Steam Linux Marketshare Surges To Nearly 2% In November

[OskarG]

It just amazes me how the best desktop system (the most trouble-free, with the best software, the fastest and safest, plus you can have it for FREE) that is Linux has such a hard time in the desktop market and is so slow to conquer it. Because from what I remember it used to have 2% on Steam, but it fell.

My theory is that Linux is shining so strong that people are going blind at the sight of it.

Maybe Or people just use what is on the computer when they buy it. I installed Mint on an old computer and gave to my mom. She has been happily using it for close to 8 years now. And the number of support calls I get from her dropped to almost nothing. As long as she can click icons and get her browser, mail etc. she couldn't care less what is under the hood. A lot of Steam users are probably just following the path right in front of them, barely even aware there are alternatives or how to try them out.

[highball]

Oh, so we're actually believing the data this time. I guess it's only "questionable" when the number goes down.

The data is questionable because Valve can't get their data consistent when adding the Chinese market. How can you establish a trend with wild swings from inconsistent data sources. Look at the https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/ SteamTracker. If you go to the English Only section, there is a very consistent trend. Exactly what one would expect. If Valve's random self check'in occasionally samples large numbers of the Chinese market which is almost purely Windows, then maybe Valve should also include those numbers. Or, Valve should be more consistent with reporting on the Chinese numbers. Otherwise, all you can really loosely trust is the YoY trend.

[Daktyl198]

If you use the words 'fairly impressive' for 2.4 million, what would you use for 115 million?

2.4 is very little. If all Linux users bought the AAA game, the sales result would be considered a complete failure.

2% of the market after 10 years is a poor result, not an impressive one.

Again, you're failing to take into account both context and statistics. Context being that until Valve improved Proton to the state it is now, there basically wasn't any gaming on Linux. Valve made Steam available on Linux, but "gaming" was limited to the indie games that decided to make Linux native builds which was very, very few. This meant that, overall, very few Linux users ever used Steam until recently. Instead of counting from 10 years ago, you should be counting from the release of the Steam Deck, which was when Valve decided that Proton was ready for widespread release.

And as for statistics, Linux only has about 5% of the desktop market share (if you don't count ChromeOS), and it's users have always generally been believed to be old, super techy people. The fact that the Steam charts are rising to match the global desktop marketshare means good things about both Linux, and the type of people using it. Overall, Linux users are more likely to use Steam and game on it than Windows users.

Not to mention, not that long ago the Linux desktop market share was only 2%. If the Linux developers could get their heads out of their asses long enough to do a bunch of bugfix/polish releases rather than constantly competing for the newest feature, that number could rise slowly but surely with everything Microsoft is doing with Windows 11.

[Volta]

Please come back at me when you're ready to argue using facts, best industry practices and research.

Your message doesn't contain anything other than low level ridicule.

You got so many proves how Windows security is non existent and you're still trolling? Last time you were saying Linux is hard coded up to 8 cores. I hope this sums you up. If you want me to paste hundred of times about how Windows is insecure, here you go:

https://thehackernews.com/2023/11/researchers-find-34-windows-drivers.html

As many as 34 unique vulnerable Windows Driver Model (WDM) and Windows Driver Frameworks (WDF) drivers could be exploited by non-privileged threat actors to gain full control of the devices and execute arbitrary code on the underlying systems.

"By exploiting the drivers, an attacker without privilege may erase/alter firmware, and/or elevate [operating system] privileges," Takahiro Haruyama, a senior threat researcher at VMware Carbon Black, said.

Some of the bellow are remote code execution which are the most critical security holes:

https://www.calcomsoftware.com/windows-swerver-vulnerabilities/

.

1. Zerologon vulnerability- CVE-2020-1472
2. Microsoft DNS vulnerability – CVE-2020-1350
3. DirectX Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability – CVE-2018-8554
4. Windows Text Shaping Remote Code Execution Vulnerability – CVE-2021-40465
5. Windows CryptoAPI Spoofing Vulnerability – CVE-2020-0601
6. Windows Win32k Elevation of Privileges Vulnerability – CVE-2021-1732
7. Azure AD Web Sign-in Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability – CVE-2021-27092
8. Windows WLAN Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability – CVE-2021-1646
9. Kerberos KDC Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability – CVE-2020-17049
10. Windows Spoofing Vulnerability – CVE-2020-16922

Another laughable windows 'security':

Exploiting the weak Windows authentication protocols is on the top of the list for any adversary, because it mostly relies on a design flaw in the protocol itself, moreover, it is easy and could allow the adversary to get access to remote systems with almost no alert from most systems such as an IPS, AV, etc.

