Steam On Linux Is Ending Summer 2020 At Just Under 0.9% Marketshare

[birdie]

Unix-based systems are the open-source way beyond the Microsoft Windows mess. Apple's version of Unix is too closed source. Linux cannot upscale fast enough. So we are all stuck, for this moment, with the Microsoft Windows clumsiness. Until Linux gains popularity with the three main areas: users, hardware & software creators, it will continue being a very small, almost invisible blink in the personal computer industries.

The Windows mess? Windows provides stable APIs/ABIs which you can rely on for decades. Many games written in the Windows 95 era continue to work in Windows 10 in 2020, i.e. 25 years later. I would love to have a similar mess in Linux. Only Linux/Open Source developers are obsessed with breaking/reinventing/deprecating stuff all the time: OSS -> ALSA -> PulseAudio -> PipeWire. Xorg -> Wayland. Multiple incompatible versions of GTK/QT and dozens of other libraries. Even utiltities from coreutils have changed their invocation thus breaking pretty much all LokiGames (>95% of Phoronix readers don't even know the company which ported several dozen games to Linux) game installers.

The absolute worst thing about Linux is that Windows games run through Wine/Proton will continue to work pretty much indefinitely with few issues if any while their native versions might break at any time. No sane developer would want to touch such a software "platform". Linux is not a platform, it's a lego toy for compiling software, only absolute most games are closed source software.

[CochainComplex]

...why can I still see birdie's posts even if I have him on the ignore list?

[starshipeleven]

Nobody hates you for installing closed drivers. Nobody hates you for criticizing init system.

You'll get mocked for your choices on Windows too (Intel vs AMD vs NVIDIA or motherboard brands or games or whatever), this is an internet people problem, not an OS problem.

Another issue is there is no Steam x86_64 client

as opposed to Windows where there is no Steam 64bit client either

and if you'd like to avoid multilib/multiarch then it is bit inconvenient at least.

as opposed to Widnows where you simply CANNOT remove the 32bit emulation subsystem from the OS, period.

[starshipeleven]

...why can I still see birdie's posts even if I have him on the ignore list?

hah, you thought the ignore list was real?
this is vBullettin, anything above basic forum functionality is a lie

afaik the ignore list has been broken for years

[starshipeleven]

The Windows mess? Windows provides stable APIs/ABIs which you can rely on for decades. Many gamers written in the Windows 95 era continue to work in Windows 10 in 2020, i.e. 25 years later. I would love to have a similar mess in Linux.

I would love to have that mess on my Windows 10 too, but nearly all my XP and older games from CD or floppy just don't work or have game breaking issues like no input, while in a XP system it's all perfectly fine, so I'm inclined to say you are bullshitting as usual.

Windows has a stable API/ABI and it is better than linux distros, but even Windows's API/ABI isn't stable enough to reliably running most 20 years-old software, please stop repeating the same bullshit over and over again.

we get it that you are angry at Linux, but bullshitting only undermines your points

[benjiro]

The Windows mess? Windows provides stable APIs/ABIs which you can rely on for decades. Many gamers written in the Windows 95 era continue to work in Windows 10 in 2020, i.e. 25 years later. I would love to have a similar mess in Linux. Only Linux/Open Source developers are obsessed with breaking/reinventing/deprecating stuff all the time: OSS -> ALSA -> PulseAudio -> PipeWire. Xorg -> Wayland. Multiple incompatible versions of GTK/QT and dozens of other libraries. Even utiltities from coreutils have changed their invocation thus breaking pretty much all LokiGames (>95% of Phoronix readers don't even know the company which ported several dozen games to Linux) game installers.

This is something that i feel is very overlooked. I can take GUI code that i compiled almost 25 years ago during the summer and have it run today. Out of the box on Windows 10.

I dare people to run 25 year original binaries GUI on Linux platforms. They will fail hard. Be it like birdie mentioned, changes in gnome or kde or ... was used. You are facing broken programs and requiring recoding/recompiling to work on a current day platform. Cli programs can be more forgiving ( even then your running into library issues ). And i am sure somebody will bring up " But X works ". X is not a almost 95+% comparability that MS seems to sport.

It is the same with games. I can run new games, 15 year old games, some even older and face no issues with fps/mouse/screen tearing/crashes/... etc. And yes, proton on Linux has done a marvelous job but 5% @ 100%, 20% @ 80%, 75% @ 60% ( games vs issues free ) is still not close to the same stability / error free / intervention free on Windows.

The convinces of being able to install the latest version of a GUI game or program, without running into issues is extreme pleasing and that is what keeps customers on your platform. The ability to run old software without issues, keeps companies happy. The ability to remote control the software on 10.000 systems ( what some people here will hate because it dies down "their" PC ) keep companies happy.

From my perspective, there is too much infighting in the Linux community to pay attention to those points.. When Canonical tries changes that benefit the more average joe, it gets spat on by the hardcore Linux users because its "destroying linux".

Windows:

I see some people mentioning issues of Windows. And as somebody who was NOT ( that is a understatement ) pleased with Windows 10, i can see the positive evolution of the platform.

Where Windows 10 used to push updates out every 2 days, forcing restarts to the point of insanity, the feedback regarding this has made MS change their updates. Trust me, when i say i was in the same mud slinging group that just wanted to go back to Windows 7. But something happened... MS listens to the complained and now updates only happen every month+ ( and that is if you do not change your setting to increase the delay even more ). That is acceptable to stay up to date with security patches.

Its the same with the privacy issues. You are prompted to turn off whatever you do not like when Windows Installs. If you want more control, you go to Setting - Privacy and turn everything there off. Done ... You think that MS is secretly spying on you? You realize that Windows 10 is used in government jobs locations like the CIA/FBI/NSA/... You think those people will allow a OS that spies on them? At some point the paranoia and misinformation is bigger then the actual issue.

