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

[Vistaus]

That's a rather big jump for one month. If the trend continues we may see the Steam Deck pulling the Linux numbers ahead of Mac in 2022.

But if it counts is another issue. I mean: Chrome OS is Linux too since it's based on Gentoo Linux, but a lot of people within the Phoronix and Linux community don't accept Chrome OS as being a Linux distro. So would people think SteamOS counts then?

[birdie]

I don't know about insulting, but certainly not pathetic. Wine & co. will go down in history as a great software preservation platform that also enables Windows software to run on CPU architectures other than those supported by Windows. Legacy software isn't getting updated and is, or is becoming, increasingly less compatible with current and future versions of Windows. I have now forgotten which ones, but I swear to you I have encountered some games on Steam where people opened discussions about the game not starting on Windows 10 at all or requiring workarounds. I know there are success stories about GUI programs written for Windows 98, not changing one bit to this day, and still functioning on Windows 10, but I guess games just aren't that simple and have to account for multiple moving grounds such as sound and input.
Right now, the market is targeting the "PC" intended as a Windows host. We need it to shift toward an OS-agnostic set of APIs & technologies that can let publishers justify the existence of builds that span multiple CPU architectures and operating systems with close to zero additional development cost (so, I'm leaving QA & support costs out to focus on the technology aspect).
Then, if there's interest in Linux as a host to publish "native" games on, and the games aren't native native, but Proton-native, then maybe it becomes insulting. At the moment, I don't think offering Proton-native builds is insulting. Developers can take their time learning new stuff, and I don't have to stomach Windows, win-win.

"on CPU architectures other than those supported by Windows" - how many people exactly run Wine/DXVK on architectures other than x86-64? 5? 10? How does it affect Linux on the desktop? How does this feature make it better? I don't understand.

"Legacy software isn't getting updated and is, or is becoming, increasingly less compatible with current and future versions of Windows" - and you can prove that by?

"I swear to you I have encountered some games on Steam where people opened discussions about the game not starting on Windows 10 at all or requiring workaround" - Lots of games of the past had weird ass DRM or assumptions which no longer true. They are equally broken under Wine and need workarounds. Wine is not a magic pill, it was made to translate Windows API as closely to the original as possible. I've played such a game just a few months ago: https://store.steampowered.com/app/297860/SplitSecond/ - a complete utter bugfest.

"guess games just aren't that simple and have to account for multiple moving grounds such as sound and input" - tons of games from that era don't work under Windows 10/10 at all, that's correct. For one thing there was Glide API back then which has long been dead. On the other hand programmers, like I've said above, made assumptions which no longer hold true in 2021, about display resolutions, CPU timings, etc. Do Linux games fair better? No, it's even worse: https://blogg.forteller.net/2016/humble-test/

"We need it to shift toward an OS-agnostic set of APIs & technologies that can let publishers justify the existence of builds that span multiple CPU architectures and operating systems with close to zero additional development cost" - why would they do that when they can use Win32 + D3D12 and have their games run on Windows 10/11 and XBox? That covers 95% of gamers. Additional platforms mean lost revenue. There was an article on r/Linux a year ago or something when a game developer admitted that he'd got 1% of his profits and 90% of his bug reports from Linux users. How would you target Linux when you have zero guaranteers that

• All users run the same kernel release
• All users run the same graphics drivers
• All users have the same Mesa stack
• All users have the same display server?

Linux makes it excruciatingly hard to support it with all the diversity of kernels, libraries, components, etc. etc. etc. In Windows you simply show a warning "This game needs NVIDIA drivers version 555.55 and AMD drivers 22.10" and you're good to go. Under Linux? Good luck with that - some run Arch/Fedora, some Debian with ancient software. Some run Xorg/KDE, some Mutter/Wayland, some Wayfire. Yeah, Wayland compositors may behave differently.

Windows is a software platform with decent APIs, compatibility and relative stability.
There's no such thing as Linux as a platform outside of POSIX compatibility which can only get you so far - yeah, you can program console/text games with it. Welcome to the FidoNet of 2021.

