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

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  • blackiwid
    Senior Member
    • Jul 2008
    • 2058

    #41
    Originally posted by avis View Post
    Meanwhile Linux has had 30 years to increase its market share and it hasn't increased much at all. Around 2% give or take.
    1. it's (steam) gaming marketshare not Linux Marketshare, places that measure Linux market share as example with browsers, show a recent growth around the last 2 years.
    2. Let's think of a other market comparison let's say Walmart vs a small store in the Area or "market" to use the old metaphor, usually the big corporation that bribes the government or corrupts them can crush this small stores and they get smaller and have less and less market share, and if they build 10% more stores the small stores closes some of there's here it's the opposite if Walmart opens 10% more this small stores (Linux) opens up also 10% more stores successfully and not only locally but worldwide.

    I think that is a success, meanwhile this Walmart has other competitions like Aldi (Playstation) yet this Walmart also bought now big food producing companies and they would earn more if they also sell this products to as much stores as possible, so even selling them to the small stores would earn maybe eventually Wallmart more than trying to crush them.

    I am not worried, things take a while AMD needed 10-15 years to get the ATI drivers in a good state not even close to perfect they slowly getting near there, why would valve be there in 2 years since the steamdeck is out? It was a big stepping stone compared to the steam machines that totally failed, so give it time.

    Also I think the real opportunity to gain Market share is with new Windows Releases, Windows 11 came out 2021 there was no steamdeck at least available, and even if it would been announced nobody knew prices and if it had not proven that it works / is great, also of course it's by very few used as all-purpose PC but more a appliance not even as gaming pc only... so we will need a mix of extending the use cases like VR is in the making and maybe get some other form factors, maybe steam deck Notebooks...

    It takes a while, now I personally use also Linux on my gaming PC that uses a rx 5600xt but I thought about not upgrade it, at all, currently the hardwareprices even used are to high for me and the question becomes does it make sense to upgrade both systems in the future. So with a normal user using Windows on that machine they might have the same question.

    But again most people don't "change a running system" but do or buy different decisions they already made when it's time to replace the Os or PC. Now because there are no Steam Deck Laptops preinstalled, there will not be soon a growth to 20% still having to manually install it, is a huge burden, but could it come to 4% steam deck numbers by some users install it, sure.

    Also I suspect because mostly high Chinese Numbers hurt the Linux numbers always, in the West so locally it already grows and not only the world wide numbers matter but if it can grow in certain countries it proofs that it can grow everywhere.

    And there is also a concept of leading markets if as example in the US certain trends happen often months or years later you see in other markets similar trends and I wouldn't call China as a leading market, MS might have high market share in China, but how much of the licenses are bought and how much do they pay on average per license 2 dollar? So it's not a very profitable / valuable market share.

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    • skeevy420
      Senior Member
      • May 2017
      • 8656

      #42
      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.
      The simplest criteria for a Linux distribution is that it can run on multiple devices and that it is mass distributed. SteamOS is neither of those. SteamOS is only available for a single device as a recovery image. There are no installers or ISOs that other people can mirror to ensure that SteamOS will always be available like any one of us could do for any Linux distribution. That's the difference between RHEL and SLED being Operating Systems and Fedora and OpenSUSE being Distributions.

      The other problem with your assessment is that "Steam Deck" games are simply Steam Games. They were running on Linux desktops using Steam years before the Steam Deck existed. Any Steam game that runs on Linux will also run on the Steam Deck. The problem with that very broad statement is that LTS like RHEL, SLED, and even the OG SteamOS are in that list and they don't run all games on Linux. Only New Linux like Fedora and Arch can accomplish that.

      There's also the niggling issue of SteamOS. I mean the original Debian-based SteamOS that's still an actual distribution and still being distributed. It doesn't run the majority of Steam games. The Steam Deck is Valve's way of prototyping SteamOS before rolling it out to everyone. They really, really fucked up with their first attempt at creating SteamOS. By not distributing the next iteration of SteamOS to the masses they'll be able to have a lot more control than they did when they rolled out what was essentially Debian with Steam preinstalled over a decade ago.

      When it finally leaves the Deck and is available for general purpose computers then it'll go from a prototype OS to a distribution.

      Yeah, they picked Debian as a gaming OS 11 years ago. It works as brilliantly as that idea sounds.

      Comment

      • sbivol
        Junior Member
        • Apr 2016
        • 26

        #43
        Originally posted by avis View Post
        Can it run any other Linux distro and everything will work right out of the box without a heavy amount of tinkering? No.
        Mine runs Kubuntu 24.04 and I find it quite usable. This was not the case with 22.04, which simply didn't work.
        But you're right, the amount of Deck features that don't run properly (or at all) on mainline Linux is staggering, especially contrasted to Microsoft's Surface laptops which are generally flawless with Linux out of the box.

        Comment

        • stiiixy
          Senior Member
          • Jan 2009
          • 1397

          #44
          Originally posted by sbivol View Post
          ...
          especially contrasted to Microsoft's Surface laptops which are generally flawless with Linux out of the box.

          When did this happen 🤪

          I remember the first few models being particularly aggressively anti-linux.
          Hi

          Comment

          • sbivol
            Junior Member
            • Apr 2016
            • 26

            #45
            Originally posted by stiiixy View Post
            I remember the first few models being particularly aggressively anti-linux.
            Maybe you remember the Surface tablets? I have the Surface Laptop Go and it works perfectly, the battery lasts 6-8 hours with normal use.
            I even flashed its firmware from Linux.
            Power profiles are supported, which is not true for the Deck.

            Comment

            • stiiixy
              Senior Member
              • Jan 2009
              • 1397

              #46
              Possibly was the tablet models. I just remember staying clear because MS and the reports coming in, it was a bit of effort to get going. This was ten years ago.
              Hi

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