Linux Appears To Lose Some Gaming Marketshare With Valve's October Stats

[Passso]

Last time I tried it (october) Steam did not launch on a 64 bit system, I had to tweak libraries again.

As quoted in the page you linked :

Note that Steam will frequently re-install these runtime libraries when Steam is updated, so until ValveSoftware/steam-runtime#13(https://github.com/ValveSoftware/ste...time/issues/13) is resolved, whenever Steam updates, you should exit, remove the libraries, and restart it again.

Run these commands to remove runtime libraries known to cause issues with Debian:

• 
  # rm ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 # rm ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 # rm ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 # rm ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 # rm ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1

Examples of issues / error messages known to occur if these libraries are present:

• Failed to load libGL: undefined symbol: xcb_send_fd
• ERROR: ld.so: object '~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.
• Problems with 64-bit games like XCOM
• "OpenGL GLX context is not using direct rendering, which may cause performance problems." (see below)
• "Could not find required OpenGL entry point 'glGetError'! Either your video card is unsupported or your OpenGL driver needs to be updated."
• The Steam client itself crashing

I am sorry but this is impossible for a newbie, click and install is the only way, like on Opensuse

[sleeksorrow]

Debian based distros are messy and need command lines

Which is a bug in the management gui, not in the apt packaging system. On Ubuntu you can always do "sudo apt install steam" and will get it, no adding repositories needed. Normally the GUI should be able to do the same, but cannot because of bugs. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...m/+bug/1627157

[sleeksorrow]

I am sorry but this is impossible for a newbie, click and install is the only way, like on Opensuse

Fully agree. On the other hand, I don't think any newbie would choose Debian. No such issues on Ubuntu 16.04 and 16.10, which I would call at least "newbie friendly".

[starshipeleven]

As quoted in the page you linked :
---
I am sorry but this is impossible for a newbie, click and install is the only way, like on Opensuse

I'd also like to note that most of those errors appear only if you launch Steam from command line, if you launch by clicking you don't get any error and nothing starts.

And I'll add that while impossible for a newbie, it's also aggravating for everyone too. Really you can solve that permanently with a script run on each startup that nukes the bullshit libraries, mantainers have no excuses here.

[verde]

Why should Linux usage be more than that? What makes a random Linux OS worth more than 1% right now? Linux distributions for end users are half-backed wrecks and the only distribution complete and friendly for an end user is getting bashed allday long from the Linux community all those years I am following Linux myself. Of course I am talking about Ubuntu.

So why do you expect Linux based operating systems to grow? PC nearly died the last 3-4 years and Linux community still debates about politics mostly (Mir-Wayland etc)

Nearly 40% of internet traffic is coming from mobile devices. Traditional desktop nearly died and still you cant do basic things with Linux out of the box like play a game with AMD drivers with performance on par with Windows.

[ruthan]

Its still same 1%, because there are notreally major improvements for user, progress is too slow.

Gaming experience in Linux needs to be better than in Windows to make market for itself, we are very far from this goal.

Overall bad linux desktop GUI experience doesnt help the case - i know, i know maybe in year 2018 would be multimonitor configuration finally really working,
Xserver/Waywald would be stable etc.

[schmidtbag]

Ugh... this isn't clickbait people. When you consider Linux has a less than 1% marketshare, a 0.04% drop is comparatively significant. In other words, this was roughly a 4-5% drop in Linux users. It's all about perspective.


Anyway, as usual, if you leave Steam signed in for days or weeks at a time, you're not going to be prompted for the survey. To my understanding, you only get prompted whenever you first sign in. And even then, you might only get prompted as long as Steam is up-to-date. There was a time I used to sign into Steam almost every single day. I got maybe 5 survey prompts that year. Now I sign in maybe once a week and I haven't got a survey for either Linux or Windows in months. The fact that Steam needs to update almost every single time I sign in could have a direct impact on my chances of getting the survey.

[Passso]

I'd also like to note that most of those errors appear only if you launch Steam from command line, if you launch by clicking you don't get any error and nothing starts.

And I'll add that while impossible for a newbie, it's also aggravating for everyone too. Really you can solve that permanently with a script run on each startup that nukes the bullshit libraries, mantainers have no excuses here.

Yup, and it is a "bug" since Steam's launch... years ago.

Honestly I do not want to debate who is faulty, but considering that 90% of newbies trying Steam will leave their Linux installation at this stage, it should have been fixed fast.

How many users have we lost this way? Far more than 0.4% IMO!

No such issues on Ubuntu 16.04 and 16.10, which I would call at least "newbie friendly".

I had the same issue on the x64 version on 16.04 on my last install (this summer), but maybe it has been fixed since... at last!

[Passso]

0.04% of 1.000.000 surveys - no that is not 40.000. Come back when your basic math is in shape again.

Now get your advanced math in shape, I was talking about 100M users : the % drops every new survey so basically (and ofc it is not exact) we "lost" 40 000 Steam users on Linux

[starshipeleven]

Why should Linux usage be more than that? What makes a random Linux OS worth more than 1% right now? Linux distributions for end users are half-backed wrecks and the only distribution complete and friendly for an end user is getting bashed allday long from the Linux community all those years I am following Linux myself. Of course I am talking about Ubuntu.

So, all distributions are half-baked wrecks while Ubuntu is the only one complete and friendly for an end user? How about you stop trolling?

PC nearly died the last 3-4 years

More trolling. PC is losing the people that don't really need a PC to do their stuff, it is not and it won't die. People migrating to mobile devices were in the very low end of PC market.

and Linux community still debates about politics mostly (Mir-Wayland etc)

Trolling again, as that's not the "community", that's people posting bullshit in forums.
In forums you get raging flamewars regardless, on WIndows side you have the people raging about being forced to leave XP or about Windows 10's various issues.

Nearly 40% of internet traffic is coming from mobile devices.

Finally something true and not trolling.

Traditional desktop nearly died and still you cant do basic things with Linux out of the box like play a game with AMD drivers with performance on par with Windows.

For that matter, not even on NVIDIA drivers, and gaming isn't a "basic thing". Kinda trolling here too.

Total score, 7/10, solid trollpost but you can do better.