Steam On Linux Usage Spikes To Nearly 2% In July, Larger Marketshare Than Apple macOS

[MirkoDPeterpan]

Sadly I'm not in the stats, as I run Windows 10 in a KVM vm with gpu passthrough.

[mrjayviper]

Recently installed opensuse for gaming and I'm getting 10fps loss in total Warhammer 3.

[Tuxee]

Nice try clutching at straws. Reread my post about the stuff in Control Panel.

If not the control panel what else is there about the GUI applications of an OS? Besides, where does the control panel end? Since you said

and much of Control Panel has been moved to the new Settings

Depending on the topic the first click in the cp might send you to a Win 7 dialog - or worse. Looking at the IP settings of the "modern" cp - it can't fit 8 settings on a frickin' FHD screen. (The beloved update dialog is another UX cruelty...)

Point is: You don't have to dig to find plenty of UI and UX atrocities in Win 11.

[Sonadow]

OSes only get shifted in large numbers when they are shipped by default on proper hardware. The recent spike in LInux gaming user base only happened after Valve started shipping Linux on a proper hardware. So, 3% desktop market share is actually a rather high number for Linux, considering that almost 3% of all PC users chose to get out of their way to install Linux on their machines.
But guess what, what happened with Valve may eventually happen with some laptop vendor as well, because any company that wants to enter the PC space with their own unique experience will have no option other than using Linux since it's the only open OS that is mainstream enough. That's why I think Linux will eventually surpass macOS in market share, just like Android surpassed iOS in market share despite iOS's head start and premium hardware.

Most gamers in their right mind won't use Linux when the driver system is Linux is completely fucked up.

The only OS in the world where upgrading drivers or requiring new hardware support mean upgrading the OS, its system files and the kernel instead of installing a simple driver package.

Or when you build software in Ubuntu 23.04 that makes calls to glibc and can't use that software in Ubuntu 22.10 because that binary is tied to the fucking newer version of glibc it is built with. Again, Linux is the only OS in the world where targeting older systems means having to build and develop on that fucking older system. So if I need to build an application that uses Qt6 and glibc, and it needs to support old distributions all the way back to Debian 9, what am I supposed to do? Install Debian 9 in a VM and fucking compile Qt6 from source, then do my development there?

Try telling a Windows developer that if he wants his software to be usable on Windows 7, he needs to build his software in Windows 7 and not that new PC running Windows 11. Or a macOS developer that to build apps that work with macOS 10.9, they need to do their development on macOS 10.9 and not on their new Macs running macOS 11.7. See if they tell you to GTFO and stop wasting their time.

[discordian]

If you want to build for older version you just need to use a toolchain for that. The system toolchain builds for the system.

[Isaac Dias]

Doom Eternal and Dead Space Remastered running here at 140 fps on Steam.
2K resolution and 5:1 sound.
Both running on Arch Linux, as smooth as runs on Windoze.

[HEL88]

Ok and what is the takeaway from this message?

You really do not know? Can't you translate simple numbers into conclusions? OK.

That the increase in popularity is based solely on Deck, not on desktop Linux, whose popularity is stagnant.

[dreamcat4]

my opinion is that (as a baseline) we are doing at least average / ok so far by maintaining a similar overall level of market share. since the market has grown linux has also at a similar rate. so that means we remain in the game. so to speak. and whilst in the face of everybody else's latest and greatest innovations elsewhere on other platforms.

however you could instead take some viewpoint and see maybe the 42% steam deck share as 'propping that up' and hiding some level of shrinking share. that could be true in part, but it would also be wise to consider windows based and android based mobile gaming devices too. and see how much those ones also contributed to overall 'total growth'. which would then partially offset that 42% figure...

anyhow i am getting away from my main point:

it seems a few months ago. at or before the release of the steam deck we had the tech press try to 'jump onto' linux gaming. and re-evaluate it. to try and determine how 'ready' it was for prime time. and the general outcome was walking away with a general feeling that it overall still wasn't good enough yet.

