Steam Survey Results For February 2022 Put Linux Right Above 1.0%

[mSparks]

I've been running Debian for 15 years for everything. Except games. For Steam I still have a separate Windows 10 PC. It's old hardware but fine for what I need: LGA 1155 motherboard, Core-i7 2600, 8GB RAM, SSD for OS, HDD for storage, GTX 760 GPU. Every now and then I read about how Steam is now good enough via Proton for those games without native Linux ports. It isn't. I tried it again this week, after a gap of maybe 6 months. Yes, there are vast improvements, really worthwhile and actually surprising and impressive. But it's still the case that Steam gaming on Windows is very, very obviously better than Steam gaming on Proton for many games. Using Proton games can stutter and be jerky even while Steam overlay is reporting them running at a steady 60fps. I would love to switch to only using Steam on Linux, and relegating Windows stuff to wine or VM, but there are really good and very visually apparent reasons that the Steam userbase is only 1% Linux.

If the only reason you are keeping windows around is for games, do yourself a favour and get a PS5 and/or a steam deck. Get your friends to do the same.

Windows is just broken in so many ways its just not worth the time and effort, games are supposed to be fun, absolutely nothing is fun about windows unless you are one of those who loves the feeling of sticking your hand in a meat grinder.

Yes, you will miss some ancient windows only games, I miss guitar hero and mario kart 64. The world moves on, and it left windows PCs behind 10 years ago. Yes 2012 was 10 years ago.

[Takla]

Thanks for the lecture Einstein. Naturally anyone who owns lots of Steam games that work fine on Windows but not on Proton will be super enthused to switch to Steam Deck so that they can enjoy them not working on that device. Obviously. Or spending money on an otherwise useless console and spending all that money over again to get back to exactly where they were, but with reduced performance! Are you one of those geniuses we so often hear about? Perhaps you work as a financial adviser? Twit.

[renkin]

I wonder how much in the jump for Windows is due to Linux users running Lost Ark in a VM.

[partcyborg]

If the only reason you are keeping windows around is for games, do yourself a favour and get a PS5 and/or a steam deck. Get your friends to do the same.

Windows is just broken in so many ways its just not worth the time and effort, games are supposed to be fun, absolutely nothing is fun about windows unless you are one of those who loves the feeling of sticking your hand in a meat grinder.

Yes, you will miss some ancient windows only games, I miss guitar hero and mario kart 64. The world moves on, and it left windows PCs behind 10 years ago. Yes 2012 was 10 years ago.

The largest problem with this (beyond your "know it all" attitude) is that for me doing this also involves throwing away ~20y of muscle memory using keyboard+mouse. Yes, there are mkb peripherals for consoles, but less than 10% of games allow you to use them

[timofonic]

Nah. Even if it was grouped under "Arch," and even if these were March or April results, Valve is not shipping enough Decks to meaningfully move that number. They are ridiculously supply constrained atm, and probably will be through 2022.


I think its just becoming more popular as a "gaming" distro, at the expense of Ubuntu in particular, and different releases don't get split up in the survey.

Arch Linux FTW!

Ubuntu? Sorry, I'm not coprophage!

[Paradigm Shifter]

If the only reason you are keeping windows around is for games, do yourself a favour and get a PS5 and/or a steam deck. Get your friends to do the same.

Windows is just broken in so many ways its just not worth the time and effort, games are supposed to be fun, absolutely nothing is fun about windows unless you are one of those who loves the feeling of sticking your hand in a meat grinder.

Yes, you will miss some ancient windows only games, I miss guitar hero and mario kart 64. The world moves on, and it left windows PCs behind 10 years ago. Yes 2012 was 10 years ago.

Bluntly, if you find Windows tiresome, you're not going to find modern consoles a whole lot better. Ignoring the fact that finding a PS5 is still rather like finding hens' teeth, in the last year there hasn't been a single time I've booted up my PS4 Pro and been able to play immediately. Either the firmware needs an update, or the game needs an update, or both. Modern consoles are just pretty low-end PCs with less customisability.

