Bazzite's October stable update brings kernel 7.2.8, Ally suspend fixes and first code for the Xbox Ally X20

The 6 October Bazzite release adds hardware-accelerated Waydroid on Nvidia, HDMI CEC on the Steam Machine and better MediaTek Wi-Fi. The project says it is about 2,000 devices short of 100,000 a week.

AI-drafted from 4 sources. This story was written with AI from the outside reporting listed under Sources, and checked by automated tools before it went up. The originals have the full detail.

Bazzite, the Fedora-based Linux build that a lot of Windows handheld owners swap to, put out its first stable update for October on 6 October. The team's announcement counts more than 300 commits since the Deck 44 launch and says the project is "almost 2,000 devices away from 100,000 weekly active devices".

The team does not oversell it. "This isn't a 'big release,' but sometimes that's the point."

Handhelds and the Steam Machine

The kernel moves to 7.2.8, and InputPlumber, which handles controllers on handhelds, gets "improved gyro and rumble support". There is a fix for suspend problems on the ASUS ROG Ally, and HDMI CEC now works on Valve's Steam Machine, so a TV remote or the TV's own power state can talk to it. The announcement also says "some of our initial commits for the ASUS XBOX Ally X20 have landed", though one of them, moving the X20 onto the PowerStation list, was reverted before release. Treat X20 support as started, not finished.

The changelog also adds an akmod for Ayaneo's LEDs, Mesa 26.2.4 and newer Gamescope. A point release followed the same evening with another kernel build and backed out an earlier change that ignored a duplicate power button on ROG Ally devices.

Desktops too

Nvidia users get hardware-accelerated Waydroid, the Android container. MediaTek MT7921 and MT7922 Wi-Fi cards should be more reliable, a Bluetooth start-up failure on some hardware is fixed, and so is a bug that stopped certain keyboards typing. New KDE installs that sometimes failed to load the desktop should now load it, convertibles such as the Framework 12 get a touchscreen navigation bar on the GNOME images, and Firefox can talk to KeePass and similar password manager extensions without workarounds.

Next on the list, according to the team, is Fedora 45 and newer kernels. Existing installs pick the update up through the normal update tool; GamingOnLinux calls Bazzite its preferred Linux for handhelds.

Sources

• Bazzite Keeps Moving: 312 Commits Later, and Nearly 100K Weekly Active Devices (Universal Blue forum)
• Bazzite 44.20261006: Stable (GitHub)
• Bazzite 44.20261006.1: Stable (GitHub)
• Bazzite Linux has a fresh stable update for October (GamingOnLinux)

Image: GamingOnLinux