According to these new numbers from Valve, the Linux customer base is up to 1.96%, or a 0.52% jump over June! That’s a huge jump with normally just moving 0.1% or so in either direction most months… It’s also near an all-time high on a percentage basis going back to the early days of Steam on Linux when it had around a 2% marketshare but at that time the Steam customer size in absolute numbers was much smaller a decade ago than it is now. So if the percentage numbers are accurate, this is likely the largest in absolute terms that the Linux gaming marketshare has ever been.
Data from Valve: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam?platform=combined
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Thank god for Valve and how awesome they’ve been to Linux users
I really hope they release Steam OS for everyone soon. I’d love to install it on my laptop, currently running ChimeraOS which is functionally very similar, but would love to have the stuff like tdp control working in the overlays too without needing third party tools or workarounds.
It would be especially cool for the other handhelds out there like the ROG Ally
I know that there is that unofficial HoloISO that people use for desktop, it seems to work just fine but i would prefer an official distro release myself
Main downside for that is there’s 0 support for Nvidia GPU’s
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That’s still the previous version of SteamOS though. The Arch based one that’s on the Steam Deck still hasn’t been released for everyone to use.
They’ve done such amazing work for Linux. Linux gaming wouldn’t be the same without them.
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It was going to happen regardless. Better It be Valve dominating the market instead of any other evil corp
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Now we just need an open source steam client and they will be the literal proof that companies can contribute to GNU/Linux and still stay on top.
lutris?
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Too young for what? I’m older than the company is and I don’t recall any devilish controversies.
Are you getting them confused with another company? Valve’s done bad things in the past of course, but they’re still a lot better than most other gaming companies that I know of. I typically put Valve alongside companies like Capcom and Sega as “one of the not bad ones” in terms of malicious practices.
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I understand and that was one of the things I was thinking of when I said “Valve’s done bad things in the past of course”. But when you compare them to many other AAA publishers, I don’t see how Valve is particularly bad. Especially when you start bringing up lootboxes. Unlike many other publishes that go these same bad practices, and at a larger scale at that, value has done some good too, and is generally much more permissive about things like fanworks, and that does a lot to build good will. I don’t see what’s “short memory” about this.
And I’m not even saying that I love valve or anything either, but the devil? Compared to other publishers?
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Realise this: Before steam most games were pirated. Steam made it really easy to pay for games. And ~20 years later we can still play these games.
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So awesome they run a monopoly on videogames through their useless closed source spyware.
Well, their position is what allowed them to do so much for Linux. And their desire to distance themselves from Microsoft, which I’m absolutely on board with.
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Of course they did it because it benefits themselves. But it doesn’t only benefit themselves, which is more than you can say about many others.
When giants are fighting, we the little ones can benefit, if we’re smart.
The only desire they have for is money, this is the same company that doesn’t mind promoting gambling to kids. Their stupid ass closed source launcher that shouldn’t exist needed to run software is a million light years away from what Linux stand for
There are other colours than black and white, you know?
I fully agree that Valve has their share of issues. There’s things I too don’t like about them, but that doesn’t mean the good they do is worthless.
Bringing their spyware to linux isn’t anything good
“This program is spyware because it collects huge amounts of user information, including but not limited to your Home Address, Telephone Number, Credit Card Number, and Internet Search History. Steam also profiles your hardware, communications through Steam’s social networking features, and contains a mandatory self-updater. Steam will not work without an internet connection.”
Seems like they need to collect your address, telephone, and credit card number to process payments? Steam is it’s own internet browser, so the browser data it collects is from itself, not your personal browser.
You seem paranoid and this website seems to be incorrect or purposely stating things in a misleading way, oh and steam does work without and Internet connection
Steam shares your informations with third parties. Zetta you don’t seem to mind much so why don’t you tell us your real name, give us your home address, your telephone number and post a log or your search history? Don’t tell me you are paranoid
Did I ever say that I like how much data they collect? No.