Cortana was also a hot topic. It has been removed if you do not select it during installation. Now you have a nice typical search box.

I feel sometimes people are talking about outdated information when it comes down to Windows or they are running a extreme old build to test thing upon.

I would love to have that mess on my Windows 10 too, but nearly all my XP and older games from CD or floppy just don't work or have game breaking issues like no input, while in a XP system it's all perfectly fine, so I'm inclined to say you are bullshitting as usual.

Windows has a stable API/ABI and it is better than linux distros, but even Windows's API/ABI isn't stable enough to reliably running most 20 years-old software, please stop repeating the same bullshit over and over again.

we get it that you are angry at Linux, but bullshitting only undermines your points

There is something called "compatibility" mode ( right click on your executable, select Compatibility ). You simply enable this, when you run into issues with the old software that uses a very specific API. If you game runs under XP, then select XP Compatibility.

It still better then "well, recompile your code to get X working. O, API are changed, well, fix up the code ..." type of answers on software issues on Linux.

[skeevy420]

benjiro
You're putting a little too much faith in compatibility mode. A lot of the Win98 era games I own didn't play worth a damn on XP let alone 10 without using community provided fixes and patches. Sometimes we get lucky and get remakes and updated revisions, like with some of the Final Fantasy and Command and Conquer games, but other times it's just as hit or miss as it is using Proton, Wine, or after compiling Linux libraries and binaries from back in the day. Sometimes those games work better on Linux with Wine or Proton than they do on Windows then or now. No one method or OS is the best.

But, for the most part, and people don't like hearing it because this is a Linux forum, you and birdie aren't really wrong in your assessment of Linux vs Windows gaming. I still dual boot because I don't want to deal with some platforms on Linux and, just making this up, accidentally VAC-ban myself because Uplay or Origin have an issue on Linux. While Linux is so much better than when I started using it so long ago and does play most of my games without issue at near or better than native Windows speeds, especially Steam games, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous in regards to DRM and Linux so I keep Windows around for those kinds of platforms. One of these days I'll get around to buying a cheap GPU and change from dual booting to VM with a dedicated GPU since, as much as it pains me to say this, I don't think I'll ever be able to get rid of Windows entirely since I play games on PC. It is what it is.

[birdie]

starshipeleven

And nearly all of my Windows XP games run just fine both under Windows 10 and Wine.

I guess your "nearly all" includes mostly the titles with DRM which, I'm sorry to disappoint you, has nothing to do with Microsoft breaking interfaces but game publishers forcing developers to include shady DRM protection including using kernel drivers (e.g. StarForce, SecueROM, SafeDisk, etc.) and using internal Windows APIs. Luckily nowadays companies have shifted to VM-like protection which is not tied to OS interfaces (Denuvo which works under Wine). To make things worse, I've got a collection of 32bit games which precede Windows XP and they all work just fine under Windows 10.

Lastly, Windows games themselves have a share of issues, e.g. companies shutting down multiplayer servers (e.g. Crysis series games), companies shutting game related services (Games for Windows Live) and other things which are just ugly.

[chocolate]

This is something that i feel is very overlooked. I can take GUI code that i compiled almost 25 years ago during the summer and have it run today. Out of the box on Windows 10.

...

Nah. Your marketing doesn't make sense. Hyper professional legacy GUIs used in mega important industries is one thing, but we're talking about games here. This is a Steam thread. It seems to me that whenever Windows apologists feel cornered, they always bring up how those GUIs that use a Microsoft toolkit from the 90s still function today... like any young Twitch consumer is going to give half a care in the world? What they might still be interested in, hopefully, is retro games.

Retro games don't work on Windows 10.
Clicking a checkbox to enable a "compatibility mode" does nothing. Also, that would mean fiddling with the OS and researching obscure features. It's not even documented what they actually (try to) do. How is that user-friendly? I know because I have a bunch of retro games both boxed (floppies, CDs...) and on Steam. Even Windows releases on Steam use emulation software of some sort, e.g. Tomb Raider 1.

On Linux, I can get the same result. Nay, better even, because through Steam I can run the games with enhanced or up to date emulation software, whereas the Windows releases are left in the state they're in, and it's not guaranteed that they will keep working in the future.
I pop open my distribution's store, I install e.g. ScummVM, I download a script that tells Steam what to do if I choose to run the game through something else, select it in a menu, and that's it. It's still a moderate amount of fiddling, but it's not the OS itself that is getting in the way, and most importantly it works, unlike Windows' compatibility mode.

Open source emulation layers on Linux will keep legacy Windows games running forever, whereas Windows doesn't know what to do with them. This won't ever be a problem with current Linux-native games because their environment is well known and can be containerized and crystallized. This will maybe add a couple hundred megabytes to their installation footprint, that can be shared among games from the same generation (think Flatpak runtimes). Problem solved once and for all.

I'm very eager to learn what are the retro games you said you can run on Windows 10 without input or graphical issues, using their original binaries. I can tell you the original contents of Monkey Island floppies, Another World, or the Woodruff CD... and so many others... are completely useless. I actually do care about preserving them.

[AmericanLocomotive]

Some legacy games run okay on Windows 10. I have an old copy of Starcraft 1 that runs just fine, and that was a game that was released in 1998. But there are other games that just fail miserably. Seems hit or miss. Anything DOS based is right out, of course.

Steam On Linux is okay. I have some games in my library that work okay, others that require a lot of fiddling to get working correctly. I even had issues with Portal 2 - a native Linux application - working on my SuSE Tumbleweed install. I had to actually switch to Proton mode (so using the Windows binary) to get it to work correctly. Go figure that one.