February 10, 2026
Open-source soap opera
Bazzite Post-Mortem
Holiday meltdown, finger-pointing, and gamers asking if 'post-mortem' is clickbait
TLDR: Bazzite’s “Post-Mortem” aired internal drama and rivalries while the Linux gaming project stays alive and growing. Commenters split between popcorn and panic—some call the title misleading, others cite crashes and trust issues—leaving would‑be Windows switchers unsure what to do next.
Bazzite’s holiday “Post-Mortem” landed like a controller thrown across the room, with a long, emotional recap of this Linux gaming project’s rise—from a tiny 2023 side hustle to a claimed 60,000 weekly users—and a messy swirl of rivalries and internal rifts. The post alleges behind-the-scenes beef with other open‑source devs and hints at team fractures, but what really lit up the crowd was the vibe. One top‑liked quip crowned it “Drama Tuesday.” Another just sighed: “God damn it Kyle.” Popcorn.gif energy activated.
While the dev drama played out, the comment section turned into a split-screen. Some called the title “Post-Mortem” misleading because the project isn’t dead—one user said it “feels like it’s done in bad faith.” Others shared scar tissue: one tester bailed after Bazaar (the built‑in app installer) crashed on a clean install, saying they couldn’t trust the OS. And a would‑be Windows escapee? Now hesitating to switch at all. The community clash is clear: is this radical transparency or just airing dirty laundry? Is the project’s growth proof it’s working, or a smokescreen for stability and leadership problems? Either way, the crowd showed up with jokes, side‑eyes, and hot takes—true gamers, as one commenter put it, watching an open‑source soap opera unfold in real time.
Key Points
- •Bazzite began in 2023 as a SteamOS-like distro based on OSTree and Fedora, started by Kyle Gospodnetich.
- •Handheld Daemon was created in late 2023 to enable Linux support on the Legion Go and was integrated into Bazzite, catalyzing rapid device support expansion through 2024.
- •By late 2024, Bazzite supported devices including ROG Ally/ROG Ally X, GPD, Ayaneo, AYN, and OneXPlayer, and grew to about 60,000 weekly active users from ~500 a year earlier.
- •The article describes tensions with Derek J. Clark, who started Inputplumber in March 2024; the author alleges community conflicts but chose to focus on integrating Handheld Daemon with Bazzite and a gamescope fork.
- •Operational improvements included removing Asus and Surface images, preparing the kernel for secure boot, locking NVIDIA driver versions, and raising build success from ~70% to over 95%, alongside launching an OpenCollective for funding.