Steam Linux Usage Still On The Decline

[timothyja]

Lol, why linux users just cant admit, that their os will never be equal to windows in terms of user expeirence, performance and gaming ? Why you always have to blame other stuff, like hardware ? And linux is open source, you know, so why dont you go and develop drivers yourself ? Why do even need linux to be open source, if you cant do shit with it ?

Because thats not true at all the Linux desktop has come a very long way, its now just lacking a little spit and polish. Its only a matter of time before it reaches the point of no return, adoption will be exponential. Microsofts dirty tricks (such as the 2008 deals with OEMs to replace Linux Netbooks with Windows ones, to this day I can still not buy a Linux machine from an OEM in Australia) can only hold Linux back for so long before the flood gates open, it may still be years away but its inevitable that Microsofts time at No 1 will come to an end. If you dont believe me I really couldnt give a shit, just fuck off and troll somewhere else why are you even here if your not a Linux user.

[necro-lover]

Edit: Oh, and thanks for admitting i'm right. You'd be surprised how often people fail to understand my genius.

the real point is: to be "Right" isn't any worth in this case..

So you are happy to be worthless "Right" .....

Other people read the same and think differently like this:

smitty3268 is "Right" means a lot of bugs and bug-reports but its a good business model because people are willing to pay for "Support" and also they buy more and more games they want to play even its not "Nativ"

You get the point? to be "Right" in this case is a bad business model.

Its better to be "wrong" but earn a lot of money from the mistake.

Thanks god you are not a business-manager@ valve

[gamerk2]

That is the funniest line ever.
Linux is the "toy" that runs on 99% of supercomputer and critical system infrastructure, instead of windows, that runs on 99% of useless pc home for play videogames between an youtube video and another one.
Is linux capable of wonderful performance on pc home for games? Yes.
The proof is that with certain hardware you can outperform windows. This proof that there is nothing wrong in linux di-per-se, it's a drivers problem (and the drivers are *not* a windows merit).
Is windows capable of wonderful performance on supercomputer? No.
End of discussion.

Performance isn't the most important statistic; there's this wonderful thing called stability. sure, you pick the right software with the right hardware with the right kernel, you might find a configuration that works well enough. But if you randomly assembled a PC without knowing ahead of time what works and what doesn't? Its a crapshoot.

As a dev, I've more or less given up on Linux. Putting aside the fact the GPL/LGPL is too restrictive, OSX is simply a much more attractive target for me. Until you solve that problem, Linux will forever be a toy.

[gamerk2]

I was hoping Steam would make Torchlight available for Linux, but so far it does not seem to be there. Also I accidentally purchased Torchlight 2 because I thought it would work with Linux, but I was wrong. So I wonder how many Linux users have done that.

Valve can only port its stuff over, which its largely done. No other devs are bothering.

Hence why I said from the beginning this was just a gimmick that valve will forget about in a year or two, after they make a few million of people re-purchasing games they already brought.

[gamerk2]

Yes he is at fault. Did he check before installing which hardware he had? Do you blindly purchase xbox peripherals for your playstation? Do you buy windows programs for your MacOS? Do you think any generic cheap windows machine can run all software ever written?

If it works on Windows, it should work on Linux. Period.

And BTW, its not like you have a giant list on Linux.com the states:

"ATI GPU audio out doesn't work"
"Optimus doesn't work"
"Non-Creative branded soundcards don't work"
"Almost all ethernet cards don't work"

And so on. If NVIDIA releases the GTX 880 today, it should work, period, not require years of support to get working.

If the user has incompatible hardware, don't lie to them. Its best to not bother unless you are ready to reverse engineer and code (hack) your way in; or replace any offending devices with things known to work.

Rather then, I don't know, making the hardware work? Nah, instead its: "Use our free OS, then spend $700 on hardware to run it, that would be considered a major downgrade over what you already have, as we can't be bothered supporting that."

Great marketing pitch you got going there.

[qiuote]This is impossible, because there are devs (like you) who don't care about other OSes. The same happens with hardware manufacturers, not only they refuse to make proper drivers, they also won't document anything so others could write them. This is not the OS fault, I can make a piece of proprietary hardware with linux only drivers that would never work with windows or macos. How is Microsoft and Apple at fault? There is far less macosx certified hardware so buyers check if their OS is supported before purchase, which is what some people fail to do with linux.[/quote]

Question: Why does hardware work on Windows and OSX, but not Linux?

Answer: The GPL/LGPL.

No, don't try and argue it away. The GPL/LGPL are the two most restrictive licenses on the planet for developers. So guess what? Restrictive license, broken software, market fragmentation, and no market share? Why would I bother?

You want licenses that empower the user? Fine. But you lose any right to complain when the developers walk away as a result of that choice.

The only things that are expected to work "universally" with "any os", is precisely hardware fully documented or with open source drivers which can be ported to other OSes, or things adhering to open standards such as USB mass storage, etc. (Eg. anything working with gNewsense or Openbsd).