That is absolutely one of the things I greatly dislike.
It’s not useless. None of the launchers are. I greatly appreciate the auto updating of games, earning achievements, among others things. Sure they have issues, but they would have been dethroned years ago if people didn’t like their software compared to companies like Epic.
Count me as one of those new Linux users. I’ve been trying to switch since the 90’s and Linux gaming is finally viable. I know this is in large part thanks to Valve, so thanks, Valve!
The day win10 stops being supported is the day I switch to Linux
If the games you are playing don’t run on linux than you are mostly playing crap designed by people who’s main goal is to empty your pockets and who think that you are stupid
Or you are playing games made on a tight budget focusing on the largest userbase: windows (>90% according to Steam hardware survey)
That clearly does not apply for most of the games holding people back from switching to Linux. It’s mostly going to be games like Destiny 2, PUBG, Rainbox Six, Call of Duty, Battlefield, heck probably even Roblox now.
And funnily enough a lot of indie games do support linux, mostly because are build using engines that make it easy. So I personally reject the claim that it’s games made on a tight budget. Those are going to be few and far between.
why are you guys downvoting him, he’s right
I know countless amazing indie developers who can only afford to target and support Windows as Linux doesn’t generate them any or enough income. They certainly aren’t trying to empty anyone’s pockets, instead supporting their games for years and constantly adding new content for free.
Linux gamers don’t buy every game that developers have put the time and effort into shipping native binaries. Proton is the ideal stop gap until Linux has a bigger user base that can result in a return on investment for native binaries.
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“Don’t run on linux” does include via Wine/Proton.
I wouldn’t call them amazing if they would rather focus on free/pay content rather than releasing binaries for linux. I wouldn’t call them amazing either if they consider releasing binaries as an investment.
There’s plenty of devs who work on their games without the ambition to bank the stock market.
Did you just wake up today and decide to be an asshole, or is this your usual temperament?
Ugh right? People like that make others not want to use Linux out of spite.
-311 comment points in 8 days. Clearly their usual temperament.
It’s festering toxicity like that user displays that turns developers away from Linux. Would you want support tickets from someone like them?
I also found it hilarious they linked a wiki I’ve been contributing to for years hahaha.
I bet the Deck has a lot to do with this.
It does, but as a result we can now set up Linux on other machines and play a huge range of games. This removes one of the main obstacles for many people with Linux.
Love the Deck. I actually finish games with retro or pixel art aesthics with the deck compared to my PC or consoles. The pick up and go aspect and the smaller screen helps me keep coming back to it instead of abandoning it.
The deck has a lot to do with it whether people are playing on it or not. It’s the thing that’s made them make the big push into supporting games on Linux, which applies to other distros than just the Steam one.
It also pushes developers to ensure their games run on Linux, even if it’s through Proton
You have to glad when they don’t implement their own crappy launcher nowadays. Looking at you Bioshock Remastered! (btw, you can skip it via the launch options)
I have not found a way to bypass Larian Studios launcher in launch options but you can make a shortcut to the exe directly.
You can skip it with the
--skip-launcherlaunch option
Yeah that’s what I’m thinking. Great that Linux is getting more representation overall though. Wonder how anti-cheat implementations work nowadays, I remember them not being supported on Linux before, so games didn’t run.
Actually the common anti cheat solutions provided Linux support for a while, but the developers/publishers have been choosing not to enable it.
It was the reason I moved to Linux. Though with another arch based distro and not the deck
Linux FTW. Number 1 on servers, now number 2 on Steam! Watch out, Microsoft /s
Not surprised. Steam on Linux just works. Click a checkbox in settings to use Proton. Then only way it would be easier is if it would automatically detect Proton and use it. I don’t think it does yet?
It automatically uses Proton for titles that Valve has whitelisted as compatible. To play anything else you need to check a box in the settings. Honestly, it should probably just be checked by default.
