Steam's December Numbers Point To A Lower Linux Marketshare But With More Oddities

[Buntolo]

As birdie already has pointed out, it's probably due to Steam entering China. China is reported to be one of the lowest linux adoption per capita country:
http://i.imgur.com/FXfa5vA.png
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market.../desktop/china

[Mez']

We're all using Epic Game Store now. Epic keeps giving away free games and Linux users like free. :-)

No sorting option for Linux. No results in searches for linux. Get Epic Games triggers the download of a .msi file. It doesn't seem to be linux friendly at all.
Having to use a 3rd party app (using wine) to launch Windows games isn't exactly convenient and deserving.

Sure, we could be so many playing a game through proton, wine and such that they see a market to port the games.
But somehow I feel like only paying for games that have a native port to Linux is much more efficient to send a message to developers studios. That's what I do, I don't buy games if they're not available for my platform, to reward studios with a broad vision and not closed-minded.

Anyway, I barely ever get the steam survey popup. I probably got it once in 4-5 years. I'm not saying others are not struck by lightning (to use an above-mentioned expression) but I do believe (disregarding the validity of the results) there's a whole lot of weirdness when it comes to accounting Linux users.
From all the feedback I got or read, it seems like it's clearly more common to get it on Windows. And here I need to specify I don't have it installed, it's not based on extrapolating a one-person situation.

[CochainComplex]

As birdie already has pointed out, it's probably due to Steam entering China. China is reported to be one of the lowest linux adoption per capita country:
http://i.imgur.com/FXfa5vA.png
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market.../desktop/china

comrade are you questioning the superiority of red flag linux ?

[ix900]

No sorting option for Linux. No results in searches for linux. Get Epic Games triggers the download of a .msi file. It doesn't seem to be linux friendly at all.
Having to use a 3rd party app (using wine) to launch Windows games isn't exactly convenient and deserving.

Can't tell if you're talking about Lutris? Epic is good with Lutris allowing EGS and games to play on Linux. Its really not that much different from Steam except one other application. Seems to be friendly enough and like Steam lots of games have problems.

I would like to play more games on Linux but even with Steam Proton there's too many problems so I don't.

I get the same amount of survey's on Linux and Windows so I don't think that's the problem. If you're just using one OS, you might feel like its broken when a lot of time goes by. They don't need to send a survey that often. Most people don't change OS types all that much.

[moilami]

Yeah, the survey just pops up randomly for some users. It's not an accurate method of gathering info and market share. I'm personally ok with anonymous stats collection for everyone, as long as it's anonymous and doesn't start collecting other info like battery percentage, temperature, websites I visit etc.

In fact we don't know if the survey really pops relatively much less to Linux clients than to windows clients. It is peculiar, to say the least, that people say they never get it on Linux but get it often times on windows, especially so if those same people use Linux client more than windows client. Statistically they should get it rarely if ever in windows too, but that is not the case. It could be that the statistical edge not getting it on Linux is just saying that here, but there seem to be a trend here. Nobody is saying they get it more in Linux than in windows for example.

Edit: Lol, just as I wrote this then there was before this someone saying they get it equally on Linux and windows. Anyway, my text was purely from academic point of view. Statistic are clear, but there is uncertainty in are statistics really valid or not.

[duby229]

In fact we don't know if the survey really pops relatively much less to Linux clients than to windows clients. It is peculiar, to say the least, that people say they never get it on Linux but get it often times on windows, especially so if those same people use Linux client more than windows client. Statistically they should get it rarely if ever in windows too, but that is not the case. It could be that the statistical edge not getting it on Linux is just saying that here, but there seem to be a trend here. Nobody is saying they get it more in Linux than in windows for example.

Edit: Lol, just as I wrote this then there was before this someone saying they get it equally on Linux and windows. Anyway, my text was purely from academic point of view. Statistic are clear, but there is uncertainty in are statistics really valid or not.

Well, there are at least three scenarios's where linux users don't get the survey, 1: if they use SteamOS, 2: if they use Big Picture mode, and 3: if they use the beta steam client... So it's pretty easy to see how quite a lot of linux users don't get the survey.

[gardotd426]

As birdie already has pointed out, it's probably due to Steam entering China. China is reported to be one of the lowest linux adoption per capita country:
http://i.imgur.com/FXfa5vA.png
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market.../desktop/china

Where the hell did you get that linuxtracker statistic? That has to be 20 years old. For one, the site doesn't exist anymore. And two according to that, the numbers would be about 0.0002% market-share. That's complete nonsense. It's low, but jesus it's nowhere near THAT low. The other statistic you cited shows Linux at essentially 1 percent, nowhere near "one of the lowest linux adoption per capita countries." It's literally right in line with the average. So what are you even talking about? Did you just decide that was a thing? Also, that number is going to skyrocket in the next 2-3 years, considering the Chinese Government is banning foreign-made Operating Systems by 2023 or whatever, and it will obviously be Linux that replaces that (apparently UOS, a new version of Deepin, was made specifically to cater to that law). Windows will be outlawed on government computers and will of course be replaced with Linux, and this being China that will absolutely affect the public percentages too, as the government has an outsized influence there. But that's neither here nor there, because the stats you quoted for right NOW are nonsense, or don't make any sense regarding your point.

Edit: Just saw that linuxtracker map is from 6 years ago. Yeah, super relevant. That's a totally useless source.

[gardotd426]

Well, there are at least three scenarios's where linux users don't get the survey, 1: if they use SteamOS, 2: if they use Big Picture mode, and 3: if they use the beta steam client... So it's pretty easy to see how quite a lot of linux users don't get the survey.

You don't get it if you're participating in the Beta client? I thought that was required to even use proton, or did they change that? I've just been using Beta ever since.

[puleglot]

Well, there are at least three scenarios's where linux users don't get the survey, ... 3: if they use the beta steam client...

Are you sure? Here Valve employee ask to retest hardware survey in steam beta:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/ste...ux/issues/6807

[duby229]

Are you sure? Here Valve employee ask to retest hardware survey in steam beta:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/ste...ux/issues/6807

well, I was sure, but now second guessing what I thought I knew.