[CochainComplex]

Steam OS 3 Source is not public yet. But you can download the Steam Deck Recovery Image which can be installed on a Desktop (AFAIK). Has anyone done it so far ?

[mdedetrich]

I've been running Debian for 15 years for everything. Except games. For Steam I still have a separate Windows 10 PC. It's old hardware but fine for what I need: LGA 1155 motherboard, Core-i7 2600, 8GB RAM, SSD for OS, HDD for storage, GTX 760 GPU. Every now and then I read about how Steam is now good enough via Proton for those games without native Linux ports. It isn't. I tried it again this week, after a gap of maybe 6 months. Yes, there are vast improvements, really worthwhile and actually surprising and impressive. But it's still the case that Steam gaming on Windows is very, very obviously better than Steam gaming on Proton for many games. Using Proton games can stutter and be jerky even while Steam overlay is reporting them running at a steady 60fps. I would love to switch to only using Steam on Linux, and relegating Windows stuff to wine or VM, but there are really good and very visually apparent reasons that the Steam userbase is only 1% Linux.

Debian isn't the best suited distro for gaming. A lo of improvements that Proton relies on are only seen in newer versions of the kernel that underwent rapid development as well as the graphics stack.

There is a reason why Steam based their distro off arch.

Bluntly, if you find Windows tiresome, you're not going to find modern consoles a whole lot better. Ignoring the fact that finding a PS5 is still rather like finding hens' teeth, in the last year there hasn't been a single time I've booted up my PS4 Pro and been able to play immediately. Either the firmware needs an update, or the game needs an update, or both. Modern consoles are just pretty low-end PCs with less customisability.

I don't know what you are talking about. If the premise of being tiresome is having to deal with ceremony on setting up a system/drivers/patching etc etc then a console is as painless as you can get.

[mSparks]

Bluntly, if you find Windows tiresome, you're not going to find modern consoles a whole lot better. Ignoring the fact that finding a PS5 is still rather like finding hens' teeth, in the last year there hasn't been a single time I've booted up my PS4 Pro and been able to play immediately. Either the firmware needs an update, or the game needs an update, or both. Modern consoles are just pretty low-end PCs with less customisability.

I find ntfs not fit for purpose, that most games you need to spend more time in the settings panel than actually playing the game - if you can actually get that far after the latest windows windows update breaks graphics or network drivers.

Blunty, ipad, ios and android gaming is better than windows these days, and they are not even purposely designed for the task.

Im sure you are old enough now to buy your own console (or you wouldnt still be gaming on windows) rather than beg your parent or guardian to buy it for you or let you play on it. Own that.

[Gps4life]

If the only reason you are keeping windows around is for games, do yourself a favour and get a PS5 and/or a steam deck. Get your friends to do the same.

Windows is just broken in so many ways its just not worth the time and effort, games are supposed to be fun, absolutely nothing is fun about windows unless you are one of those who loves the feeling of sticking your hand in a meat grinder.

Yes, you will miss some ancient windows only games, I miss guitar hero and mario kart 64. The world moves on, and it left windows PCs behind 10 years ago. Yes 2012 was 10 years ago.

Ever heard of First person shooters, and how most people want to play those with mouse and keyboard?
They tried to let console and pc gamers play together, but the console players lost every time, because the aiming with a mouse is superior and faster then any game pad.

The only reason for many years now, that my pc's are dual boot is games.

The reason why it was not so much an issue for me to install Linux, was again games.

The last windows I bought though was win 7, so my current pc is is dualboot, Win 10 and openSUSE tumbleweed.
I used my win 7 key to install win 10.

I am hopefull, I won't be buying any windows anymore, but I want to be able to play Alien vs Predator 2.
These days though, I can play this game online on Linux through wine, with some minor bugs, like floating health pick ups.
And some weird bugs with the ai getting stuck on object on Linux(wine) when I play the single player campaign I made myself.