Look, I’m a Debian user for 15 years, I’ve worked in F/OSS for a long time, can take care of myself.
But I’m always on a lookout for distros that might be good fit for other people in my non-tech vicinity, like siblings, nieces, nephews… I’m imagining some distro which is easy for gaming but can also be used for normal school, work, etc. related stuff. And yeah, also not too painful to maintain.
(Well, less painful than Windows which honestly is not a high bar nowadays… but don’t listen to me, all tried in past years was to install Minecraft from the MS store… The wound is still healing.)
I have Steam Deck and I like how it works: gaming first, desktop easily accessible. But I only really use it for gaming.
So I learned about Bazzite, but from their description on their main site I’m not very wise:
The next generation of Linux gaming [Powered by Fedora and Universal Blue] Bazzite is a cloud native image built upon Fedora Atomic Desktops that brings the best of Linux gaming to all of your devices - including your favorite handheld.
Filtering out the buzzwords, “cloud native image” stands out to me, but that’s weird, doesn’t it mean that I’ll be running my system on someone else’s computer?
Funnily enough, I scrolled a bit and there’s a news section with a perfectly titled article: “WTF is Cloud Native and what is all this”.
But that just leads to some announcements of someone (apparently important in the community) talking about some superb community milestone and being funny about his dog. To be fair, despite the title, the announcement is not directed towards people like me, it’s more towards the community, who obviously already knows.
Amongst the cruft, the most “relevant” part seems to be this:
This is the simplest definition of cloud native: One common way to linux, based around container technology. Server on any cloud provider, bare metal, a desktop, an HTPC, a handheld, and your gaming rig. It’s all the same thing, Linux.
But wait, all I want to run is a “normal” PC with a Linux distro. I don’t necessarily need it to be a “traditional” distro but what I don’t want is to have it running, or heavily integrated in some proprietary-ish cloud.
So how does this work? Am I missing something?
(Or are my red flags real: that all of this is just to make a lot of promises and get some VC-funding?)
What use is misleading accuracy? Why double down on confusing people?
Part of the stated goal is to push forward cloud native and this model for the Linux desktop. If people want to learn about it there are resources available to do so.
The issue with this kind of buzzword is the multitude of definitions in use. You assume people are familiar with and agree upon yours, thus making it the correct one. But the meaning of words isn’t just dictated by what some people think it means, but by the way many people use them. Thus, Buzzwords used in many contexts primarily to sell something by vague association with something trendy (“cloud”) suffer from a dilution of meaning.
In this case, the OP was confused whether the word means that their system will be running in the cloud rather than their machine at home. So however “correct” your definition may be on paper, it brought no benefit in describing your product.
And that is the heart of the criticism: Don’t rely on snappy buzzwords just because you have one definition for them. Explain that definition too, in case people like the OP don’t know which one you use.
Doubling down on being obtuse does nobody any favours. If people communicate “this term is confusing”, refusing to change it is your right, but spiting good intentions is still immature.
I got to buzzword and then I gave up reading. I’m going to go ahead and continue to double down on it until I don’t see comments like this.
Multiple definitions have been provided, there is an entire cloud native computing foundation of which members of it are part of Universal blue, and it’s an incredibly common thing in any professional paid Linux job. I understand a small subset of users (Most of which are going to be Windows Gamers) might think cloud native means it’s running in the cloud, but the website quite literally links to something that says that’s not the case, and I’m okay suffering a few people not getting it.
Alright, let’s put it in easy words then:
You will continue seeing these comments as long as people with common sense discover Bazzite and don’t immediately turn away at the term.
So your target audience is the small world of professional cloud developers using Linux, and you don’t expect many other Gamers, Windows or otherwise, to even consider Bazzite? In that case, ride on upon your high horse.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will keep trying to actually attract Windows gamers to Linux and cater to Linux gamers that don’t happen to be working in a specific profession. Bazzite clearly isn’t the right choice for normal people then. Sorry for that misunderstanding.
Why people keep expecting lay-users to confidently stride into technical word-soup and come out with a clear understanding is beyond me, but it definitely tracks with your “professionals only” policy.
And by the way, you actually have to find and click three links to arrive at a technical description that talks about developing and building environments. How does that help the average user? It still tells them nothing about the OS they originally were interested in.