Steam Survey Shows Linux Marketshare Hitting 1.0%

[FellowPenguin]

According to current stats from "Steam Hardware & Software Survey":
Windows share went from 96.57 to 96.49, which is a relative decrease of 0.08%.
Linux share went from 0.89% to 1%, which is a relative increase of 12%.

1% is a great achievement. Huge thanks to Valve for improving Linux's gaming capabilities.

[Mike Frett]

1.0%. We did it, guys. After 5+ years of being at 0.x%.

We've been at 1% before.

[anarki2]

Windows will shrink.

The TPM 2.0 requirement will make a lot of people jump ship to Macs and Linux. Many of these computers which are incapable of running Windows 11 will be very powerful and not that old. These users will not be ready to give them up. Sure, most will just take the beating that Microsoft is dishing out, but there's always that sizeable amount who get frustrated and never come back to Microsoft-land.

Can you please explain how being able to effortlessly deploy Full Disk Encryption is bad for users? Because that's what TPM2 allows for. Not only on Windows, but Linux too. You can finally forget about stupid "unlock keys" or even worse, USB keys, just let the TPM chip do the work.

The majority of notebooks made in the last 3 years have a TPM2 chip. All Ryzen CPUs have a built-in fTPM too. Many existing desktop motherboards have a TPM2 header, too. Requiring TPM2 is a non-issue blown out of proportion by the paranoid ones. It's not a disadvantage, it's an advantage.

It's like complaining if a new WiFi standard made WPA3 support mandatory. It's about friggin' time!

[treba]

Can you please explain how being able to effortlessly deploy Full Disk Encryption is bad for users? Because that's what TPM2 allows for. Not only on Windows, but Linux too. You can finally forget about stupid "unlock keys" or even worse, USB keys, just let the TPM chip do the work.
...

IIUC using TPM without unlock key is not really safe, see https://twitter.com/XMPPwocky/status...27243172868097

[FellowPenguin]

I am not happy with current linux gaming situation. I wish Valve and other companies intrested in linux desktop invest more resouces into making standard, backwards-compatible linux runtime that would allow games and other software to survive distribution upgrades. Most of older native ports no longer work, or have issues that make them unplayable.
Proton isn't a solution, it just makes things worse on that regard. Even Feral Interactive doesn't see native linux ports viable anymore.

1. Valve is working on compatibility, but it's a very hard problem to solve. Windows also has similar issues with maintaining compatibility, especially with older games. Watch this talk from FOSDEM 2020 conference if you want to know more about how Valve and Collabora are improving backward compatibility on Linux.
2. Having compatibility with tens of thousands of Windows games is much more important than just having some native Linux games. Windows gamers will not switch to Linux until close to 100% of all games will work.

[HEL88]

Windows will shrink.

I've been hearing this for 8 years - LOL .

The TPM 2.0 requirement will make a lot of people jump ship to Macs and Linux.

Yep, W10 has several years full support, yet + many years security support.

New hardware on market will have everything to install W11.

No, longer support Windows like 7 has more than 5 times (!!) market share than full suport linux .

[lucrus]

So, +0.14 is noise too. Eg. a few Windows users go to holiday so linux has big growth .

No, if you look at previous months (years) variations, you'll notice that Linux usually moved in the range of +/- 0.03%, and I bet Windows user were already going on holiday from time to time.

[Charlie68]

Always remember that this survey is for Steam customers on Linux, not Linux users.
I have never installed Steam and like me many other Linux users I guess ... not all of us love to play or have time for it.

[david-nk]

Proton isn't a solution, it just makes things worse on that regard.

Except it doesn't. Proton doesn't suffer from distro breakage, unlike most of the native ports, who will simply silently fail to start if they weren't compiled for your distro.
It is precisely the standard, backwards-compatible Linux runtime you were asking for.

[TemplarGR]

I open the Steam Client almost daily. No survey for me on Linux all these years, ever.