Steam Kicks Off 2020 With Linux Gaming At The Highest Point In A While

[entropy]

Valve largely gave up on Linux.

It's in maintenance mode, face it.
The devs doing work is pocket money for Valve and imho not a sign that Valve is still commited.

Proton helps as a exit strategy.
There are next to none AAA games coming to Linux recently, so Proton helps to keep the platform on life support.
Not because Valve loves the platform but because they have to.
Just, for a moment, think what would happen, if they either shut it down it or let it rot completely.

If HL:Alyx won't natively be released on Linux (best day-1 or shortly after) this should be a clear hint of all that.
How can you be a Linux a strong Linux advocate, trying to convince partners, publishers and devs that Linux now became high priority and a 1-tier platform,
when a game that you release belongs to the most important franchise of you everyone is waiting for - and you don't have native Linux build?
Valve obviously tries hard to avoid any questions about the state of HL:Alyx + Linux.
The only article dealing with it was here on Phoronix.
Any news on that?

[luddd3]

I would like to know if the increased Linux percentages are an effect of Windows gamers leaving Steam for e.g. Epic Games. Or If the number of Linux gamers has actually increased.

[tildearrow]

Valve largely gave up on Linux.

Then what is ACO?

[flower]

I spent a few futile hours yesterday trying to install Steam on my desktop machine. The problem seems to be with the Nvidia drivers I'm using (Quadro K2000). I was able to get Steam running on my laptop with no problems. Anyway, I've been using Linux since kernel 1.0 and could not get Steam to work. A bit of Googling seems to indicate I'm far from the only one with this problem (conflicting i386 libraries). Hoping the situation will improve.

I'd try steam flatpak.
It works great and supports more games because it integrates tricks from protondb

[Guest]

Most GNU/Linux users don't care about the default desktop experience. That seems to be as true as it gets. People who use this OS as their main one tend to spend time customizing their environment to their needs, and know that you need to read the documentation to figure things out and get stuff done. It's not beginner friendly, and because of that it's more powerful.

I'm surprised that macOS has that many Steam users considering that Steam Play isn't there yet, and there are hardly any games with ports to it.

[Nocifer]

Valve largely gave up on Linux.

It's in maintenance mode, face it.
The devs doing work is pocket money for Valve and imho not a sign that Valve is still commited.

Proton helps as a exit strategy.
There are next to none AAA games coming to Linux recently, so Proton helps to keep the platform on life support.
Not because Valve loves the platform but because they have to.
Just, for a moment, think what would happen, if they either shut it down it or let it rot completely.

How is it in "maintenance mode" when Valve have been directly funding DXVK and Codeweavers for the past couple of years? Also, Proton is far from an "exit strategy", Proton is proof that Valve understand that 1) Linux gaming without including the already released non-Linux AAA games is doomed to failure, 2) if the mountain (AAA game developers) will not willingly come to Muhammad (Linux), then Muhammad has to take things into his own hands and carry himself to the mountain (DXVK+Proton), and 3) the mountain dwellers (the users) do not want to concern themselves with either Muhammad, the mountain or with anything else, they just want to press a button, download their games and then play them - if this experience works like a charm on Platform A while at the same time breaks for whatever reason on Platform B, then the users will not try to troubleshoot the issue, they will simply not concern themselves with Platform B; especially if Platform B is already under their radar in the first place.

Also, it's true that Valve do not support Linux out of "love", they support it out of necessity and because as a business they understand that as things currently stand, Windows as a platform is a dead end for non-Microsoft third parties. My only real concern at this point is that MS, with the recent change in their attitude, will attempt to lure Valve away from Linux and into Windows again. I really hope that if and when that moment comes, Valve will by that time have invested themselves too much in Linux to be easily lured away, and will have also hopefully realized the (potential) benefits of Linux as a platform that make it worthy of being their Plan A and not only their Plan B. Hell, who knows, maybe all this has already happened behind the cameras and we're simply not aware of it.

[Mike Frett]

It's not beginner friendly

I hear this often from people that have never used Linux. I switched my brother and a 60 year old gentleman down the road in 2012, they still use Linux and haven't touched the terminal once. The most common thing I hear from Linux beginners is "How do I install this driver?". When I plug it in and it just works, they seem surprised and relieved, obviously never having used a Mac either.

[entropy]

Then what is ACO?

I'm pretty sure the first ideas of ACO reaches far back to 2018 or even earlier.

Also, pocket money for Valve.

[cl333r]

I hear this often from people that have never used Linux. I switched my brother and a 60 year old gentleman down the road in 2012, they still use Linux and haven't touched the terminal once. The most common thing I hear from Linux beginners is "How do I install this driver?". When I plug it in and it just works, they seem surprised and relieved, obviously never having used a Mac either.

Nice try, but how do you order goat milk from Linux?

[jntesteves]

Nice try, but how do you order goat milk from Linux?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/265930