Steam On Linux Marketshare Hits New Multi-Year High, AMD Powering ~40% Of Linux Gaming Systems

[oiaohm]

It's all very weird with Linux. Either you have the latest and buggiest or relatively old and relatively bug-free. There's no middle ground

This is not true. https://www.youtube.com/embed/HeeoTE9jLjM
Yes 2019 and it has not changed. Reality Mainline Linux kernel is higher performing and less buggy than the older versions of the Linux kernel.

So the buggiest being the latest is wrong. Yes even the LTS kernels have issues where particular patches are not able to backported from mainline so leaving known faults in the LTS kernels.

Latest linux has less known bugs. So relatively old is known buggy.

[birdie]

Seems like you forgot Steam Deck have a dock mode and when it's "docked" you basicaly have standard KDE desktop experience

Looks like I was out of the loop, sorry.

It remains to be seen how many people will use the handheld in this mode. Won't it require an external monitor, keyboard and mouse to be used this way? It surely doesn't look to contain a built-in keyboard.

[birdie]

On the other hand:

• Will Steam run a normal unmodified Linux distribution? Considering that the Steam runtime for Linux comes with pretty much everything but the kitchen sink it doesn't seem likely. Native Linux Steam games are tested and built against specific library versions and Valve prefers not to deal with new versions which could result in serious regressions and hard to catch bugs.
• Will it use the vanilla Linux kernel? Also seems rather unlikely.
• Will it be subject to the same update policy as normal desktop distros? We'll soon find out.

Many like to believe that Android is also kind of "Linux" however the existence of Android has had zero effect on Linux popularity on the desktop. Many Android phones can be used as desktops - I don't know anyone who actually use them this way.

Screaming that Steam handheld is going to be a Linux desktop is premature at best, insincere at worst as no one here really knows what it will encompass.

Lastly, the Steam handheld will be a very specific piece of HW with very specific software requirements which Valve of course can make work.

When we are talking about Linux on the desktop, we are talking about Linux distros which must support a very wide range of hardware and software needs otherwise Raspberry Pi also becomes a desktop Linux.

[Mez']

It's all very weird with Linux. Either you have the latest and buggiest or relatively old and relatively bug-free. There's no middle ground

Yes, there is. Plenty of rolling distro have the latest as unstable (or whatever name) then an intermediate one, and finally a stable one 2-3 months behind. Then you have non-rolling distros in the continuity of the stable rolling release (3-6 months), then you have LTSes (6 months to 3-5 years), then you have the likes of Debian (just trolling). There are plenty of middle grounds to accommodate what you're looking for.

[blackiwid]

Try staying in China for a month before spouting garbage.

First I started my statement with "maybe" so I clearly signaled that this is a speculation, I did not claim to know it, therefor you can't say I "spout garbage".

Second it's maybe not 100% the truth but close enough, I think in asia internet cafes and playing in them is a thing, here it's basically not, also even if I was polemic saying that they don't enforce copyright at all, they enforce it less, and even if they buy it, MS sells them for 5 cent or so, much cheaper than in other countries (because of people pirate it otherwise), therefor even if they would buy it it's so cheap because they blackmail ms with copyright ignoring to give it for free, that makes it more reasonable to use.

So for disclosering that I don't know it exactly and this is a speculation with the word "maybe" I think I am not so far off as you claim it is.

And instead of hating against people if they in your view spout of wrong information, how about explain how it's really be, are private citizen buy on mass windows lizenses for western prices to play games?

[vb_linux]

Mac M1 series is actually pretty good for gaming. That is why the surge in gaming on Mac (my guess at least).

ARM64 has no problems running x86 games via virtual machine or crossover! go check it out on YT!

Actually, I have followed the M1Pro and M1Max news and the gaming results on them have been a mixed bag. 2.5% of Steam gamers are about half a million people. I don't believe these many people are playing on vm or crossover. Further, vm would not classify the survey as Steam "Mac".

[birdie]

Yes, there is. Plenty of rolling distro have the latest as unstable (or whatever name) then an intermediate one, and finally a stable one 2-3 months behind. Then you have non-rolling distros in the continuity of the stable rolling release (3-6 months), then you have LTSes (6 months to 3-5 years), then you have the likes of Debian (just trolling). There are plenty of middle grounds to accommodate what you're looking for.

Imagine a person wants to install Linux on his device. Actually don't, what you've offered right now is simply borderline insanity. There should have never been a situation like this in the first place. You don't go around scouring for the "proper" Windows or MacOS release - you just install, download and install drivers in Windows mostly for your GPU and you're all set. Everything works, nothing breaks, no regressions to speak of.