No one is going to spend billions researching/creating hardware they can't make money on. Keep living the pipe dream.

Obvious lie quickly revealed with a minimal online search. After the Unity debacle, Canonical has been losing users like there is no tomorrow. Canonical is currently too busy playing with phones and tablets to be of any use for the PC platform. Their distro is fine, as a base for non unity desktops thanks to Debian roots. This is why Lubuntu or Xubuntu can serve Steam perfectly with none of the Unity issues or slowdowns; Same distro, different desktop.

At the end of the day, when non-linux people think of Linux, what distro do they think of? Knowing that, what distro do you think the devs are going to focus on?

Also windows users are not complete idiots, they know how to use a web search and read things in forums like this before trying a different OS, the smart ones will use a second machine for experiments and EXPECT some of their hardware to fail, not because of the OS, but because the manufacturer did not explicitly support said OS.

Do you know what percentage of users that see they need different hardware are going to switch once seeing that?

I'll give you a hint: the number before the decimal point is a 0.

[duby229]

Are people really that stupid? I think alot of people must be stuck in 98-02. Guesss what? It's 2013 now.... Read some news.

Fact is Linux has bay far the best out of box hardware support than any other kernel in existence. Period. It's main flaw is that it isnt a stable abi. But that hasn't prevented drivers from being written and kept up to date. Just about every sound card, ethernet card, video card, wifi, etc, etc are supported out of the box. i admit some drivers are better quality than others.

[startzz]

Are people really that stupid? I think alot of people must be stuck in 98-02. Guesss what? It's 2013 now.... Read some news.

Fact is Linux has bay far the best out of box hardware support than any other kernel in existence. Period. It's main flaw is that it isnt a stable abi. But that hasn't prevented drivers from being written and kept up to date. Just about every sound card, ethernet card, video card, wifi, etc, etc are supported out of the box. i admit some drivers are better quality than others.

Yes, one of the bigger linux problems - its kind of stupid structure, and maybe it causes all the performance and other problems. What a genius decided to integrate so much stuff into kernel ?? And if you want to add support for some other hardware, then on windows you have just install drivers, whereas on linux... you have to uninstall linux and install windows, thats the easiest choise to do so without getting headaches.

[Calinou]

Yes, one of the bigger linux problems - its kind of stupid structure, and maybe it causes all the performance and other problems. What a genius decided to integrate so much stuff into kernel ?? And if you want to add support for some other hardware, then on windows you have just install drivers, whereas on linux... you have to uninstall linux and install windows, that the easiest choise

Hardware is used in a nicer way on Linux that on Windows, this is especially true for CPUs. Also, most distros use less RAM and disk space than Windows and boot faster.

"ATI GPU audio out doesn't work"

Useless. Audio on screens sucks.

"Optimus doesn't work"

Get a desktop or a laptop with just an IGP, problem solved. Alternatively, disable the IGP in the BIOS/UEFI (with good batteries, battery life isn't that bad). It'll give much better performance than using Optimus/Bumblebee, too.

"Non-Creative branded soundcards don't work"

Sound cards are useless (130dB SNR? Do you like crushing your ears with FLACs, or what?), better spend money on good audio hardware instead.

"Almost all ethernet cards don't work"

Do you need 10Gb/s Ethernet ? I don't think so.

And so on. If NVIDIA releases the GTX 880 today, it should work, period, not require years of support to get working.

GTX 680 = supported since launch day by NVIDIA driver
GTX 650 Ti BOOST = supported since launch day by NVIDIA driver
GTX TITAN = supported since launch day by NVIDIA driver

I'll say "And so on", just like you.

Rather then, I don't know, making the hardware work? Nah, instead its: "Use our free OS, then spend $700 on hardware to run it, that would be considered a major downgrade over what you already have, as we can't be bothered supporting that."

Well yeah, can't help with poor computer choices.

PS: I know why your username is "gamer" after all...

[Hamish Wilson]

Fact is Linux has bay far the best out of box hardware support than any other kernel in existence. Period. It's main flaw is that it isnt a stable abi. But that hasn't prevented drivers from being written and kept up to date. Just about every sound card, ethernet card, video card, wifi, etc, etc are supported out of the box. i admit some drivers are better quality than others.

That is really the sad thing about this whole debate - Linux itself has probably the most extensive list of hardware support on the planet. And by Linux, I mean the kernel. Windows itself only wins due to significant amount of third-party support, something Linux only lacks due to it's smaller market share (but still has managed to achieve surprisingly well).

[bridgman]

Yes, one of the bigger linux problems - its kind of stupid structure, and maybe it causes all the performance and other problems. What a genius decided to integrate so much stuff into kernel ?? And if you want to add support for some other hardware, then on windows you have just install drivers, whereas on linux... you have to uninstall linux and install windows, thats the easiest choise to do so without getting headaches.

The user/kernel split on Windows is similar, at least for graphics. If anything Windows does a bit more in the kernel than Linux.

The real difference IMO is in the quality/maturity of installers and OS support for same.