If you are looking for an alternative, after I left Bazzite I switched to Garuda. Is also gaming and performance focused and has been a dream for me.

Garuda has been easy and stable for me. It’s gaming and performance focused though, so how well that works for you could depend on your laptop.

On the one hand, I feel your pain, on the other hand… You could have just reinstalled Garuda and chosen a password using characters that exist on a US keyboard to get it all set up before switching your keyboard layout to the one you want and then updating the password.

Sorry the journey has been so rough.

Other than the fact that you are investing way too much time on the opinion of one random person on the Internet…

The easiest thing to point to is that systems are complex. While you are attributing the problem I had to specific programming which may have been changed, the fact is that it could easily be a symptom of a completely different problem. Overlooking common needs? Behind on updates? Accidentally breaking things in the software?

Trying to account for and analyze everything can be a mental trap.

Sometimes you just have to say “ok, that’s a data point” and see if of indicates a trend without getting dragged into the black hole of trying to account for everything and resolve it.

I don’t care if my leaving Bazzite was justified or premature, the important data point is that it doesn’t work for all beginners. Bazzite didn’t feel right to me, it felt awkward and forced in a way Garuda never did.

Pointing out that they may have fixed a problem doesn’t undo the experience I had. Proving they fixed something specific doesn’t undo that problems can and do exist.

I am happy if others love Bazzite, out want great for this beginner.

Clearly.

I think you’re overthinking it.

Whether you like it or not, “I had trouble with that distro but not this other” is always valid info.

Look, I’m not going to study immutable systems for other potential problems just to argue with you. I’m just pointing out that sometimes you can’t predict what will cause a problem for someone and there are other easy to use options out there, so people can make well-informed decisions.

I’m sure Bazzite is great, I liked it well enough while I was using it, but it wasn’t until after I switched to something else that Linux started making sense to me. Bazzite may be harder to break, but for me as a Linux newbie, it wasn’t “better” and it felt weird to use in a way Garuda never did.

Great, maybe they fixed it. Still don’t care because I moved on to a great system a few years ago where that didn’t need to be fixed.

It would be nice if it were that easy, but the login screen settings are in the immutable portion.

I don’t care anymore though, I switched to Garuda and everything works as expected out of the box.

Immutability is a double edged sword. I bricked my drive permissions trying to get Bazzite to let me change my login screen background. Everyone assumes that immutability will prevent these sort of things, but for me, switching to a non immutable distro (Garuda) meant I didn’t have to muck about in the more touchy settings because I didn’t have to fight the restrictions in the OS anymore.