Experience with Bazzite on MSI Claw 7 AI + setup guide (8 AI should work same)
I've had my Claw 7 AI for about 6 months now and I'm super happy with the performance, but every now and then I get annoyed at how suspend isn't a good solution and hibernate takes just a few seconds longer than I'd like to get back into the game. So many comments have said how not ready Intel drivers are on Linux and that you need an AMD handheld, but enough time has past that I decided it was time for me to find out on my own whether or not it was ready yet. I've been using Bazzite on my Claw for about a week now and have been super happy with it, the performance is on par to Windows with all the games I have tried so far, so I wanted to make a post to encourage others who are curious or have the same issues I do to give it a shot.
Steps:
- Windows side prep:
- Update all your Claw firmware and BIOS using Center M.
- Optional: Plug in a USB mouse and keyboard to make the rest of the process a little easier
- (Optional if you want to keep Windows and dual boot): Shrink your Windows partition using the Disk Management utility in Windows so you have room for your Bazzite install. You will probably want at least 300-400GB, more if you've upgraded your SSD. You will NOT be able to share drive data from Bazzite to Windows, but you CAN copy data from your Windows to Bazzite (it is NOT recommended to run games off Windows Partitions in Bazzite)
- Go to the bazzite website and download the .iso for MSI Claw (beta)
- Download Rufus to install the iso to your USB drive. Plug the drive into your claw (may require USB C dock)
- BIOS settings
- Shut down your Claw and hold RB + RT while turning it on to boot into the BIOS.
- (Optional for consistency) Reset your BIOS to defaults. This will make sure everything can run full power on Bazzite, I had issues going past 18w and my GPU was getting underclocked to 1000MHz until I did this.
- Turn off Secure Boot (second menu from the right)
- Change your boot order to load the USB drive first.
- Save and Restart
- Install Bazzite
- If everything went well, you should be able to follow the on screen instructions to install Bazzite. Just install it to the unallocated SSD space you created in Step 1.
- Once the install is complete, remove the USB drive and restart the Claw. If everything went right, you're booting into Bazzite! If you boot into Windows, go to the BIOS and change the boot order (you should have a new entry in the boot loader called Fedora)
- Post setup
- At this point, you've done everything you need to and you can log into WiFi, sign into Steam, install a game and jump straight in! All the hardware like WiFi just works (even after sleep which was not the case with the previous gen Claw) and all the drivers are installed. But here's some random tips to get the most out of your experience (will update this with suggestions from the comments)
- I've kind of forgotten everything I've done to get things the way I like, but the big things are, the Center M button opens the Steam overlay and the Guide button (under the 三 button) now opens the notification panel on Steam Game Mode. This is where you're going to set your TDP, frame limits etc and turn on the performance monitor to get game performance to where you want it.
- I didn't like using Handheld Daemon (accessible from Desktop mode) to set things up aside from turning off the LED lights. I stuck to using the Performance section and Decky in the Notifications panel.
- If you want to install non Steam games, you can boot into Desktop mode using the Power options in the Steam menu and follow a guide to install Epic or whatever other launcher you want. I haven't done this yet.
- If you have performance or compatibility issues, try forcing the game to use Proton 11 (beta) in the Game Options. It's a brand new Proton version which is supposed to have better performance and compatibility.
Hope this helps! Bazzite is super intuitive and easy to use, but CachyOS is another alternative I have tried which requires you to be a little more technically savvy to set up. It's supposed to give better performance. I haven't tried a ton of games but the ones I have tried run with similar performance to my Windows install. Enjoy perfectly functioning sleep mode, an interface designed for handhelds and no obnoxious Windows bloat.