In this series of articles, I would like to go through the details of some authentication attacks such as SMB relay attack, pass the hash, pass the token, LM/NTLM cracking and others. In this article, I will start with SMB relay attack, it is one of the most common and powerful technique to get access to a fully patched and secure system.

https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/topics/penetration-testing/exploiting-windows-authentication-protocols-part-01/

Another one and MS didn't want to mark it critical:

Microsoft is patching a serious flaw in various versions of Windows today after the National Security Agency (NSA) discovered and reported a security vulnerability in Microsoft’s handling of certificate and cryptographic messaging functions in Windows. The flaw, which hasn’t been marked critical by Microsoft, could allow attackers to spoof the digital signature tied to pieces of software, allowing unsigned and malicious code to masquerade as legitimate software.

And here's the testament to windows insecurity:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-still-insecure-after-all-these-years/

Why hasn't Microsoft ever gotten its security act together? The fundamental problem is that Windows was never, ever meant to work on a network. It worked as a standalone PC operating system. And, even today, 37 years later, the same pre-internet problems keep showing up. Unix and Linux started with the premise that there's more than one user on the system, and you need to secure accounts and programs from other users, local or remote. This has served these operating systems well.

Take, for example, Microsoft recently patched zero-day remote code execution Windows Scripting Languages Remote Code Execution Vulnerability, CVE-2022-41128, With a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) rating of 8.8, it's a baddie. This is a Windows JavaScript scripting language security hole. Specifically, it's a hole in Internet Explorer (IE) 11's JScript9 JavaScript engine.

It's a nasty one. It affects every version of currently supported Windows. That includes everything from Windows 8.1 to all the various Windows Servers and Windows 11. Since it showed up, North Korean hackers exploited it to infect South Korean users with malware.

It works by presenting the victims with a malicious document. When an innocent opens the document, it then downloads a rich text file (RTF) remote template. The HTML inside would then be rendered by the IE engine. Then -- ta-da! -- you've got a case of some malware or the other.

The Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) that found it said, "This technique has been widely used to distribute IE exploits via Office files since 2017. Delivering IE exploits via this vector has the advantage of not requiring the target to use Internet Explorer as its default browser."

Oh, guys, it is so, so much older than that. I described this kind of problem in the long-defunct magazine PC Sources in 1992 when I found it in Windows for WorkGroup 3.1. Then, as now, Windows and its native programs treated document data as programming instructions.

Write this down as if you were going to gibberish again about how windows is a safe system.

[skeevy420]

A troll and an anti-vaxer in the same thread?

All I need now is a flat-earther and I will have internet moron bingo!

Earth isn't flat, it's concave. Why do you think the water doesn't flow off the sides? You see, 200,000 years ago there were two giant space turtles doing their thing when one crashed into the real earth and died; breaking the earth into multiple pieces. The other turtle saved all he could by using his partner's shell as a reservoir to hold as much earth, water, people, etc that could fit and placed it on his back. Because he's so large his gravitational pull keeps us neatly tucked inside the concave shell. That's why we live in a concave earth. Flat earthers need to pick up a science book and learn some physics.

Flat earth+the turtle's gravity=no water

Concave earth+the turtle's gravity=water and continents

And boom goes the dynamite.

[Volta]

It just amazes me how the best desktop system (the most trouble-free, with the best software, the fastest and safest, plus you can have it for FREE) that is Linux has such a hard time in the desktop market and is so slow to conquer it. Because from what I remember it used to have 2% on Steam, but it fell.

My theory is that Linux is shining so strong that people are going blind at the sight of it.

It was explained to you many times: Microsoft had a monopoly. Most important desktop and business applications were created for Microsoft. People have become so familiar with Microsoft that they are afraid of change. Therefore, even Apple has a huge problem to gain comparable market share. More importantly, Apple's first products were well ahead of Windows, but that didn't help them. Their market share has always been pitifully low. Linux is fragmented and this is both its strength and weakness. SteamOS, ChromeOS and Android are so successful because they are single products, unlike dozens of Linux distributions (Ubuntu took a similar approach with Unity and gained momentum - it was used in restaurants and many other places, but they screwed up by abandoning Unity). However, the success of these derivatives would not have been possible if Linux had been a single product from the beginning. Fortunately, everything is on the right track. SteamOS uses the same stack as a typical Linux distro and its success, improvements are immediately translated to individual distros. The same cannot be said for Android or ChromeOS, which use a different stack and are only important from a prestige point of view. To sum up, Linux has a chance to break down the wall thanks to SteamOS. Thanks to the Valve system, users will become familiar with Linux, and Linux itself will significantly advance in graphics support.

