Here’s what my new Bazzite desktop looks like, with the girls from Bubblegum Crisis. My friend Lou is visiting Japan and gave me a Dell Optiplex mini computer (Intel Core i5) he rescued from the trash at his work after his company was bought out by a smaller competitor of all things. It had Windows 11 installed on it, and I installed Bazzite Linux which wiped away all that yuckie grodie Windows 11 crap off of it.
The unit is pretty small! I was surprised at how small it is. The Optiplex is pretty small, about four times the size of a Raspberri Pi. Unlike a RasPi though, this is a fully functional computer. It also has better specs than my desktop computer, which has a pretty old GPU from about 10 years ago.
This is once it finished booting from the USB drive. After that, I installed the OS onto the hard drive.
Bazzite is essentially identical to Steam OS, although it’s Fedora-based rather than Arch-based. Bazzite desktop environment choices are either KDE Plasma like what I chose, or the gaytarded GNOME environment, which is basically the Fisher Price version of Linux. KDE resembles what GNOME used to look like before it looked like a lame tech demo.
First of all, I have to say that I’ve had problems with Steam ever since I upgraded to Mint 22. I think it was my fault, because I followed bad advice from somebody on the Steam forum about copying over Steam data files rather than just installing them fresh after a clean upgrade. Ever since I did that, some games won’t recognize the controller and Steam Input stopped working. Not only that, but downloading stuff can take a long time for some reason. I really should wipe that HD clean and do a clean install soon. Anyway, I installed a whole lot of games in short time and tested several of them out.
Revolgear Zero is a brand new shmup by Bikkuri Software, the same makers as Graze Counter. Their shmups have a PC Engine kind of feel to them. This is the most recent game I’ve bought on Steam.
This is Space Invaders Extreme. This is one of the games that stopped working with my gamepad on my desktop.
This is Salamander 3 on Gradius Origins. I bought this game in December, but the controller wouldn’t work. Here it works just fine!
Natsuki Chronicles is a shmup that reminds me of the Thunder Force series. It runs a bit slow on my desktop, but it is smooth on this Optiplex!
Beautiful Mystic Survivors is one of those twin stick action/Roguelike/arena shooters featuring what I call “moon boobs.” (I mean like jiggle physics if the girls are on the moon. It’s not too overdone here like it is on some smartphone games.) This game is kind of like Gauntlet meets Smash TV where your attacks are automatic and timed. You choose one of several large-breasted anime beauties on a quest and you get swarmed with ever-increasing hoards of enemies. It eventually starts to choke, but this runs smoother on this new computer than my desktop.
Shantae Advanced: Risky Revolution was an abandoned Shantae game for the GBA that was recently completed at last. It’s essentially a GBA game, but with some enhanced character graphics during cutscenes such as this picture above. The problem is that it’s completely unplayable on my desktop computer! This Steam version is just a GBA game with some overlay enhancements, so what the heck was WayForward doing when they screwed this up? How is a GBA game more taxing on a system’s resources than the previous game, Shantae and the Seven Sirens? Shantae: Half-Genie Hero was the most taxing game in the series, but I could still play it on my desktop. I found the GBA ROM for Shantae Advanced and downloaded it to play on RetroPie. I paid for the game, so I felt justified in doing so. Fortunately, the game runs smoothly on this new computer!
I tried out one of Ulan’s games, Pools. She says it runs rather slowly on the desktop, but here it runs pretty smoothly without having to sacrifice the visuals. Eventually I will install Alien: Isolation and see how it runs on this Optiplex.
I use a Logitech F310 controller. These controllers are alright, but I’m on my third one now. I threw my previous one out last year because the Y button was getting stuck or something. The one before that had something similar go wrong with it. Last night I accidentally pressed the Logitech button in the center of the controller and it brought me into a sort of Steam console mode. It’s called “Big Picture Mode”, which is basically like a fullscreen console OS. I guess Bazzite gives an option for the computer to boot up in this way or to boot to the desktop. Interesting.
I wasn’t able to install Mozc to use with Fcitx5 for Japanese IME keyboard input. Bazzite is a bit different. Since this Fedora and not Debian/Ubuntu based, the “sudo apt install” command doesn’t work, so I’ll have to figure out the different syntax. Apparently you type “rpm-ostree install” instead. I remember using the “yum” command in Fedora 20 years ago. Also, the software manager is called “Bazaar” and it took me a while to realize that this was the software library. I’ll have to get used to such differences.
Wow, I didn’t realise the Optiplex was that small. Rads.
My computer’s pretty old-tech also, but that suits me just fine, since I don’t need to keep up with the Joneses and try to run this week’s Call of Duty game on three monitors at whatever the current “approved” frame rate is — It’s creeping past 120, I know that, but I’m not sure the wank brigade has settled on a new value yet. The only game I’ve played that gives me any issues is Pax Dei, and even then it runs mostly fine, with the occasional bit of stutter.
Runs Esoteric Ebb just fine, and that’s what I care about right this moment. 😉