After installing: PS5 Bazzite Deck

The PS5-specific steps (first boot, built-in commands, updates, troubleshooting) are on PS5 Bazzite Deck. For everything that is plain Bazzite, use Bazzite's documentation.

Updating

A full release updates an installed console from any earlier version in one command; each release's notes have it. Use the release marked Latest; releases marked Pre-release are test builds.

Built-in commands

Command	What it does
ps5-report	Collects your hardware details and the relevant logs into one file for a bug report. It only reads.
ps5-perf	CPU boost and the fan target (the console's firmware control, 80 °C by default). ps5-perf status shows the fan mode and speed, see Fan control.
ps5-warm-reboot	Restarts straight back into Linux, without the PS5 OS and the loader. Experimental, on/off.
ps5-bt-address	One DualSense for the PS5 and Linux, on by default. status, on, off.

Sleep (suspend-to-idle) is built in: a short press of the power button or Steam's Sleep puts the console to sleep and wakes it again. The GPU stays powered, so the saving is modest; it is not the PS5 OS's rest mode, and a DualSense can't wake the console.

Boot options (cmdline.txt)

All options, PS5 Bazzite Deck's default line and how to edit it are on Boot options. The ones you're most likely to need: amdgpu.force_1080p=1 for a picture you can't get past, usb-storage.quirks=… for a USB drive that disconnects, usbc_dp.enable=1 for a USB-C display. To turn off VRR, use Steam's setting (Settings → Display). To stop the TV from turning on with the console, turn off HDMI-CEC in the TV's settings.

40 GPU compute units

The image supports the 40 CU unlock on the original PS5 and the Slim. The setting is kept across updates. Don't use it on a PS5 Pro.

Optional Decky plugins

These are community-made and not part of the image. They need Decky Loader: install it from Desktop Mode with the installer on its website. Decky plugins appear in Game Mode's quick access menu (the ... button).

Plugin	What it does
PS5 hardware control	Fan target or curve, live temperatures, CPU and GPU governors and clocks, LED presets. It sets the same things as ps5-perf: whichever was set last applies. Use a current image release: one pre-release had the fan modes swapped, and in some releases the fan target fell back to 50 °C after sleep (both fixed). There is also a desktop version, ps5-hwcon-gui.

Troubleshooting

Ask in #bazzite-problems on Discord and attach the report from ps5-report. Without a network connection, copy the report to the USB drive's FAT32 partition and take it from there on your PC:

E=$(for d in /boot/efi /efi; do sudo test -f $d/cmdline.txt && echo $d && break; done); sudo cp ~/ps5-report-*.txt $E/

• The console runs but there's no picture (wrong mode, or a mode the TV doesn't accept): see Display recovery.
• White light but black screen: check that HDMI Device Link is off, try another HDMI port or TV, toggle HDCP in the PS5 settings. As a last resort, add amdgpu.force_1080p=1 to cmdline.txt.
• Black screen, but the PS5 is running: press Ctrl+Alt+F2, wait 2–3 seconds, then Ctrl+Alt+F1. Over SSH: sudo chvt 2; sleep 3; sudo chvt 1.
• It boots back into the PS5 menu: you pressed the power button before the orange light stopped blinking, USB power in rest mode isn't set to Always, or the console's rest mode was blocked, see Known issues.
• Artefacts, green dots or crashes: turn the 40 CU unlock off again. For glitches in a single game, use the launch option RADV_DEBUG=nohiz %command%.
• VRR: no "Enable VRR" option means a VERDE console, a display without HDMI VRR (FreeSync-only monitors), VRR turned off for that input on the TV, or an old image release with a TV that announces no VRR maximum (update). If the screen goes dark for 2 seconds in menus, use VRR per game instead (quick access menu → Performance). OLED flicker on the desktop: set Adaptive Sync to Automatic, not Always.
• Bluetooth settings find no new devices (IW620 consoles): a bug in some earlier releases; a DualSense that was already paired kept working. Update to the current release. If a controller is refused in a loop instead, see Bluetooth.
• HEVC video with broken colours or a red screen (recording, streaming with Sunshine or Moonlight): the PS5's video engine gets HEVC P-frames wrong. Use H.264, or encode HEVC with I-frames only (see VCN). As a Moonlight client: use H.264, or "Force software decoding" for HEVC.
• Won't boot from an SSD in a USB enclosure: some enclosures don't work with the loader. Try another one.
• PS5 Pro reports 36 compute units: the Pro's GPU firmware isn't in use yet. After every update, start Linux twice: the first start adds the firmware to the initrd, the second runs on it. If it stays at 36, the loader didn't dump the firmware, see PS5 Pro.

How it works

Bazzite's Game Mode never worked on the PS5 before, and it wasn't the display or Gamescope. Bazzite starts Steam through the cardwired service, which loads an eBPF program and needs two kernel features that the PS5 kernel configs don't enable: the BPF LSM (bpf must be in CONFIG_LSM) and kernel BTF (CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_BTF). Without them, cardwired crash-loops and Bazzite drops you to the desktop after five attempts. See Kernel setup for details.

The image is built on the ps5-linux-image builder with a recent stable kernel, rmuxnet's PS5 patch set and its own HDMI, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth fixes. The config changes, the patch order and what each patch does are on How the PS5 Bazzite Deck image is built. Each release ships a VERSIONS.md with the exact versions used. To build it yourself (Linux or WSL with Docker and about 60 GB free; it takes a couple of hours):

git clone https://github.com/VivaLaVent/ps5-bazzite-deck && cd ps5-bazzite-deck
bash build.sh

The output folder is printed at the end of the build.

What applies from Bazzite's documentation

Topic	Applies?
Gaming: launchers, launch options, common gaming issues	Yes
Steam Gaming Mode quirks	Yes
Installing software: Bazaar (Flatpak), Homebrew, Distrobox, AppImage	Yes
ujust commands	Mostly; skip the ones about updates and the bootloader
Updates, rollbacks and rebasing, rpm-ostree, Bazzite Updater	No. PS5 Bazzite Deck isn't an ostree install ("This system was not booted via libostree"). Update with its own command, see PS5 Bazzite Deck
Installation guides	No. Install from the PS5 Bazzite Deck image

PS5 Bazzite Deck is a community project, not made or supported by the Bazzite project. Ask PS5 questions on Discord, not in Bazzite's channels.

Next steps

• DualSense: one controller for the PS5 system and Linux
• Hardware status: what works on your console
• Troubleshooting & help