Steam Linux Usage Drops Below 1%

[mike4]

So question is: poor performance comparing microsoft systems?

No, for ex. X-Plane runs ~20-25% faster FPS than on the two proprietary os with my GTX770.

Again no as for your other post. We don't need DX12. We will have Vulkan and OpenGL >= 4.5.

[Mike Frett]

Our Fault

What did you expect? People are moving away from Desktops and with Windows 10 coming, this is to be expected. Not to mention the whole NSA thing is old news and nobody really cares if they are being spied on anyway.

Incidentally, I had not been using Steam recently. A lot of people use Linux now, but most of them probably don't use Steam. I'd say it's completely safe to say Linux users are more likely around 11-15% of all Desktops and obviously Steam can't count those.

It's our responsibility as Linux users to help people switch. Physically installing Linux for them and reminding them of the dangers of Windows. This drop is our fault so let's get back on the ball and move it to 1% next time!

[mike4]

Yes I guess after Project Cars release alone the number to grow...

@ Azrael5
If DX would be OpenSource it would be integrated within weeks. That's Microsoft's decision...we talk about that a year or so after we have Vulkan.

[tomtomme]

3. Steam surveys are pretty random and not exactly representational.. Over the God knows how many months I have used steam I have gotten 1 survey on Linux but while using wine to play skyrim I got it 3 months in a row.

Wrong.
ONLY random samples are representational / representative (don?t know the exact english word).
Thats statistics 101.

The reason for the drop is most probably just a rise of steam gamers on win and / or macos while linux remained the same in absolute numbers.

[Tuxee]

What did you expect? People are moving away from Desktops and with Windows 10 coming, this is to be expected. Not to mention the whole NSA thing is old news and nobody really cares if they are being spied on anyway.

Incidentally, I had not been using Steam recently. A lot of people use Linux now, but most of them probably don't use Steam. I'd say it's completely safe to say Linux users are more likely around 11-15% of all Desktops and obviously Steam can't count those.

It's our responsibility as Linux users to help people switch. Physically installing Linux for them and reminding them of the dangers of Windows. This drop is our fault so let's get back on the ball and move it to 1% next time!

I'm an avid Linux fan, but 10 to 15% market share on desktops is laughable. Linux desktops might account for 5% - at most.

StatCounters statistics are anything but bulletproof, but for a rough estimation they are sufficient:

http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-201404-201504

and since I sit in Europe

http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-eu-monthly-201404-201504

Even with adding a 100% to the Linux figure, we are shy of 5% overall market share.
Back to Steam: OSX has been there for several more years and still accounts for only 3%, whereas the overall market share is likely around 10%.

BTW: I recommend Linux OSes to all my customers, but I don't want to preach. And for most people the concept of Open Source is ...meh. Their already installed OS (and it is always Windows that comes pre-installed) does the job well enough.

[Passso]

What did you expect? People are moving away from Desktops and with Windows 10 coming, this is to be expected. Not to mention the whole NSA thing is old news and nobody really cares if they are being spied on anyway.

Incidentally, I had not been using Steam recently. A lot of people use Linux now, but most of them probably don't use Steam. I'd say it's completely safe to say Linux users are more likely around 11-15% of all Desktops and obviously Steam can't count those.

It's our responsibility as Linux users to help people switch. Physically installing Linux for them and reminding them of the dangers of Windows. This drop is our fault so let's get back on the ball and move it to 1% next time!

The NSA does not need Windows to spy you, they are connected directly on Internet network equipments and big services like Google, Facebook etc. Nowadays with online services thinking Linux will save your privacy is a dream.

I still think that direct "friendly install" are cool and useful, but a direct sell like Dell/whatever did in the past is far more effective. The "abomination" aka Chrome OS managed to get a good market share. Why is there no real Linux distros in western store... this makes no sense but we are stuck since years because of that.

Concerning the real subject and GTA V, we pay twice the price :

1) Windows players are back to Steam so Win % increase
2) some Linux players are back to Windows (temporarily?) so Win % increase

What is important is that the number of Linux Steam users does not fall, this does not seems to be the case.
(BTW, we still need the Steam controller...)

[Azrael5]

The NSA does not need Windows to spy you, they are connected directly on Internet network equipments and big services like Google, Facebook etc. Nowadays with online services thinking Linux will save your privacy is a dream.

