Steam Survey Results For November 2024: Linux Gaming Marketshare Slightly Higher

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  • Espionage724
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2024
    • 387

    #31
    Originally posted by tenchrio View Post

    Okay, and just follow me on this one.
    What if, just WHAT IF the HID Drivers for the touch screen aren't loaded in during the install like how this person experienced during a Windows 10 install on the Microsoft Surface 3 (I'm guessing you would say, clearly an incompatible and old device that Microsoft had no way of testing in 2015) or like with this one where someone had the same issue with the Surface 9 and a Win 11 recovery image but used another Surface 9 to create the recovery image once with and without checking the box "include options from this computer" (clearly he has to do it from the Surface with the broken install not from another one), don't they know it just works™.

    I installed Windows 10 ARM, the official image, to a OnePlus 6 Android phone. And ironically that was more usable for games than postmarketOS with real Linux (XDA post) And I was playing World of Warcraft, retail, 50 FPS no problem on that.

    I don't know what the argument is exactly, but Windows is plenty-installable to devices without a keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen

    Heck, I could toss that W10 phone as-is to a controller dock like Switch, and I had Deck-Lite (someone did this also with WoW on a OnePlus 7 Windows 11 ARM). X86 would make that unstoppable
    Last edited by Espionage724; 02 December 2024, 04:05 PM.

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    • Tuxee
      Senior Member
      • Aug 2010
      • 335

      #32
      Disappointing.

      Was looking forward to the usual HEL88 BS and now that... No HEL88 troll postings. Not a single one. Luckily avis/birdie took on the mantle and delivered.

      Comment

      • tenchrio
        Senior Member
        • Sep 2022
        • 173

        #33
        Originally posted by Espionage724 View Post
        I installed Windows 10 ARM, the official image, to a OnePlus 6 Android phone. And ironically that was more usable for games than postmarketOS with real Linux (XDA post) And I was playing World of Warcraft, retail, 50 FPS no problem on that.

        I don't know what the argument is exactly, but Windows is plenty-installable to devices without a keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen
        Just that the X86 iso for Windows doesn't enable the touchscreen HID drivers during the install process like how moonwalker pointed out before. Good thing it seems to be enabled for Windows 10 ARM but it is still strange Microsoft doesn't do it considering they have their own line of X86 tablets in the Surface series.

        To also go back on a previous statement of yours:
        Originally posted by Espionage724 View Post
        [*]If I had Steam Deck, I'd probably toy with SteamOS for a bit, install Fedora Workstation if I found SteamOS usable, but likely have Windows on it because... it's a portable X86 gaming console, and I know the general gist of Linux gaming enough since 2016 that Linux gaming is more about being able to do it, vs doing it well (I'm more into the form-
        Wel 2016 is in the past and in 2024, Linux tends to claim the performance spot for games.
        Steamdeck included. Certain games like Dragon Age Vanguard are Steamdeck verified before they are even released.
        Naturally this is more in some games then others and some might not run well but hey maybe games you want to play on the go do run better on SteamOS, no harm in trying.

        But it's your device and your free to put whatever OS on it that you like.
        If you're going to go for Windows anyway you could also buy one of the more recent models of MSI and ASUS their steamdeck clones, they have Windows already set up for you and come with additional programs and drivers to boost the performance. They also have more recent APUs and with current Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals it seems that at least here in Europe, the ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme 512GB goes for cheaper than the Steamdeck OLED 512GB. And Bazzite is there if you ever have the interest to run Linux on those devices with a SteamOS like interface.

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        • eltomito
          Senior Member
          • Jul 2013
          • 126

          #34
          Go, Linux, go!
          Also, 0.1% of Steam gamers uses the same distro as me! I'm not alone in this universe! *Tears of joy* (and only every other tear is sarcastic

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          • sarmad
            Senior Member
            • Jul 2013
            • 1234

            #35
            Originally posted by skeevy420 View Post
            It's not a real distribution until Valve offers it as more than a recovery image for a single device.
            I don't think that's the criteria for defining a Linux distribution. I think the criteria is the compatibility with Linux apps, and SteamOS is indeed compatible; any Steam Deck game can run on any distro, and any Linux app can run on SteamOS, therefore I consider SteamOS to be a Linux distro.

            Comment

            • Espionage724
              Senior Member
              • Sep 2024
              • 387

              #36
              Originally posted by sarmad View Post

              I don't think that's the criteria for defining a Linux distribution. I think the criteria is the compatibility with Linux apps, and SteamOS is indeed compatible; any Steam Deck game can run on any distro, and any Linux app can run on SteamOS, therefore I consider SteamOS to be a Linux distro.
              If I can't run it on regular hardware, it's not getting a distro tag from me; I didn't even consider ChromeOS a Linux distro since Google didn't allow it on non-Chromebooks (aside from some lesser-known official fork that didn't include the most useful feature of running Android apps).

