Steam On Linux Marketshare Remained Flat For November

[Setif]

Firefox hardware statistics

https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware

[andyprough]

blah blah blah blah Android is so secure and amazing and GNU/Linux kills puppies blah blah blah blah

Slow down, I'm trying to take notes.

[arQon]

The CPU part doesn't surprise me much either. A person would have to be really out of the know to buy a quad-core anything these days.

I'd say it's the other way around! The number of users with an actual need for > 8T, even among gamers, is probably even lower than the Linux market share. A tiny handful of AAA games, plus a few narcissists who want to be PewDiePie, and that's about it.

It'll (hopefully) be different after another generation or so, as more places get their DX12 (sadly, not VK) versions running, so I guess technically it's fair to say that people "shouldn't" still be buying 8T parts NOW if they're planning on holding on to those machines for a while - but even then I still don't really see it being a problem, albeit with a lot of it just coming down to the type of games they play and how much video horsepower they have to go with it.

[cqcallaw]

I mean screw the statistics every month, we may want more but the consequence won't necessarily be better. I am just thinking more posts on rookies to help, or security wise (more chance to get attacked like the big counterpart). Besides, I want to be in a "underdog"-userbase-platform.

I am not saying it's "it's bad to show the statistics". I can only let my wallet be spent on Linux games/applications so many times...

Yeah, growth ain't free. For my part, it seems entirely possible for the benefits of growing Linux market share to outweigh the costs; more users means more games targeting the platform, making the platform more resilient. Breaking Microsoft's monopoly on this market segment seems strategically advantageous to Valve and many other companies as well, which could mean a more competitive market that drains your wallet less.

It likely doesn't matter, though; I expect Linux gamers will remain the 1% as long as Linux gaming performance can't keep up with Windows.

[skeevy420]

I'd say it's the other way around! The number of users with an actual need for > 8T, even among gamers, is probably even lower than the Linux market share. A tiny handful of AAA games, plus a few narcissists who want to be PewDiePie, and that's about it.

It'll (hopefully) be different after another generation or so, as more places get their DX12 (sadly, not VK) versions running, so I guess technically it's fair to say that people "shouldn't" still be buying 8T parts NOW if they're planning on holding on to those machines for a while - but even then I still don't really see it being a problem, albeit with a lot of it just coming down to the type of games they play and how much video horsepower they have to go with it.

I'd say it depends on the user and what they're doing. For doing single tasks at a time, sure, a quad core is probably fine for all but the most intensive tasks or compiling certain software. For playing a game, or any semi-intensive task for that matter, while a YouTube tutorial is running in a browser, some voice chat software running, some background OS update task kicks in, that's when a quad core starts to show its limitations.

Once you start multitasking, quad cores aren't the greatest in 2020. Software just isn't written that way these days.

Not to mention that games coming out now are expecting to have and use at least 8 threads. That's the downside of being at the ass-end of the 4c8t console era and entering into the 8c16t console era. When gaming is a factor, one also has to keep up with gaming consoles in regards to the minimum specs. Whatever they have is what a person should consider to be the bare minimum of a gaming PC because similar specs are where PC ports are going to start...it is what it is.

[mcoffin]

Still no survey for me

I've only ever gotten to participate in one singular survey, despite using the regular Steam client on Linux for many hours every single day. I really wish I could get that resolved so that I could help the numbers a bit!

[matsukan]

Every time when Linux marketshare has increased from previous every time it has dropped to next month. I've been learned not to celebrate for that. It's coincidence or it made for purpose I don't know but there this clear pattern for that.

How much people uses Linux as gaming platform only Valve really know that.

[JMB9]

How much people uses Linux as gaming platform only Valve really know that.

Well, anyone should keep in mind that Valve is not controlling all gaming platforms (I really do hope so) - would be similar to think that all PC users do have Windows - so Microsoft would not know about that (and again - I really do hope so ).
Steam is most popular - but for some absolutely not interesting at all - similar to Windows being popular but there are people who don't use it at all - and be glad about that.
So statistics are not really interesting and far from complete (some people dislike tracking or DRM at all - automatically not included here) ... and to interpret them correctly is typically not intended by those getting them.

[oiaohm]

Firefox hardware statistics
https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware

Those numbers have to be taken with a big grain of salt and be treated as most likely be low counting Linux users.

https://chuttenblog.wordpress.com/2020/11/05/data-science-is-hard-alsa-in-firefox/

We know from the ALSA support removal from firefox that a large number of Linux distributions disable Firefox telemetry out box.

Turns out is very hard to count Linux users. Linux users normal know enough to block lots of different user counting methods and lot of distribution maintainers also go out of their way to disable telemetry including custom patching to remove telemetry.

[Dr. Righteous]

It has always seemed to me that Linux users are "real computer people". I think the steam survey reflects this perfectly. Most computer users are NOT real computer people at their core. They are not up to exploring other non windows OSes or applications. This is a sad state of affairs I know.