So a good place to start for anything is the arch wiki. It is very extensive and often helpful for people on any distro.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/

What keyboard do you have?

Edit: Also, just checking you’ve switched on your keyboard? Like your mouse, a wireless keyboard will have a small on/off switch somewhere.

This is likely not going to be a welcome comment on Lemmy, but here goes anyway: I would not have been able to stick with Linux without AI and I would recommend you use that.

It’s really difficult going through tech support steps with people online (all commenters are looking for more information and would have to guide you through multiple steps). AI has the patience to put up with absolute beginner questions.

Now it’s important to know how to use AI and not think it knows correct answers to your short questions. Claude had worked best in my experience. Primarily you should use it in this way: feed it a detailed description of your problem. Give it all the context of what hardware and software you have and exactly what you’re trying to do and what’s not working. Then it will give you an answer with some idea of where the problem might be. Then you should go and do an internet search of that identified problem to find a solution (not just take in the solutions AI gives you, although you could try initial simple solutions, but you may break things if you just go pasting commands into console without understanding). This is what AI is most useful for, pointing you in the direction of the cause problems… Not being a know all oracle. Paste in a detailed log output and it will interpret and tell you where the problem is, then you must go looking for solutions from a reputable source.

There’s a lot that sucks about AI, but I wouldn’t have been able to adopt Linux or set up my self hosted services on my home server without it; and I’m grateful for that.

Long shot to try when all the other suggestions failed. If you’re dual booting, you may need to disable hibernation on the windows side so that when it shuts down it actually shuts down and releases hardware attachments. Ive have network, Bluetooth, and USB issues when windows wasn’t configured correctly to work in a dual booting setup.

Does the keyboard need to be put into pair mode first? If so, how are you then trying to connect it or pair it with your machine?

Just FYI while I am here: https://docs.bazzite.gg/ is worth bookmarking.

For keyboard, if you’re still having trouble, you can try connecting from the terminal with the command bluetoothctl . Terminal commands often tell you more details than GUIs about why things failed.

Regarding distributions, you are on Bazzite, which is an immutable distribution, meaning the root file system is read-only. That makes it a bit different from “normal” distribution. The upshot is that most things should just work and the system is harder to break. The downside is that you sometimes have to jump through more hoops and do things differently from “normal” distributions when you want to do some deeper level tinkering.

If you search for “How to do X in Bazzite” you might get fewer results because Bazzite is relatively new and niche (though growing quickly).
If you search for “How to do X on Linux” you might find that the steps don’t work because you’re root filesystem is read-only.
So sometimes you need to search for “How to do X on Silverblue” , because Bazzite is (sort of) based on Fedora Silverblue, which is the immutable version of Fedora distribution.

If you want to install some software that you can’t find in the app store (Flathub) or as AppImage, your next step is to look up the command rpm-ostree. It layers new software on top of your read-only root system. Changes from rpm-ostre take effect on the next reboot

My BT keyboard never seems to connect unless I press a few buttons while the initial connection is being attempted, after you have entered the 6 digit code and pressed enter.

To the point of a very new person to linux asking about the lingo and the basics of using linux, the Debian Administrators Handbook has an excellent “remedial” section in its appendix. It covers a lot of the basics of working with your first linux computer. I have run various distros over the years but when i finally pulled the trigger on migrating to debian from ubuntu, i did take the time to read the remedial section and the first 8 or so chapters to have a more in-depth understanding of the logic and design choices but i found the remedial section to be a particularly good refresher and explanation of the basics that everyone takes for granted.

https://debian-handbook.info/

There is a suggested donation but the author is kind enough to not enforce a paywall.

You dont need to yse the terminal/command line for this. Just open the settings app and look for the Bluetooth section. Pairing your keyboard is pretty much the same process as on a phone ir tablet.

Btw, Bazzite has different versions. Which did you install?

Can you let us know what happens when you connect the keyboard? Also potentially the model of the keyboard.

Bazzite is pretty plug and play.

It will auto-update itself. So you don’t need to worry.

Install your apps from Bazaar.

