Valve Publishes October Steam Hardware Survey

[DarkFoss]

Well, that's nice, but gaming is the problem. I keep Windows only for games, and I know at least 20 people who do. And looking around the internet I do not think we're that unique.

Same here I run FAH and game in 3D so I boot Windows.. I don't dual-boot these days too much hassle with UEFI, my favorite distro Mageia is still struggling with it last I looked in the forums so I run it virtually for now.
That said only folding is keeping me from making Linux my everyday desktop.

[Vash63]

Can we stop calling them "SteamBoxes", as if Valve were cloning Microsoft? They're Steam Machines, which is much more awesome. =)

GabeCubes.

[dee.]

This is wrong. The masses DO NOT install their own OS, only a limited amount of techies. And is even more complicated now thanks to UEFI stuff.

They buy Hardware and use what's preinstalled. And that's why Valve is making Steam machines.

Is why google has android and chromebooks.

This, exactly. Which is also why we should hope Intel's plan for Tizen Ultrabooks succeeds, as it'd bring a real desktop Linux OS (not a spyware-cloudtoy, not a gaming-media-center-console-OS, but a real general purpose desktop) to the masses, to the reach of everyday consumers who buy their computers from the same place they buy their groceries.

And ubuntu is going to be phones/tablets which should boost awareness and also it comes already preinstalled in system76 laptops, Alienware X51 and Dell and HP are expanding Ubuntu Retail Presence in China.

System76 is small beans, they've been making ubuntu machines for years, it hasn't caused a huge success for the Linux desktop and will not likely influence things much further. Dell is offering ubuntu-based computers on China markets only (plus one single developer laptop for other markets, hidden away in their online store where you have to know about it to find it). Apart from the chinese, these Ubuntu machines aren't very likely to make a huge impact.

[nightmarex]

Well the good news is I had the survey pop up today...

Anyhow. Yeah I don't expect Linux numbers to be above 2% until steambox's hit with SteamOS installed before we see >10% and even then it may take a while but with steambox's being a reality i can imagine 30-40% usage in a few years. It may never happen but a penguin lover can dream right?

[sarmad]

This, exactly. Which is also why we should hope Intel's plan for Tizen Ultrabooks succeeds, as it'd bring a real desktop Linux OS (not a spyware-cloudtoy, not a gaming-media-center-console-OS, but a real general purpose desktop) to the masses, to the reach of everyday consumers who buy their computers from the same place they buy their groceries.



System76 is small beans, they've been making ubuntu machines for years, it hasn't caused a huge success for the Linux desktop and will not likely influence things much further. Dell is offering ubuntu-based computers on China markets only (plus one single developer laptop for other markets, hidden away in their online store where you have to know about it to find it). Apart from the chinese, these Ubuntu machines aren't very likely to make a huge impact.

Well, if it makes an impact in China that will be good enough. The Chinese market is big and is growing.

[smitty3268]

Yeah, absolutely. Thank goodness when I switched to GNU/Linux 5.5 years ago there wasn't all this stupid hate towards Ubuntu, so no biased articles stopped me from getting it right the first time. I only tried other distros afterwards, and I always got back to Ubuntu. It's got its flaws, but for me it's the best distro around. I'm hoping for SteamOS to be good too and for the Steam client to continue being great on Ubuntu and the other distros.

I'm glad you're happy, but this is the exact same kind of comment most linux newbies have with whatever their first linux distro is. 10 years ago, someone would try out Mandriva as their first distro, figure out they liked linux, and then go shopping around other distros just to find out that they liked Mandriva best. It's because that's how you learned linux, and you got used to the "correct" way of doing things.

Edit: Newbie is probably the wrong word - what i mean is someone content with their system, who doesn't want to constantly tinker with it just for the hell of it. General user, i guess, rather than a tinkerer like many people on phoronix or other enthusiast sites.

[johnc]

That said only folding is keeping me from making Linux my everyday desktop.

Can you not do Folding on Linux or is the performance poor?

[aironeous]

I just experienced yesterday the opposite of what many of you complain about. My linux desktp was dead for 4 months and I was playing torchlight 2 and DOTA 2 on my laptop on windows and I was never asked to take the HW survey. I finaly had a duh moment and bought a replacement graphics card from amazon for my desktop. I installed it and I'm now back on a linux desktop using steam.
As soon as I updated steam on my linux desktop and logged in I got the HW survey.

[gens]

Gaming won't bring popularity and/or bigger usage share to Linux. Gaming is not the problem.

The problem is, if I ask now, here, which OS I should use instead of Windows 7 the following will happen:

A: - Choose Fedora!!!
B: - No Fedora is too buggy! Choose Arch!
C: - No Arch is too hard for a beginner! Choose Mint!
D: - No Mint is not supported well. Choose Ubuntu!
E: - Ubuntu? Canonical is the devil and spying on you.

So I/He/She will end up to return to Windows. So simple.

Personally when I was trying to search the web for the best Linux alternative to Windows, I was bumping on articles that proposed distros based on politics (avoid Ubuntu no matter what) and I was lucky to try Ubuntu before I quit. I didn't know who is Shuttleworth, nor Torvalds, nor GNU, nor Red Hat but everyone is proposing to the masses what he prefers. No "A" proposal to make people enter to this world.

If you enter Linux you will never go back. But community is SO sort-sighted.

actually
i know at least 3 people that would use linux if games they like worked as good and were easy to install
granted they do know i can fix what dont work

avg user needs:
firefox
minimal easy setup, GUI
their favorite game(s)
Office

actually i think most people just need firefox and movies to work, but feel cheap if there isn't plenty of stuff

linux has an advantage as for its reputation (the kernels, not distros) of being awsome
granted "its unlike what i know" makes it harder for people to use, as anyone trying blender for the first time can testify
(that and the fact many things still arnt plug'n'play and sometimes buggy; in short complicated)

i was thinking about something like e17 on puppy slacko (its easier for me then the other puppy)
with scripts to setup graphic drivers, wine, steam, skype, few firmwares and whatever
ofc libreoffice too
so they can just click and it works

that wouldnt be too much trouble to set up as the puppy people made it to be that way


so ye who didnt notice; i tried puppy on the laptop and its awsome (for a laptop at least; for weeks its running on it as "live", i just close the lid so didnt try the installer yet)
and from what i see it shouldnt be hard to put binary drivers and make it "full performance"
idk why it its not as popular as the big names

PS i remember dual gpu laptops were hell to make work right, id guess much has changed but plenty stayed the same

[ronybeck]

Phoronix: Valve Publishes October Steam Hardware Survey

Valve has released their latest hardware/software survey statistics for the following month. Is Linux back above a 1% market-share for gamers?..

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTUwMDc

The Linux numbers won't change until there is a compelling reason to. What game title is exclusive to Linux that is enticing enough to pull people to Steam on linux? Until Valve do something extraordinary on Linux, I don't see a reason to expect any interesting stats in the Linux direction.