for all devices, and  GNOME 47  with accent colors and greater touch support.

Enhanced Handheld Support

In this release, we add speaker patches for Ayaneo Geek, Geek 1S, 1S, 2, 2S, Kun, Flip KB, Flip DS, and Ayn Loki MiniPro and display quirks for Ayaneo Flip DS, Neo 2S, GEEK, Founder edition, 2, by porting over the patches from ChimeraOS to our kernel (thanks guys). For the ones using the Awinic amplifier, unfortunately for now it’s Bring Your Own Firmware (see  here ) (all except Geek, Geek 1S, 2, 2S). Bear in mind, these devices may have other issues, but audio and screen orientation during boot are no longer a problem.

For the ROG Ally, we adopt Texas Instrument’s new  amplifier patch  from Baojun Xu that selects the correct firmware for the Ally speakers, offering superior performance for users that used the incorrect firmware previously.

Then, we expand the oxp-sensors driver with support for charge limiting and charge bypass for the OneXPlayer X1, X1 Mini (Handheld Daemon support and sending upstream pending; KDE charge limit works) and to allow control of its Turbo LED. We hope to expand that control to other OneXPlayer devices, so jump on our discord.

And finally, we add support for the controller of the MSI Claw to Handheld Daemon, where the front OEM buttons and the controller will work properly in Steam Gaming Mode now. Unfortunately, no TDP controls, back buttons, or Gyro yet. Sleep has issues too. We heard these can be found for cheap now though, so it might be worth it to you.

Gamescope / Steam Gaming Mode Changes

As promised, this release brings some optimizations to Gamescope. Namely, the framerate slider of the Ally will now work down to 12 Hz while VRR is enabled, where down to 48 Hz VRR will be used and below VRR will be automatically disabled. This affects low framerate compensation, so please use 120hz on heavy games that cannot reach 60hz.

Then, we disable VRR and limit the FPS on the Steam menu, which halves battery use while on SteamUI on the Ally, Legion Go, and any display that is 120 Hz or more, from 30-40W to 15-20W. Disabling VRR should also eliminate the perceived flashing certain sensitive users of VRR displays have, after Steam stops releasing frames due to inactivity.

GNOME 47

This release brings GNOME 47, which features accent colors (top 1 requested feature!). It also includes some nice small screen improvements for handheld devices, so perhaps it is time to take it for a spin on your favorite handheld. For KDE folks, Plasma 6.2.2 has already been available. You’re probably running it right now!

Better Changelogs

Automatic changelogs are finally here, allowing you to see exactly what changes between Bazzite versions, per package. You might not be aware, but there are 1-3 Bazzite stable updates per week (and around 5-20 testing builds). This has been obscure up to now. But not anymore!

Utilizing metadata left by our  rechunk tool that brought you 2.5X smaller updates, we can now generate detailed and automated changelogs for each Bazzite build, that will reside in  Github releases , which is also available as an  RSS feed .

So you can now be aware of Bazzite updates 24/7.

New Kernel

One of our sticking points with our previous kernel setup was our slow iteration time (3-14 days) and lack of experimentation. When our second article on Ally X support comes out, you will hear more about it for sure.

A lot of you have asked for kernel patches for your devices and we have had to keep you waiting. Even worse, a bug in AutoUMA management introduced in kernel 6.10 caused crashes in handheld devices, which meant we had to skip it.

For Fedora 41, we knew we had to be based on kernel 6.11, and as part of that we did some spring cleaning, and moved the kernel from COPR to a new fancy setup on Github,  kernel-bazzite .

In this new kernel, we use a two-stage repository setup, mirroring Fedora’s. We begin on a  Linux kernel tree, placing our patches on top of Fedora’s  kernel-ark . When the patches are ready, we git format-patch them and place them on a  dist-git repository , which is forked from Fedora’s kernel  rpm repository.

The benefits from this are clear: we can rebase to new kernel versions in 3-5 minutes, with the confidence that our patches will merge cleanly and compile. We can cherry-pick commits from  lore.kernel.org, the kernel’s  git repositories, and collaborate with other source based kernel distributions, such as  ChimeraOS and  CachyOS. Then, our kernel builds take only 2 hours, instead of 5-8, and we have a full backlog of  kernel versions  in case an issue is found. As part of this repo, we also publish Pacman packages. _{( btw )}

And the benefits for you are clear as well: thanks to this kernel, we managed to fix the  AutoUMA bug  (still present on 6.11 and a total blocker), include the aforementioned speaker patches, and sneak in some Bluetooth patches for the new MinisForum AtomMan from 6.12. All in the last 2 weeks.

Bazzite F41 Update: New Kernel, MSI Claw Improvements, VRR Fixes, Better Changelogs, GNOME 47 & More