At This Rate, Don't Be Surprised If You See Steam Soon

[b15hop]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine

Just to use wiki as an example of VM.

[devius]

Gaming is just one aspect of owning a PC. You may not play games, but a lot of people do. Mac OS X is a secure, malware/spyware/virus free OS, but you don't see people going crazy to install it. Hackintosh or not, Mac lacks games as well, and you don't see people rushing out to replace Windows.

Actually I do see it. A few years ago (10 or so) only some designers used macs, and now more and more "mainstream" people are buying them. It has to mean something. I have no idea what the market for games is like on the PC front, but judging by the circa 60% market share of integrated graphics I'd say that leaves about 30% for people that buy hardware for games. People who buy hardware for gaming probably do a lot of gaming, and thus that is a very important part of thei PC usage. I'm guessing that someone with integrated graphics probably doesn't take gaming very seriously, so they are more likely to not being restrained to an OS because of gaming alone. Little by little, a part fo this group of people will begin to find other alternatives due to all the negative things that come with windows.

I don't... So you're saying that 1% isn't accurate, but you don't mind not having more Windows users switching, cause they'll ruin your Linux.

I don't get it.

I'm not saying that it would be great to have all the world population on linux, just that that 1% figure that keeps being spread over the years isn't accurate. BTW, I also didn't like the anti-virus running and still having virus and spyware make its way into my PC, so that was the main reason I switched. Since I didn't have time to game anyway it didn't make much of a difference to me. Over the years I found a lot of other advantages to using linux and so it became permanent (i.e. wiped windows of the hard drive).

What are they doing?

Beats me! They keep saying that bugs have been fixed and improvements have been made but for me it's always the same.

[Dukenukemx]

Actually I do see it. A few years ago (10 or so) only some designers used macs, and now more and more "mainstream" people are buying them. It has to mean something.

Macs are more popular now, but it's mainly due to the fact that Macs are like a social status. Like the Nike shoes of today.

It's certainly much easier to own a Mac today. Applications like FireFox, VLC, and OpenOffice are popular tools that you'll find on both Mac and Windows. So it makes it easier for users to make the transition to other OS's, even Linux.

Which is why Wine is so important, because it makes the transition to Linux easier.

I have no idea what the market for games is like on the PC front, but judging by the circa 60% market share of integrated graphics I'd say that leaves about 30% for people that buy hardware for games. People who buy hardware for gaming probably do a lot of gaming, and thus that is a very important part of thei PC usage. I'm guessing that someone with integrated graphics probably doesn't take gaming very seriously, so they are more likely to not being restrained to an OS because of gaming alone. Little by little, a part fo this group of people will begin to find other alternatives due to all the negative things that come with windows.

You'd be surprised. A lot of game developers don't make games exclusively for PC, and focus mainly on Xbox 360 and PS3. Since these consoles are the lowest common denominator, PC gaming doesn't need much hardware to play games. So long as the graphics chip is from AMD or Nvidia, you'll find that games will run just fine. Even Intel is decent enough to play today's games.

Microsoft knew that gaming as a big part of Windows, which is why they created Direct X, years ago. Many gamers had hoped that Steam would make its way over to Linux, cause a lot of people would have made the switch. It would have brought serious gaming on Linux.

This is pretty much how the gaming community sees this.