The Bazzite team has announced the release of Bazzite 45, the latest version of its Fedora-based, gaming-focused Linux distro for desktop PCs, handheld gaming devices, and home theater systems, built around an atomic update model.
The new release moves the distribution to Fedora 45, introducing GNOME 51.1 and KDE Plasma 6.8.2. Under the hood, Bazzite 45 ships with Linux kernel 7.2.15, while NVIDIA LTS images use kernel 6.18.60. The graphics stack has also been updated to Mesa 26.2.6, and ROCm OpenCL now replaces Mesa OpenCL across non-NVIDIA images.
One of the most notable additions is a new anti-cheat compatibility checker, introduced ahead of Epic Games’ upcoming Easy Anti-Cheat Linux v2 implementation, which is expected to enable support for Fortnite and other games on Linux.
The new ujust check-anticheat command checks whether a system meets the announced security requirements, including signed kernels and modules, Secure Boot, TPM 2.0, measured boot, IOMMU, kernel lockdown, and BPF LSM. It provides pass/fail results and suggestions for addressing detected issues without automatically modifying system settings.
However, the developers advise handheld users against enabling kernel lockdown for now. Steam Deck owners are also explicitly warned not to enable Secure Boot until compatibility issues are resolved.
Apart from that, Bazzite 45 introduces optional gaming network optimizations through the bpftune and bpfrag services. The distribution also updates InputPlumber, its handheld input management component, and expands support for gaming hardware.
More specifically, initial compatibility has been added for the Acer Predator Atlas 8, including Quick Access Menu functionality and mappings for its M1 and M2 rear buttons. Support for the ROG Ally X20 has also reached the stable channel, although a fix for a custom TDP issue is still being tested.
Additional gaming hardware improvements include expanded out-of-the-box support for Logitech TrueForce racing wheels. Moreover, the extest library, used for Steam Input compatibility under Wayland, now supports the 64-bit Steam Beta client.
On the desktop side, KDE images no longer include XWaylandVideoBridge, addressing several related issues. Btrfs maintenance operations are now accessible directly through the Btrfs Assistant graphical interface, while the CoolerControl installation helper has switched to using the project’s official Docker container instead of installing layered packages.
Another improvement concerns system updates. Bazzite now uses ZSTD compression for image chunks, the Chunkah tool, and expanded rechunking optimizations. According to the developers, these changes can reduce incremental system updates to as little as 100 MB, depending on differences between images.
For additional details, see the announcement.