[chocolate]

You don't go around scouring for the "proper" Windows or MacOS release - you just install, download and install drivers in Windows mostly for your GPU and you're all set. Everything works, nothing breaks, no regressions to speak of.

I'll bite. Naturally, I don't mean to nitpick. I know where you're coming from, I appreciate the discussion.
Both macOS and Windows follow a "major release with updates" model. Microsoft tried to state otherwise starting with Windows 10, making people believe for a while that Windows would become a rolling system, except in actuality it only means that updates are forced upon users and disabling such forced updates is increasingly difficult on "home" editions.
There's at least a couple articles on Softpedia every month (sometimes, every week) about Windows updates breaking actual end users' systems to various degrees (something doesn't work, or the system doesn't boot at all anymore), with warnings such as "don't upgrade to..." followed by a weird string that no normal user whatsoever will ever care to check. I haven't been checking there for a while, but I swear it's been like that since Windows 10 came out.

Just recently, this has happened to macOS:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/11/why-macos-updates-might-brick-your-mac-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

macOS has been transitioning for a while towards an immutable system model, like Fedora Silverblue, precisely to make systems less prone to breakage and/or as an anti-tamper measure.

https://eclecticlight.co/2021/10/29/how-macos-is-more-reliable-and-doesnt-need-reinstalling/

This stuff isn't supposed to happen, but it just does. On every platform, be it macOS, Windows, or any Linux distro that isn't made specifically to be more robust, like Silverblue.
Obvious comments could be made about the ease of repairing a broken Linux system vs. a broken Windows one, throwing re-installation time into the mix in the worst-case scenario. But I don't want to digress there.

Basically, software sucks everywhere, all the time, and the neighbor's grass is never that much greener. Should libre operating systems do better? Yes, always. But that's about it; one thing is discussing where popular distros fail, another is comparing them negatively with proprietary systems that can, and indeed do, fail just as hard.

Cheers and happy gaming.

[spykes]

On the other hand:

• Will Steam run a normal unmodified Linux distribution? Considering that the Steam runtime for Linux comes with pretty much everything but the kitchen sink it doesn't seem likely. Native Linux Steam games are tested and built against specific library versions and Valve prefers not to deal with new versions which could result in serious regressions and hard to catch bugs.
• Will it use the vanilla Linux kernel? Also seems rather unlikely.
• Will it be subject to the same update policy as normal desktop distros? We'll soon find out.

Many like to believe that Android is also kind of "Linux" however the existence of Android has had zero effect on Linux popularity on the desktop. Many Android phones can be used as desktops - I don't know anyone who actually use them this way.

Screaming that Steam handheld is going to be a Linux desktop is premature at best, insincere at worst as no one here really knows what it will encompass.

Lastly, the Steam handheld will be a very specific piece of HW with very specific software requirements which Valve of course can make work.

When we are talking about Linux on the desktop, we are talking about Linux distros which must support a very wide range of hardware and software needs otherwise Raspberry Pi also becomes a desktop Linux.

You can bend it the way you like, in the end SteamOS is just another Linux distro with standard Linux components.
Will it use a vanilla kernel? Who cares?!
My distro doesn't even use a vanilla kernel like plenty others which have their own update policy.
What really matters is that all the specific stuffs Valve is doing are FOSS and proposed upstream for any other distro to pick (which is already the case).

[birdie]

You can bend it the way you like, in the end SteamOS is just another Linux distro with standard Linux components.
Will it use a vanilla kernel? Who cares?!
My distro doesn't even use a vanilla kernel like plenty others which have their own update policy.
What really matters is that all the specific stuffs Valve is doing are FOSS and proposed upstream for any other distro to pick (which is already the case).

If no one cares, Android is Linux and you should be very happy. Again, you've masterfully found your way around all the issues I've outlined but "Valve will contribute to Linux" - does anyone really care? Will it make the Linux kernel more stable and bug free? Unlikely. Will Linux distros maybe become more stable and bug-free? Also unlikely.

Android uses an old very specific kernel version which they patch on their own and I'm almost sure Valve will do the same to avoid any possible issues.

The Steam handheld does not solve any inherent Linux issues. Yes, Valve will further improve DXVK/Wine - who on Earth cares? There's already a much better platform which provides DirectX and Win32 API natively. Improving Windows support on Linux is a spit in the face of Linux fans only they don't actually see or recognize that - it further proves how incapable and impotent Linux as a platform is. Sorry, I've forgotten, there's no platform per se. LSB was abandoned and killed off over five years ago. We have hundreds of competing distros neither of which provide any binary software compatibility, sans maybe RHEL.

Linux in the Steam HW survey running ... Windows games. If it's not pathetic and utterly insulting, then I don't know what that is. Let's celebrate it!