I still think that direct "friendly install" are cool and useful, but a direct sell like Dell/whatever did in the past is far more effective. The "abomination" aka Chrome OS managed to get a good market share. Why is there no real Linux distros in western store... this makes no sense but we are stuck since years because of that.

Concerning the real subject and GTA V, we pay twice the price :

1) Windows players are back to Steam so Win % increase
2) some Linux players are back to Windows (temporarily?) so Win % increase

What is important is that the number of Linux Steam users does not fall, this does not seems to be the case.
(BTW, we still need the Steam controller...)

cpu code is enough (enaf) to spy.

[Illasera]

bureaucracy

Yes I guess after Project Cars release alone the number to grow...

@ Azrael5
If DX would be OpenSource it would be integrated within weeks. That's Microsoft's decision...we talk about that a year or so after we have Vulkan.

Linux is more friendly towards gamers in a lot of aspect, SO WHAT?

1.)We have a spanking "new' protocol for display servers that removes tons of crap that gathered over the years, but nobody wants to touch it. (less overhead)
2.)We have some benchmarking results(never trust benchmarking) that shows some nVidia drivers on linux outperforming their windows version. (higher performance)
3.)Files literally takes less space on linux because every filesystem you choose on linux is more stable and has less overhead than NTFS. (more space)
4.)You have WINE (portability)

You have everything that you need to run linux games, and its still not taking off, What do you think vulkan is gonna do for us?
let alone its another API that is DIFFERENT from direct3D, just like openGL. (that's not gonna help porting)

I don't think there is one major issue that stops gamers from switching, its a lot of small issues + the fear of change.

[Adarion]

Linux systems have several SEVERE problems:
...

If that wasn't a troll post...

> rigid dependencies
Windows (and OSX) have deps, too. Even been in the DLL hell?

> proprietary drivers limited to new hardware;
Fault of whom? Doesn't happen on Win... oh, wait... 1000s of printers stopped working in Vista? Oh, just buy a new printer. No drivers for you laptop that was sold with W8 for W7? Aww, bad luck. Having "legacy" hardware or a "legacy" Windows-OS? Bad luck for you, too.

> weak mesa drivers
Depends. Some are already quite fine, thanks.

> complexity
What to you intend to say here? Do you want to say that Windows is not complex?

> fragmented distributions
Yes, but as long as you stick to some standards... And Kernel <-> userland should be no real problem for the last 15 years.

> sectarianism
You should have seen the Apple fanboys.

> incommunicability (programmers have to interact with users)
Ehm, wut?
Okay, some coders lack social compentence, sure. But how could you ever reach developers of unfree software? They don't talk to you. The best you might get is a woman on the phone hotline that will re-read answers from a public FAQ to you if you have a problem.

> unreliability
lol.

> slow progression.
Slow porgression. Wow. Either you really want to troll or you are not well informed. And don't you blame some missing HW support to the developers when there is no focking hardware documentation and it has to be reverse engineered. Please, try yourself at reverse engineering hardware and you will notice how much "fun" that is.

> Note: My own ACPI system on PT880+hd3850 agp has still problem resuming from suspend because of pixelated video.

So you have ACPI in your system and problems with it. Congratulations. Obviously you never heard of ACPI problems before. Or about problems with VIA hardware or VIA software. ACPI is sadly one huge mess, and ACPI implementations of vendors are often even more horrible. I understand that this is not beautiful for an end user but you can't blame Linux for the failure of HW manufacturers and firmware / ACPI table implementers.

Linux has to implement directX making playable directly games without any porting, has to light its systems, has to remove useless wrappers and useless graphical server has to become essential, reliable, efficient, and light as XP is. Linux should try a way to check specifications and use directly hardware by its own features in the softwares taking advantage from SSE2 and hardware acceleration.

Lol, man, have you been living under a rock? DirectX is proprietary. MS does not just open it to us so we can have our own DX implementation. Sure, such a DX thing would make things easier to port once developers decided to use DX but it is 100% in the hands of MS and THEY WON'T DO IT.
Efficient and light as XP? Wow. That's a good one. Compared to Windows Vista XP is actually lightweight. But I could compare it now to CP/M and tell you that it is a bloated mess.

Software taking or not taking advantage of SSE2? What are you talking about?

[mao_dze_dun]

I just love how some of you fanatics just can't deal with valid and reasonable criticism of Linux