              Distribution to me implies some kind of widespread usage. A single-device doesn't count

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              • moonwalker
                Senior Member
                • Dec 2013
                • 237

                #37
                Originally posted by avis View Post
                I've never claimed Linux is incapable of doing things.
                Huh? Where did that come from?
                Originally posted by avis View Post
                Linux is incapable of working reliably, for all use cases and all people (in the most recent Wayland thread people seriously told me I should abandon my DE and switch to Gnome/KDE just to get all the features of Wayland, isn't it some kind of cringe? I mean Linux used to require special hardware, now Linux needs special software to be usable? LMAO what?) and that's only a concern on the desktop. On the server it's been super strong for more than two decades now. In my company we've had servers with over 600 days of uptime (isolated, don't think we're idiots). But those servers churn data and send it via wires. They do nothing else. No UI, no graphics, no input, no audio, no video, nothing.
                You're making bold sweeping claims that are either useless, or simply untrue, and that's part of what creates a perception of you as an arrogant asshole. If you're just trolling - be my guest, keep doing that, but then it's kinda hypocritical to complain about arguments getting personal, and while I still don't condone death threats, I can see how a combination of arrogance and hypocrisy can piss someone off to the point of wanting to pound you into a bloody pulp. So my unsolicited advice to you is either stop making sweeping claims (that generally have a tendency to be untrue), or stop complaining when people express how much they hate your guts for your arrogance.

                Then to address your claim that "Linux is incapable of working reliably, for all use cases and all people" on its face value - first, lets define "reliably". If you mean 100% of the time, then while your claim would be technically correct, it would also be useless, as you're setting yourself up for a lifetime of disappointment in everything you do in life, because nothing works with 100% reliability in this universe, except for maybe laws of physics, and even that is a mere maybe - we just haven't seen them being broken as we currently know them. Second, if we accept that there is no 100% reliability and we have to compare varying degrees of reliability then your claim is immediately untrue, because of all the operating systems, at least for my use cases Linux works the best, and that means Linux is already "incapable of working reliably" not for all use cases and not for all people. And I use Linux not only on servers, but also on my work laptop, my personal laptops, my media center, handhelds, tablets, ebook reader, and smartphones (and I'm not talking Android, I'm talking Mobian). For my use cases and on my hardware Linux works exceptionally well, much better than any other operating system, and when it does fail to work as expected, most of the times I've been able to trace the breakage to something stupid I did myself. The cases when it is not a breakage resulting from my own tinkering are exceedingly rare, compared to the same Windows where I still get an occasional blue screen out of nowhere simply plugging/unplugging USB devices.

                Originally posted by avis View Post
                The reason Valve forces an immutable image on their devices is because they want to make sure people get the experience they want with as few regressions or bugs as possible. You just can't get that with run-of-the-mill Linux distributions, except maybe RHEL, which is not a suitable gaming platform due to a severely outdated software stack.
                The company I work for provides Linux desktops to our (corporate) customers. Those desktops use traditional distributions, with rootfs mounted R/W, and updates done as individual packages instead of wholesale image. To date (our service been running for over six years) we had only exactly one case where distro's updated package caused what we considered breakage of our service, and none that would cause regressions in customers' actual desktops. Except for that one distro issue, every problem our customers had over those 6+ years were due to either our own code (that tries to solve some rather non-trivial even for Windows problems - that's my excuse for our bugs), or, more often, due to either problems in customers' environments (like ridiculous segregated DNS setups, firewalls blocking more than they should, non-functional hosts, replication issues, expired certificates, etc., yada-yada), or end-users mucking up things they shouldn't touch (renaming hosts or changing DNS in AD environment, using VPN inappropriately, trying to override system Python version, deleting files that are critical for the service, and so on and so forth).

                My point being, with a reasonable distro choice the biggest problem of traditional R/W rootfs is not the regressions, it's the end users that have more permissions and confidence than knowledge. Shipping immutable OS images doesn't free you up from having to have a robust CI/testing infrastructure, if you don't have it you're just as likely to ship a regression in an immutable image as in traditional one. What it does free you up from is end users mucking up the core OS.

