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Steam Linux Usage Shows A Decline For August

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  • Steam Linux Usage Shows A Decline For August

    Phoronix: Steam Linux Usage Shows A Decline For August

    While the Linux browser/desktop market-share rose above 3% in August, the Linux gaming marketshare made a measurable decline...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Maybe that’s because users don’t want to put up with a broken distribution platform. Steam on Linux is horrendously bad. It’s slow, their UI toolkit has all kinds of issues and many Valve titles are unplayable on file systems with 64-bit inodes (could be fixed with a compile-time switch but Valve has no intention to do so). Running it at all requires workarounds for current Linux distros. The Steam Runtime still ships with broken library configurations and cripples OpenAL positional audio, which ruins gameplay in e.g. Serious Sam 3, so in practice you have to disable their misguided attempt at cross-distro compatibility (in this case, they shouldn’t even ship it as part of the Steam Runtime because OpenAL requires ABI compatibility anyway). Makes no sense that they expect everyone to be running some ancient LTS release (possibly past its EOL), yet they prefer the latest version of Windows.

    Meanwhile, Icculus releases from 17 years ago still work on current distros.

    Steam is not a service, it’s a goddamn nuisance, and to be honest I’d rather pirate games than buy them on Steam. I’m glad most of the games I’ve been playing were also released DRM-free so I didn’t instantly regret buying them, but I wish there were fewer Steam-exclusive titles.

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    • #3
      Today I got the survey message... As soon as I opened steam on Windows, despite having opened it in Linux previously. It's not the first time this has happened which leads me to think something regarding the survey is broken on Linux.

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      • #4
        you may want to go take a look at the marketshare that is a pretty big gain,i did not think we would even be so close to the mac that quickly.now i can safely say the mac will be beaten before the end of the year.the steam usage is always off and not everyone does those surveys.we are probably bigger than what it's saying.we go from 2.53% to 3.37% in one month? that is almost a whole 1%.that may not be alot to some people but i never expected it to crack 3% this year at all.i think with all the word of mouth and people on youtube doing linux videos it is helping big time.now i might say this might crack 5% before the end of the year it is possible.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by lachs0r View Post
          Steam is not a service, it’s a goddamn nuisance, and to be honest I’d rather pirate games than buy them on Steam. I’m glad most of the games I’ve been playing were also released DRM-free so I didn’t instantly regret buying them, but I wish there were fewer Steam-exclusive titles.
          Amen. As I've been starting to exhaust the DRM-free catalogue of titles I'm interested in and haven't yet bought, I've started to turn my entertainment budget more toward cartridges for my Retrode. (As a matter of principle, if I refuse to pay for a game, I won't pirate it either.)

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          • #6
            Gaming On Linux reported 3.37% GNU/Linux usage as per netmarketshare measures.
            macOS 5.94%, less than double (1.76x).

            Steam on GNU/Linux has to improve. Using either Flatpak or Snappy is a point of improvement. On (K)Ubuntu I had to change the launch script manually.
            Other distributions are in worse condition because they do not support Debian packages natively. Currently other distributions are over 50%. Ubuntu has become minority, probably bleeding to Windows while the other distros have remained constant, increasing their weight in GNU/Linux representation. Hardcore users, poiwerusers, whatever you call them.

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            • #7
              I have had mostly positive experiences with Steam on Linux, been playing lots of games with lots of success.

              I am also not ideologically opposed to the idea of Steam (like some of the other commenters seem to be), it makes it really easy to get access to games and play them.

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              • #8
                I would love to see the absolute numbers instead of this percentage thing...

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                • #9
                  Well, after a year of trying to get the 24 games I have running on Steam under Linux, both natively and through Wine, I just had to give up.

                  I don't know what it's like if you're an Nvidia user, but if you use AMD and have anything less than the very latest cards before Vega your screwed. Cost and power don't matter, it's all a matter of timing. In fact I have a very powerful and expensive Sapphire Nitro R9-390 and even that isn't expensive or powerful enough.

                  So I spent most of the last month learning how to use Qemu-KVM and created a W10 VM with GPU, USB, and SATA passthrough. And finally, after a year, I can once again play all my games.

                  As for Linux gaming and GPU support, the worst part is it isn't getting any better anytime soon. So if you want to play games according to your own preference, not whatever may or may not work under Linux, learn from my experience and stop banging your heads against the wall. Just figure out the best way to use Windows when necessary.

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                  • #10
                    Another thought: maybe Steam could be open sourced with some proprietary blobs to manage DRM. Just an idea.

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