I don’t think bazzite ships with Heroku, but I like it much better than Lutris for handling non-Steam games. I think you can download it from Bazaar. There are guides for how to get some apps running from it. So I’d search for those if you need to.

Your Windows games run on Linux due to a thing called Proton. It used to be a thing called Wine. Steam automagically does this for you in the background.

If you encounter issues with games in Steam, go to ProtonDB.com, search the game, and see if anyone else has run into it and provided a solution in the comments. They typically have.

One common solution is needing to change the version of Proton you’re using. You can right click on a game, go to Manage (I think that’s what it’s called), and select the Compatibility tab. Check the box and select a specific version of Proton. It might have to run some updates when you do that.

Don’t be afraid to Google whenever you encounter a program. Just type the error message in, the name of the game with problems, and you’ll probably be able to find someone else with the same problem and potential solution.

A lot of guides can get overly technical but keyboards usually have a pretty standardised BT connection and all keyboards I’ve used have worked. Did you look up the manual and see if you need to put it into pairing mode/make it discoverable/reset it to connect to another device?

If yes, you should provide the keyboard model so people here can help you with it.

Congrats on switching to Linux! There’s a lot to learn, but this also means you get control. Furthermore, what you learn is very likely to be useful for a very long time. If you still feel intimidated by the Unix command line I strongly recommend addressing that asap. It’s where the magic happens when things go wrong. It can become a super power as well in terms of automating tasks and customization. Look for guides in the format you prefer and most importantly play around with what you learn.

As for your immediate need with the Bluetooth keyboard… OK for real I’m writing this right now from a living room TV Linux (Mint) PC and I’ve ditched my previous Bluetooth keyboard for a keyboard with a 2.4ghz USB dongle. I’ve had sporadic issues with Bluetooth on Windows in the past, I’ve had less (but not none) on Linux, and I just feel keyboard/mouse are devices that are too critical to pass through Bluetooth. Wireless USB is just so much more stable. Furthermore if/when you’ll want to log into you UEFI/BIOS it’ll be really awkward because such a basic environment has no Bluetooth. I understand this may be of little help if you’ve got a keyboard you love.

Something I haven’t seen anyone else here (that probably won’t matter if you’re just doing basic gaming) is that bazzite is what is called an atomic distro - meaning that key system files are immutable (they can’t be altered) and certain directories are also read only.

It means that installing packages with a package manager can be a little bit trickier. Setting up a dev environment can be tricky. And certain other things can be more difficult.

There’s a huge chance this won’t matter at all to you, but in the event you run into issues like “this directory is read only” or something along those lines, that’ll be why.

Again, may never matter but something to keep in mind.

I have a knockoff Bluetooth Switch pro controller that only works on Linux when I connect through the terminal, and only when I put it in a different connection mode. But it’s an edge case.

The best way for me when i was learning the basics was to have a separate device to experiment and test things on, and not worry about having to wipe and lose anything, and any time I got something working right I would make the changes to my “main”. But that’s was a while ago and things improved since then, and also everyone learns different.

So I would recommend trying to follow any linux communities on lemmy or reddit to absorb new info (a lot might be wrong or outdated), maybe follow some youtubers ( a few popular tech ones are making the shift to linux and learning from scratch too), and honestly even just memes will help. Just keep in mind that a lot of people state outdated opinions as facts, or repeat wrong info they heard from someone else.

For more accurate but less hand-holding info, start trying to find good actual forums for Linux, like a disto’s (spin or flavor of linux) forum or “discourse”. As long as you read or search for things before posting, people will generally be nice and willing to help out. Just try to provide any info you can when you post, and don’t have any attitude.

Advanced and more technical info can be found on an apps or distros website or github.

If you have specific questions about the Bluetooth keyboard, let me know in the reply and I’ll try to help!

P.S ignore all distro recommendations till you get more experience, in the beginning the biggest hurdles will be switching from windows to Linux, difference between distros do matter but are much smaller than people sometimes make them out to be. You should stick with one, preferably whatever a buddy or favorite YouTube is using, and save distro hopping till later.