The Living Room PC Dream is Alive, and It's Powered by Linux
The Quest for the Perfect Living Room PC
For years, I’ve been on a quest for the holy grail of gaming: a single, powerful, open platform that I can upgrade at will and use seamlessly from my desk to my couch. I’ve tried everything. Gaming laptops are a mess of fan noise and awkward ergonomics in the living room. Traditional desktops are too big and ugly to sit next to a TV. And Windows, let’s be honest, is an absolute nightmare to navigate with a controller. The dream of the Steam Machine flickered and died years ago, and I was starting to think the simple, plug-and-play experience of a PlayStation 5 was the only answer.
The Unexpected Solution: Framework and Bazzite
But my hope has been rekindled. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been experimenting with a combination that feels like the future I’ve always wanted: the new Framework Desktop and a Linux distribution called Bazzite.
Bazzite: The SteamOS We Should Have Had
If you haven’t heard of it, Bazzite is essentially an open-source, supercharged version of SteamOS. It takes the brilliant, console-like Game Mode from the Steam Deck, bolts on the magic of the Proton compatibility layer for playing Windows games, and wraps it all in a package you can install on almost any PC. And crucially, it still gives you access to a full-featured desktop when you need it.
The Experience: Simple and Powerful
The setup was shockingly simple. In less than an hour, I went from a box of parts to a fully functional living room console. The Framework Desktop itself is a marvel of compact engineering—smaller than a PS5, quiet under load, and it even has a remote wake-up feature that lets me power it on from the couch with my gamepad. It’s the first small form factor PC that doesn’t feel like a series of compromises.
But the hardware is only half the story. Bazzite is the real star of the show. It delivers on the promise that Valve’s original SteamOS never quite managed. The experience is seamless. I boot directly into an interface designed for a controller and a TV. My entire Steam library is there, and thanks to Proton, the vast majority of my games—even those without native Linux support—just work. I’m playing games at 4K and 60fps on my television without the fuss and overhead of Windows.
This setup matches the simplicity of a docked Steam Deck, but it’s an order of magnitude more powerful. It’s the realization of the original Steam Machine vision: the openness and flexibility of a PC, with the ease-of-use of a dedicated console.
Not Perfect, But Promising
Of course, it’s not perfect. Linux gaming still has its quirks. You might occasionally need to tweak a Proton setting or consult a forum to get a particularly stubborn anti-cheat to behave. But the progress made in the last few years is staggering. The community has built what major corporations couldn’t: a viable, enjoyable, and powerful alternative to the Windows monopoly on PC gaming.
The Future is Open
This experience has solidified my belief that the future of enthusiast gaming doesn’t have to be a closed box. It can be open, upgradeable, and tailored to your exact needs. For the first time in a long time, I feel like my dream of a single, unified gaming platform isn’t just a dream—it’s running on a small, quiet box in my living room, powered by the incredible passion of the open-source community.
