Steam On Linux For March Drops Down To 1.00%

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Steam On Linux For March Drops Down To 1.00%

There hasn't been clear guidance from Valve whether Steam Deck units will participate in the Steam Survey (I haven't seen any survey myself there either) but it's looking like possibly not as the Steam on Linux marketshare dipped lower in March...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Steam-Linux-March-2022

[birdie]

GeForce GTX 1060 refuses to die. Lovely. Probably the best GPU ever made.

Jokes aside it's that popular because it had a decent price and "normal" power consumption.

Newer generations xx50 and xx60 NVIDIA cards are a lot worse in both regards.

AMD despite being worshipped by open source fans is nowhere to be seen.

I mean there's RX 580 at the 18th position which is just a joke.

RX 6600 and RX 6800? Nowhere to be found. I guess only the Linux community buys AMD cards.

No longer supported Windows 7 still commands a 4.14% share, while all the Linux distros combined are less than a single percent.

[tildearrow]

GeForce GTX 1060 refuses to die. Lovely. Probably the best GPU ever made.

Jokes aside it's that popular because it had a decent price and "normal" power consumption.

Newer generations xx50 and xx60 NVIDIA cards are a lot worse in both regards.

AMD despite being worshipped by open source fans is nowhere to be seen.

I mean there's RX 580 at the 18th position which is just a joke.

RX 6600 and RX 6800? Nowhere to be found. I guess only the Linux community buys AMD cards.

You entirely forgot about the hundred million PlayStation 4/5 and Xbox One buyers (sure these don't run Steam but it doesn't mean that AMD's userbase exclusively consists of "Linux users").

[birdie]

You entirely forgot about the hundred million PlayStation 4/5 and Xbox One buyers (sure these don't run Steam but it doesn't mean that AMD's userbase exclusively consists of "Linux users").

Those are not PCs, so they are of zero relevance. Lastly PlayStation runs FreeBSD (?) and XBox runs a special version of Windows.

BTW, Valve has made a small change finally. Physical RAM reporting has been reorganized and looks much better now.

[Myownfriend]

Just last night my Steam library reached a new milestone. I can now play Fall Guys on Linux and I can play Devil Survivor on Wayland. About a year ago, it felt like only about half my games would reliably run, and I could only run those games in X11 because I have an Nvidia GPU. Now with much better Wayland support in Nvidia's drivers and Proton being worked on so heavily since then, the only game in my library that doesn't work is FF7 but I know it can be made to work with some fiddling.

[Ironmask]

I imagine what mostly matters is what OS a pre-built computer comes with (not just brand names, but also PC building services). I imagine most of the PC gaming market is using a pre-built of some variety or another, and they're definitely not going to touch their OS.
I think you'll only ever see this number significantly change (going from 0.92% to 1.0% is not significant, regardless of what Michael says) if existing pre-built manufacturers, or brand new ones (like System76) start shipping Linux with their systems. And of course, that's contingent on Linux being usable at all (and largely it isn't after the package manager bricks the install, which it usually does for apt and pacman). After the graphics stack is stabilized (full Wayland adoption, the Nvidia problem is solved) and we finally kill off system-bricking package managers like apt and pacman in favor of something more stable like nix, I can begin to imagine pre-builders shipping with Linux.

[birdie]

I imagine what mostly matters is what OS a pre-built computer comes with (not just brand names, but also PC building services). I imagine most of the PC gaming market is using a pre-built of some variety or another, and they're definitely not going to touch their OS.
I think you'll only ever see this number significantly change (going from 0.92% to 1.0% is not significant, regardless of what Michael says) if existing pre-built manufacturers, or brand new ones (like System76) start shipping Linux with their systems. And of course, that's contingent on Linux being usable at all (and largely it isn't after the package manager bricks the install, which it usually does for apt and pacman). After the graphics stack is stabilized (full Wayland adoption, the Nvidia problem is solved) and we finally kill off system-bricking package managers like apt and pacman in favor of something more stable like nix, I can begin to imagine pre-builders shipping with Linux.

The pre-installed OS myth among Linux fans just refuses to die

Nope, that has never been the real issue and it has almost nothing to do with Linux being (very un)popular.

The real issue is packaging and applications. In bug ridden broken malware infested Windows (all myths btw), you run an .exe and it. just. works.

Wake me up when it's the case with Linux. In year 2122 maybe?

[Linuxxx]

The pre-installed OS myth among Linux fans just refuses to die

Nope, that has never been the real issue and it has almost nothing to do with Linux being (very un)popular.

The real issue is packaging and applications. In bug ridden broken malware infested Windows (all myths btw), you run an .exe and it. just. works.

Wake me up when it's the case with Linux. In year 2122 maybe?

The only hope I have left for Linux to take off on the desktop rests squarely on Valve's shoulders with the public release of SteamOS 3.0.
If the average Steam-gamers find out that it provides a pleasent gaming experience OOTB, then maybe it could (very slowly) increase overall marketshare of Linux.

However, for that to happen they need to provide an easy means of switching to the performance governor on desktop PCs, else Windows gamers will quickly find out that Linux has even more stutters during gameplay, thanks to unimprovable schedutil.

[NobodyXu]

The pre-installed OS myth among Linux fans just refuses to die

Nope, that has never been the real issue and it has almost nothing to do with Linux being (very un)popular.

The real issue is packaging and applications. In bug ridden broken malware infested Windows (all myths btw), you run an .exe and it. just. works.

Wake me up when it's the case with Linux. In year 2122 maybe?

There's appimage, where you can run it just by one click.

Most websites provide Windows installer, not one click runnable exe, I think the same kind of Linux installer can be done if somebody wants to, auto invoking package managers to install stuff and install the app.

[birdie]

The only hope I have left for Linux to take off on the desktop rests squarely on Valve's shoulders with the public release of SteamOS 3.0.
If the average Steam-gamers find out that it provides a pleasent gaming experience OOTB, then maybe it could (very slowly) increase overall marketshare of Linux.

However, for that to happen they need to provide an easy means of switching to the performance governor on desktop PCs, else Windows gamers will quickly find out that Linux has even more stutters during gameplay, thanks to unimprovable schedutil.

The OS of Steam Handheld is irrelevant and will not make Linux more or less popular because people just do not care. How many people around you know and understand what Android is? How many of them are aware that it contains the Linux kernel? 0.1%? Less than that? The same applies to this handheld.

If this handheld becomes really popular, of course Linux fans will use it as an opportunity to boast only it's effing stupid and has zero merit. How's the Linux kernel in Android improved desktop Linux overall? It hasn't.

Proton will surely get better and better at running Windows games - that's the only positive outcome only it's a very dubious one.

That will mean desktop Linux will get better at running alien software. Wow, great. Not at all. It's like celebrating how beautifully VirtualBox works under Linux.