Steam's Survey Shows A Tiny Increase In Linux Gamers For March

[czz0]

I got the survey, but I was running Steam through Wine so I didn't take it, because I'm pretty sure that would count as a false report of Windows.

[Zoll]

How is 0.02% not considered statistical noise?

[oskar-n]

Wut. To me Linux is an absolute breeze to maintain and keep updated compared to the forced updates and incredibly slow process Windows goes through applying them.

I've had the same Arch install for about 4-5 years until recently, and I only did a fresh install because I upgraded to an SSD. But that old install was working fine and kept up to date no problems, and only when I felt like updating it which was probably once or twice a week.

I agree, Linux is great and stable. I haven't started my Windows installation in a few weeks
My comment is a bit unclear, but I was referring to problems with Steam on Linux.

[dungeon]

How is 0.02% not considered statistical noise?

There are various ways to look at statistic... let say, previosly linux was at 0.75% which is 133.33 part of 100%, which means these 0.02% are actually 2.66% improvment if you are interested at only linux numbers

[theghost]

As long as there is no user friendly desktop linux that is rock stable and has a proper software store (where software distribution especially for paid apps is easy), Linux will not get more market share on steam. Simply because no one will switch.

[dungeon]

... user friendly desktop linux that is rock stable...

That might happen only if no one releases new hardware anymore and if no one rewriting anything on the software side

[tomtomme]

How is 0.02% not considered statistical noise?

since the absolute number of gamers is XX-millions. Thus 0.02% are quite some users.

[polo]

Same for me Steam crash when collecting HW info (Arch Linux)

[cj.wijtmans]

The survey is random which means its statistically more likely to hit a more popular OS. The number is completely bogus.

[Adarion]

the survey is fine.
it pops up with:
- a new steam install
- if system specs were altered (significant hardware / software upgrades)

It does not have to ask you again, if you do not change anything on your system. And everyone is asked, so it is representative. I do not get why there is all this discussion around the survey. That some people decline to answer the survey is another problem. But Valve can´t do anything to solve that be it win or tux.

No?
Same HW-system but 2 operating systems. There is hardly any change on that ancient Windows NT 5.1 (not even the GPU driver). The other one is Gentoo, rolling release. That means near-daily changes, or at least weekly. And there was (let aside attached USB sticks) no change of HW I could remember. But Windows got that survey quite often, Linux... I think once in all the time.
So I doubt that it really has to do with system specs.