                Originally posted by avis View Post
                And I totally agree that the PC market has been dying as PC has become a luxury hobby and most people are better served by their smartphones/tablets or consoles.
                I never said PC market is dying, and I'm tired of hearing that BS. It has matured and became saturated, with some shrinking in the areas that are better served by newer form factor devices, but that's not the same as dying. Unless and until tablets and smartphones become capable of fully replacing laptops and desktops for all use cases, or there is some new form factor or paradigm gets invented that can do the same things only PC can but better, the PC market will keep on living in the niche it carved out for itself. And I do include Macs under PC umbrella, because while they're no longer x86-based, functionally they still serve the same purpose - large screen(s), more efficient keyboard/mouse based input, larger power and thermal budgets for more CPU/GPU performance, more flexible I/O options.
                Last edited by moonwalker; 03 December 2024, 12:07 AM.

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                • moonwalker
                  Senior Member
                  • Dec 2013
                  • 237

                  #38
                  Originally posted by avis View Post
                  You're correct with Windows you get all the drivers you need granted your hardware is not ancient.
                  Stop making shit up and re-read my message, that's not what I wrote. And the main point there was that you should be comparing apples to apples, not apples to sugar cane. The closest equivalent of installing any general purpose OS on a Steam Deck is one of those all-in-one-sans-keyboard-and-mouse computers, not a PS5.

                  Originally posted by avis View Post
                  When you install an average Linux distro on your SteamDeck its multiple feature just won't work at all. It looks like the Steam Linux kernel is heavily patched: https://static.sched.com/hosted_file...ss-eu-2023.pdf

                  I glanced over this PDF, and it looks like SteamOS is kind of like a "standard" Linux distro, except it has a ton of extra tidbits here and there.
                  Most of those extra tidbits are performance and recovery enhancements, and while highly desirable are not make or break for running an OS making use of hardware features. They are also all being upstreamed, e.g., futex2 was upstreamed in 5.16, if I'm not mistaken.

                  Originally posted by avis View Post
                  Yep, I can install Windows on a Steam Deck no problem, detach the keyboard and it will work. Windows has come with a software keyboard since Windows 7 or something while the vast majority of Linux distros don't provide it out of the box and I'm far from sure it will work for your DE screen even if you install it. No such issue with SteamOS.
                  KDE Plasma has on-screen keyboard, and it works just fine. It even pops up on screen automatically when DE detects no physical keyboard attached and focus is given to a text edit widget, unlike stock SteamOS keyboard that needs to be explicitly called up on with a gamepad shortcut. Not sure about desktop-oriented GNOME shell as I've never used it on touch screen devices, but Posh definitely has touch screen keyboard and it also works fine. And then there is still Steam on-screen keyboard, which is what SteamOS uses by default, and that should, at least in theory, work with any other DE.
                  Originally posted by avis View Post
                  BTW, it's called SteamOS, not Steam Linux OS.
                  You're the first one I've ever seen to use the name "Steam Linux OS", sober up.

                  Comment

                  • moonwalker
                    Senior Member
                    • Dec 2013
                    • 237

                    #39
                    Originally posted by Espionage724 View Post
                    If I had Steam Deck, I'd probably toy with SteamOS for a bit, install Fedora Workstation if I found SteamOS usable, but likely have Windows on it because... it's a portable X86 gaming console, and I know the general gist of Linux gaming enough since 2016 that Linux gaming is more about being able to do it, vs doing it well (I'm more into the form-factor and hardware vs the software bits making that hardware work well)

                    If I had PCVR still, I'm not convinced Linux can be usable for that better than Windows. Linux is too-much about slower abstraction to make stuff easier for people (Lutris, Proton, Steam, Wayland, Brtfs, CoW, etc) and it's tiring after a while to have to workaround around each piece of newly introduced slower tech
                    I've tried using Windows on my Steam Deck, and while I didn't go through my whole collection (that would take way too long), the games I did benchmark were actually running either at almost exactly the same speed, or a bit faster on SteamOS than on Windows, with no noticeable to me difference in quality. Not only that, but some games were running faster on Steam Deck with its older APU running SteamOS than on something like GPD WinMax 2 with newer and supposedly more powerful 7840u APU running Windows 11. Obviously, I was comparing using exactly the same graphics settings, or at least as the same as I could control for.

                    Granted, I did that benchmarking a whole year ago, so it is possible 7840u Windows drivers have since been optimized and may outperform SteamOS on Steam Deck if I were to benchmark it now.

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                    • moonwalker
                      Senior Member
                      • Dec 2013
                      • 237

                      #40
                      Originally posted by tenchrio View Post
                      Just that the X86 iso for Windows doesn't enable the touchscreen HID drivers during the install process like how moonwalker pointed out before.
                      Small correction - I wasn't even installing Windows 11 on a touchscreen device, it was a bog-standard touchpad that Windows didn't recognize out of the box. And it was the latest at the time (23H2, I believe?) Windows ISO on a laptop that's neither bleeding edge, nor severely outdated, and was originally shipped with Windows 11 (HP EliteBook 860 G9).

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