Steam Linux Usage Increases Slightly, Still Below 1%

[Mama Luigi]

I wonder if linux users are being kept quiet until after steam OS in fully released. just imagine. "Linux is the fastest-growing gaming platform! user base jumped 2000% this month!"

I honestly wouldn't be surprised. I have seen more surveys in a week on Windows (or at least I did, lost Windows 10 because my hard drive failed, but I'm not missing it) than in years of using Steam on GNU/Linux.

[Mama Luigi]

Linux users are good at testing, writing detailed bug reports, with step-by-step instructions how to reproduce bugs, attach screenshots, etc and are familiar with bug management and bug tracking systems such as Bugzilla, Launchpad and GitHub. Many have familiarity with debuggers too.

If they did that, there would be a huge influx of people getting GNU/Linux just to play the betas, with most of them generating a large hate for GNU/Linux because they got frustrated trying to use something that wasn't Windows and they didn't know what they were doing. The vast majority would not be useful at all and would worsen the already bad view of GNU/Linux of the public.

[mike4]

1% of total users? 1% from 215 millions will be 2.15 million Linux users. Enough users to fix all bugs and increase Linux quality.

[jebb]

Well if they don't finally pull their collective finger out and do something about the dismal state of Portal 2 on OSX (http://steamcommunity.com/app/620/di...8518556863/#p6), I guess I'll have to pimp up my desktop machine so I can play it under Linux.

And yes, I only found the time to play it at all this month.

[duby229]

I had my first Steam survey on Linux yesterday!

But it seems weird though... I spent 5 hours on Windows (at work) with Steam and had already 2 surveys, and I spent around 150 hours on Linux with Steam and just had my first survey.

I don't know, maybe I'm very unlucky...

I've never gotten a steam survey on linux either. The way I understand it, it gets triggered when loggin into the service, so staying logged in doesn't help, but logging in more often does. I've been trying to trigger it by logging off at least once a day, so sooner or later it's bound to happen.

[devius]

Had my first survey in tens of months today

Hmm, same here, first survey.

That compensates the fact that I've gotten like 4 surveys and I've used Steam some 15 hours max (probably less than that) since it first came out. I guess it's the nature of randomness.

Although, I'm pretty sure the survey isn't used to get most of the monthly statistics, but for something else no one has any clue about.

[schmidtbag]

That sounds weird to me, because if you care about your privacy, you will not use Steam to begin with. It phones home every time you try to do much of anything. And privacy statements are just words (no to mention that making it a survey does not inherently change the privacy policy).

I agree, but the average paranoid idiot either doesn't know that or prefers to deny that just so they can get decent deals on games. There are so many ways your computer is being "spied on" on a regular basis and yet these people still choose to surf the internet, submit their email address to something, or give companies their phone numbers. It's all pretty hypocritical.

[Spazturtle]

Steam must measure what OS you log in from, when the steam client for OS X was released they gave you a promo hat for TF2 if you logged into your Steam account on a Mac. No hardware survey was needed.

[leech]

I've been using Steam under Linux since it was first released, and I only just got the survey the other day for the first time under Linux (twice under Windows, and I hardly ever boot into it these days.

I booted into it the other day to see if the Steam Controller was having the same weird issues in Windows as it does under linux (the right touchpad being sluggish in the middle and way too fast outside of that) and then discovered that my hard drive with Steam installed decided to eat itself. Awesome that Windows10 wouldn't even show it in the Disk management, yet linux would mount it okay (initially, then I did some stupid stuff, now I'm trying to recover data....)

[pythoneer]

if that numbers are right, and not wrong because of problems like Creak suggests. I think in 1 year Steammachines will be the number 2 on that list right behind windows. Depends a bit on the rollout of course, if they sell the steammachines on our big elektronic markets, what I guess they will do, it will in my estimation be a big success.

Maybe not in germany, we will see, people here seem often to "be cheap". On the other hand in computer forums ofter are 100% of people that build their pcs by their self, there a steammachine can never compete, but that is not representative for the masses

If i recall correctly they only sell it at GameStop. So you will probably not seeing the SteamMachine at "MediaMarkt", "Saturn" or something alike ...