Steam Linux Usage Drops Lower... Below 0.9%

[wateenellende]

After the upgrade from Ubuntu 14.10 to 15.04, X stopped working on my NVidia card. Solution: get screwdriver, remove NVidia card, use intel integrated graphics. Stopped playing games since. I wouldn't be surprised if that bug hit more people. Unfortuntely no numbers to back that up.
I did file a bug (1454817 in launchpad): if you experience the same, please acknowledge so that it gets fixed faster...

[the303]

I don't dual boot and only have Arch Linux installed. I used to get survey in Windows years ago but have never received a survey request on Linux for years now.

[rdnetto]

One weakness of the Steam survey is that there doesn't seem to be any way to view a graph of Linux usage over time, which would make any seasonal trends obvious. e.g. it's exam season right now, and I wouldn't be surprised if students were more likely to use Linux.

[haagch]

Why does nobody mention the obvious method for counting installations? The steam client regularly downloads updates - different updates for different operating systems. Couldn't they just count full downloads of the updates per account?

[Pecisk]

Bummer, I guess I install Windows 10 then and give up on Linux gaming. Survey tells me so

[dungeon]

The only way to spread Linux systems is the pre-installation (because it overcomes the psychological threshold of the common user).

What to preinstall as Linux systems? Android? i use Debian, someone else uses Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, SuSE, Gentoo, LFS...

But yeah Valve wants SteamOS preinstalled on their machines, that is the only way to start gaming easier

[Azrael5]

The only way to spread Linux systems is the pre-installation (because it overcomes the psychological threshold of the common user).

[phio]

I don't remember seeing this survey in 5 years of using Steam for Windows. Few days ago, just after I finally decided to try it for Linux, it appeared on my screen. Does it mean that the actual usage of Linux is highly overestimated? I doubt.

I'm using low-end laptop with Optimus. Installing driver for Nvidia didn't work at Xubuntu 14.04 the way it is officially suggested (black screen, no response - Windows user is in PANIC because even if he knew the Ctrl+Alt+F combination it'd take him to black console world where people disappears for ages) and was a bit problematic for me (10+ years Linux desktop). Atfer that I found that I can't even run some of the Valve's Half Life series games using bumblebee (core dumped), but luckily nvidia-prime did the job. But, after all, I decided to play at Intel HD because the screen tearing was huge problem and it is currently not possible to fix it for my Nvidia. Luckily it was possible for Intel by modifing some text file. This is just too optimistic to expect an average Windows user to go through all the steps just to (not) play some Half Life game. It'd be even ridiculous doing that on high-end computer I'd invest a lot of cash in and resigning from so many good games at the same time. From my perspective using Linux for gaming is just pain in the ass, the more Windows gamers will give it a try at the current state the more will say "don't try it" to his/her friends and maybe this is one of the reasons that the share is going down too.

[Ancurio]

In which case, no need for any kind sampling.... Just publish the data....

Um, have you ever looked at Steam stats? It has all kinds of data, not just OS, but things like hardware / memory / internet speed. So yes, there is need for sampling.

The client itself knows on what OS it's running, but it doesn't mean it's passing that information back to Valve without taking your permission first.

Why wouldn't it? It's not probing your computer at all. Valve also doesn't ask you whether you want the amount of time you spend inside games tracked, it just does it.

[Soul_keeper]

I've been trying to convince linux users to play a video game with me for years now.
I've failed. The ones I know online tend to either have a windows gaming box, console, or just refuse to give me the satisfaction of playing "my game".
Also the gamers tend to favor the flavor of the week, which is almost certainly a windows game. They'll try something once, then never try it again.

Things are a lot different than I remember them 10-15yrs ago, when everyone I knew online would game over the weekends.