[anda_skoa]

It’s divided into way too many distros with heterogeneous ways of installing softwares, often needing way too much technical knowledge for the average joe. Especially for commercial software install where it’s way too obscure.

You've got to be kidding?!

1) Start Steam
2) Add game to library (commercial or not)
3) Click install
4) Wait for download to be completed
5) Launch game

This is not different on any Linux distribution.
It is even the same steps on Windows.

I don't know about macOS but I would bet it is the same steps there as well.

Cheers,
_

[akira128]

The Earth is flat because the governments and the elites of the world want to keep us in the dark about the truth.

They use fake satellites, CGI images, and brainwashing media to make us believe that we live on a spherical planet that orbits the sun. But the reality is that the Earth is a flat disc surrounded by a giant ice wall that protects us from the unknown.

The sun and the moon are just lights in the sky that move in a circular pattern above the flat Earth. The stars are also part of this illusion, and some of them are actually alien spacecrafts that monitor our activities.

The reason why the governments and the elites lie to us is because they want to control us and exploit our resources. They also want to hide the fact that there are other lands and civilizations beyond the ice wall, some of which are more advanced and powerful than ours.

They fear that if we discover the truth, we will rebel against them and join forces with the other flat Earthers.

That is why they have created a secret society called the Illuminati, which is behind all the major events and conspiracies in the world.

They also have agents and shills who infiltrate and discredit the flat Earth movement, such as NASA, the UN, and the mainstream scientists. They will stop at nothing to maintain their deception and domination.

But we, the flat Earthers, are not fooled by their lies. We have done our own research and experiments, and we have found evidence that supports the flat Earth theory. We have also exposed their agenda and their methods of manipulation.

We are the ones who know the truth, and we will not be silenced.

We are the ones who will expose the flat Earth to the world, and we will not be stopped.

We are the flat Earth revolution.

Bingo!!!

[timofonic]

A troll and an anti-vaxer in the same thread?

All I need now is a flat-earther and I will have internet moron bingo!

The Earth is flat because the governments and the elites of the world want to keep us in the dark about the truth.

They use fake satellites, CGI images, and brainwashing media to make us believe that we live on a spherical planet that orbits the sun. But the reality is that the Earth is a flat disc surrounded by a giant ice wall that protects us from the unknown.

The sun and the moon are just lights in the sky that move in a circular pattern above the flat Earth. The stars are also part of this illusion, and some of them are actually alien spacecrafts that monitor our activities.

The reason why the governments and the elites lie to us is because they want to control us and exploit our resources. They also want to hide the fact that there are other lands and civilizations beyond the ice wall, some of which are more advanced and powerful than ours.

They fear that if we discover the truth, we will rebel against them and join forces with the other flat Earthers.

That is why they have created a secret society called the Illuminati, which is behind all the major events and conspiracies in the world.

They also have agents and shills who infiltrate and discredit the flat Earth movement, such as NASA, the UN, and the mainstream scientists. They will stop at nothing to maintain their deception and domination.

But we, the flat Earthers, are not fooled by their lies. We have done our own research and experiments, and we have found evidence that supports the flat Earth theory. We have also exposed their agenda and their methods of manipulation.

We are the ones who know the truth, and we will not be silenced.

We are the ones who will expose the flat Earth to the world, and we will not be stopped.

We are the flat Earth revolution.

[drakonas777]

Please come back at me when you're ready to argue using facts, best industry practices and research.

Your message doesn't contain anything other than low level ridicule.

You have not provided any facts, evidences or researches regarding your statements about Windows being more secure in this thread, so perhaps you should dial down your hypocrite knob a bit.

I'm sure you will post some arbitrary Linux kernel bug list now which proves nothing about being less secure than Windows. Don't forget to bring in your best "argument" that you made several contributions so you are automatically correct Also ignore and block everyone, who destroys you on logic level, as you always do.