and this was i believe a fair assessment (at that time). however the main issue there was that the individual tech press outfits were each so desperate to 'pre-empt' each other to cover the story. that they all jumped 'too soon'. and then found it wasn't quite there yet. and then totally lost interest, and caved back to windows.

and this happened before a lot of recent and continued major improvements, innovations and fixes in the linux space. which are still very much ongoing. not only that, they also all choose some pretty ill-suited distros for newcomers. which either were too old, too new, and encountered other types of issues. however by this time, a lot of those earlier more cutting edge stuff has all trickled down and become adopted into the more stable and newcomer friendly distros.

so now that news cycle already burnt itself out, every windows user who watched those videos with the many scary failures or issues with linux (that wasn't even normally about gaming support). it all left that lasting impression that linux is too difficult still. only for geeks and all that.

wheras steam deck release is more like heh! ... this thing is actually basically a console. so that does not actually replace a windows gamer to switch over to linux. it just replaces a console gamer (for example nintendo switch). and very often they might equally consider the asus rog ally (which is windows based os).

so here we have it. linux proton support has become pretty great now all things considered. and is available now via steam flatpak. and epic has heroic launcher support now. and there is that recent pr to also support other things like gog or amazon prime gaming within heroic too. it's all moving along to a much nicer frictionless spit and polish.

it's never been easier with an amd gpu. however nvidia support for major features on linux such as broadcast ai features or their dlls is also still remains missing.

so just like with the tech press from a few months previous - i say it is still 'too early' to judge. and it takes time for people to come around, or gradually notice how things have gotten to now. especially since there are quite a few different projects and individual software elements which together all come together in a sort of ad-hoc fashion to then constitute a good overall linux gaming experience. and being unaware of individual elements makes it harder for windows gamers to actually identify what is missing or lacking on a deployed system. it's all a bit complex still compared to windows. so the learning curve isn't a single line. it's multiple parallel learning curves. if you also need to learn bash / cmdline at the same time aswell. or learn how flatpaks works. or learn how arch aur works to even install the right system level drivers. or learn the difference between open gpu drivers versus closed source counterparts. or vaapi for video decoding. so many parallel things a windows user is going to get hit with all simultaneously. like an information overload...

hopefully this is clear why it is too soon to judge. because while proton and steam games support has vastly improved. we still have some major other transitions in play. including adoption of wayland, or adoption of flatpaks. and adoption of pipewire. and needs better nvidia drivers (or noveau gpu clock speed unlocking). and several other major things to still get sorted out properly.

another hurdle is multiplayer online gaming - the eac support is not provided on a large portion of popular modern games. for example i have purchased bf2042 **twice** now (after fogetting i already had it, since never could play it here on linux). and even though the proton support is now completely nailed on that game... ea still refuses to enable the eac support for linux. so that's another significant hurdle. whereby the underlying technical challenge is not the real underlying problem here. because it's more a question of the times we live in and accepted norms in terms of community support. or what users are demanding.

[HEL88]

So, 3% desktop market share is actually a rather high number for Linux, considering that almost 3% of all PC users chose to get out of their way to install Linux on their machines.
.

I have the impression that only IT employees use linux, not normal users.

And sometimes the families of IT employees are forced to use linux. Eg I forced linux on my sister . But I only use Windows now (since WSL I got rid of linux on my main computers).

[theme118]

I have the impression that only IT employees use linux, not normal users.

And sometimes the families of IT employees are forced to use linux. Eg I forced linux on my sister . But I only use Windows now (since WSL I got rid of linux on my main computers).

In my case is somehow as you said. They want me to maintain its systems so ok but with my conditions and the first condition is that I refuse to maintain any close source. So, if they want my services they must do it on my way. There's no chance or discussion and if they don't want it it's ok, any technician has the right to survive repairing PC.