[spykes]

GCC has performance regressions almost each release.The Linux kernel also regresses in terms of performance quite often - you can find lots of benchmark results here on Phoronix. I'm not sure what it is that you're proud of.

Despite that Phoronix benchmarks shows Linux distros regularly beating Windows releases after releases... So either those regressions are being patched quickly, either you are blowing that out of proportion

This performance regression in Windows is the only one on my memory for the past 20 years. Lastly, I am talking about criticial bugs preventing users from using Linux at all, and you've found a performance regression which affects a small number of users running Ryzen 5000 CPUs and Windows 11 which was released a month ago, and then it wasn't that serious: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/am...s-L3-cache-bug

I don't know how many people are affected by the "critical bug" you're talking about, but I'm not. On the other hand I can't stop hearing about windows update issues. Minimize them as you want, but the fact is Windows also has issues, issues I don't have on Linux.

[vb_linux]

But if it counts is another issue. I mean: Chrome OS is Linux too since it's based on Gentoo Linux, but a lot of people within the Phoronix and Linux community don't accept Chrome OS as being a Linux distro. So would people think SteamOS counts then?

ChromeOS is linux, so is Android. Android may have different APIs, so may not be relevant here. But if what the puritans count as linux matters, that version might not go above 1%.

Though, I do see good days for Linux ahead. Wine+Protons play games in linux which do not run properly for me on Windows( like old prince of persia games). It is one click play in Steam to play those games. This might bring general masses. To them linux underneath might not matter, as it should be. And that shouldn't conern us, because it will lead to growth of linux.

[birdie]

Despite that Phoronix benchmarks shows Linux distros regularly beating Windows releases after releases... So either those regressions are being patched quickly, either you are blowing that out of proportion

Whataboutism runs strong with. I'm talking about how Linux sucks, you continue to search hard for any issues in ... a different OS to vindicate Linux. Shall we talk about MS-DOS for good measure?

I don't know how many people are affected by the "critical bug" you're talking about, but I'm not. On the other hand I can't stop hearing about windows update issues. Minimize them as you want, but the fact is Windows also has issues, issues I don't have on Linux.

Also "WFM" runs strong with you. Every hardcore Linux fan is the same: "but but but ... there are problems in Windows", "but but but ... Linux works for me". Just like 20 years ago. Just like 20 years ago Linux continues to have 1-2% market share.

I just don't understand why you're trying to convince me of all other people. I've been using Linux since the late 90s as my primary OS - I know it inside out and I can smell BS from a mile away.

[Myownfriend]

Basic define. Copyright is still private ownership. GPL and the like licenses with mandates to release any modifications under the same license is also about a operating profit. So Foss having a section of it being Capitalism with a currency being source code is warped.

These are necessary under for open source software under capitalism. That does not mean open source software requires it in inherently.

Also think about this to submit code up stream into project you have to deal with the upstream owners who can reject your idea this is another part of private ownership.

Just because there is some level of hierarchy in how open source development works, doesn't immediately equate it to private ownership. That point is further muddled by the fact that anybody who can't get their work upstreamed into the main project can always fork the project and maintain that downstream to the original project.

Of course companies don't pay FOSS developers wages for no reason. Paying developers allows company to buy the currency of the open source world to get the features they want implemented.

I didn't say that they were hired for no reason. I'm saying these companies essentially pay people to do something they'd otherwise do as a hobby: work on open source software.

Myownfriend something to remember Capitalism companies don't normally pay people for their hobbies they are normally paying people to get something.

And that's why I didn't make that claim about capitalism.

Private ownership is a very big part of the open source model.

...Reality here majority of open source does not use public domain as well does not believe in common ownership.

It pretty literally isn't about private ownership. Do Redhat or Wimtaymans own Pipewire? No. Does the Xorg foundation own Xserver? No, it isn't actually their product.

If everything owned to everyone why would you bother tracking who made what.

Attribution and ownership are not the same thing. Just because you contributed a certain patch to a project does not mean that individual owns the project. If a project wants to change licenses and currently has a copyleft license it needs the approval of all its contributors. That's group ownership.

Yes the open source world has social classes like it or not.

None of the things you previously mentioned back up or push against this statement. It's just standalone.

Think about it for production of code the developers knowledge of how to code and the code base he/she is working for is the means of production.

That doesn't make any sense. Someone's personal knowledge of coding isn't property lol If you wanted to pretend that it was, it would be personal property, not private property but again... it isn't property. It can't be exchanged, reclaimed, decoupled from that person in way. Sure, they could try to teach someone what they know but it's not an actual exchange and if the person dies, their personal knowledge goes with them. It's not the kind of thing you can leave in a will. Their thoughts are more intrinsically tied to them than their own limbs.

I feel like I already commented on the latter half of that quote earlier in this response.

So there is a fundamental thing about software development that happens to be Capitalism that you cannot remove because it always be privately owned unless we learn how to copy human knowledge brain to brain.

That's literally the only way that knowledge could be considered property at all lol

[TheOne]

If no one cares, Android is Linux and you should be very happy.

Don't you know? It has been already said that the steam deck runs on top of ArchLinux so basically a standard linux environment for you... I think Michael already covered the story and the gamingonlinux site, there are also a bunch of youtube videos and online articles that state it. I don't understand whats the controversy...

[sophisticles]

The only fascist country in existence right now is the United States with its institutionalised bribery, MIC-backed regime change invasions, out-of-control police brutality, crony capitalism and disregard for real human rights, not imaginary ones that it loves to champion as weapons against other countries.

I don't know what's sadder, that someone actually believes this garbage or that 11 people actually up-voted it.

I'm just going to address the "out-of-control police brutality" nonsense; I used to work with a Black gentleman from Nigeria, who had his B.S. in Chemistry degree from there and his MBA from the U.S.

When all the BLM "protests", riots really, started hitting all over the country in full force, I was having lunch with him and he started going off on all the BLM "protesters" and he was really pissed.

He said to me that people needed to keep things in perspective, we have maybe 100, 200 incidents of police shootings of unarmed people a year, in a country of 310+ million. He told me that I should go to his country, where by his own admission nearly everyone is Black and by his own account, they kill one another in ways that even animals don't.

He said to me if i wanted to see police brutality i should go there, where the police arrest you, if you say anything or even try to resist they will beat you to death and dump your body on the side of the road and there is nothing the family can do, no lawsuits, no protests, no trials or charges, they just go to the police station and ask where they can find the body so they can bury it.

I have a Haitian friend who has told me similar stories about Haiti. And i can tell you that in Greece, there was a time when the cops didn't even bother arresting you, if you were caught committing a crime like theft, they would just beat the shit of of you and leave you there unconscious. I had an uncle that was a hippie, when the junta came in they rounded up all the hippies, took them to the police station and forcibly cut their hair and shaved them beat there asses and then let them go home.

There may be problems in the U.S. but this is by far the greatest country in the world, we have a system and eventually most people do get what's coming to them when.

Don't sit here and spew that stupid shit in this forum and expect to not be taken to task.

[sarmad]

But if it counts is another issue. I mean: Chrome OS is Linux too since it's based on Gentoo Linux, but a lot of people within the Phoronix and Linux community don't accept Chrome OS as being a Linux distro. So would people think SteamOS counts then?

SteamOS is definitely a GNU/Linux distro, and everyone counts it as such. ChromeOS on the other hand runs Linux apps inside a VM, and it wouldn't have needed to use a VM if it was a true GNU/Linux distro.

[birdie]

Don't you know? It has been already said that the steam deck runs on top of ArchLinux so basically a standard linux environment for you... I think Michael already covered the story and the gamingonlinux site, there are also a bunch of youtube videos and online articles that state it. I don't understand whats the controversy...

What is the standard Linux environment? Tell me. Is it Fedora 35? Or Arch Linux? Or Debian 11? Or Ubuntu 21.10? WTF are you even talking about? There's no "standard" Linux environment. We had LSB, it's been dead for six years.

Also, have you ever actually installed Steam in Linux? Have you noticed it comes with 100+ libraries covering pretty much everything but the kitchen sink, IOW it is not using your distro? It's basically an extra Linux inside your Linux. Oh God.