Probaby just to deter non tech savy people to blame all the problems on steam without realising it wasn’t made for linux in first place. There may not be a lot but with how popular steam deck is, I won’t be surprised if a lot of people are trying out linux for the first time.
I think enabling steam compatibility for all titles do exactly that?
Good, now we need devs to officially support Linux.
I noticed that wine/dxvk/proton works better than many native Linux versions. This is usually because the game studio does not think Linux is a priority and ships a half-assed implementation. Better to use the optimized version through wine/proton/dxvk.
I just want games officially supported for proton. Linux ABI is still way too inconsistent compared to Wines, and a bitch to work with. Not to mention, performance tends to be better on proton games lol.
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Well, “officially support” can just mean check if their game runs via proton on the Steam Deck at launch. Fine by me, that is the bare minimum I expect, but to be fair launch day support on linux is still a fairly new thing. Not something I would have expected just a few short years ago.
Yeah a lot of that first wave of steam machine fueled linux gaming is filled with buggy games with dropped support, that dont run on modern hardware. Im sure there is an easier way for them to support native linux gaming, but given how mac gaming is supported Im fine with them supporting linux by making sure proton works and accepting bug reports from proton users.
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I’m sure 99% of it is Steam Decks
The post says ~42 % is Steam OS
Actually its only 44% steam decks!
@cipherlab @pnutzh4x0r Nonetheless, it’s quite the achievement. That’s exactly what Linux needs: visible, tangible and reputable hardware that’s ostensibly better than the competition. It’s great to be flexible, but you still need to have a face.
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Less than that though they are a large slice.
Most Windows and practically all Mac instances are preinstalled by the hardware vendor. There are very few companies selling preinstalled Linux gaming machines other than the Steam Deck. I expect they might be a majority of new Linux steam users for some time as they are by far the lowest entry cost in terms of hardware, prerequisite technical knowledge and time.
Many gamers who dabble with Linux are still taking the path of least resistance and dual booting for gaming. Linux first people like myself will continue to grow in number but as long as it is a DIY thing realistically we will always be a few percent at best as most people want a simpler out of box gaming experience.
Due to the steam summer sale perhaps?
This is what finally got me to buy one.
I found way to many Linux gamers in the wild. So no, they are not Steam Decks.
Yes! Not only do I have a Deck, but I’ve switched my main PC to Linux. Sick of Micro$oft’s shit!
It’s awesome that Linux is becoming almost a mainstream desktop operating system. The year of Linux is here just another year or 2 and gaming on Linux will be near perfect. But sadly we will not able to play any kernel anticheat games like valorant but who gives a fuck about that game anyways lmao
Yes, I’ll switch from Windows to Linux but at the moment I dont trust myself to be able to use Linux as I cannot code and havent any deep knowledge about cpmputers. So I hope that in the next few years there will be the compatibility and ease of use on Linux like there is on windows now.
Edit: ok, thanks everyone.
I am very pro open source and very pro linux (obiously)
With “coding” i ment doing stuff with the terminal. I am mostly concerned with stuff not working when it should and then that the fix is only doable in the terminal and requires trial and error and knowledge and so on…
I was mostly discouraged by the LTT videos about Linux as a daily driver, haming and working on linux and so on. And they made it look that you have problems significantly more frequent than on a windows machine.
And yes, i need to use full office suite, most other programms can be FOSS or linux alternatives tho.
You definitely don’t need to know anything about writing code to use Linux! The closest thing to it is the terminal, which is something you basically never need to use on a standard setup like Pop!OS or Mint. I’ve gotten plenty of my friends using Linux, many of them have never even had to look at a terminal.
I don’t even know how to code LOL I know the bare minimum of installing packages either through the gui or through the terminal which isn’t coding, just simple commands for installing packages that the gui would do for you
You have gui stores like gnome software, kde plasma discover gui store that let you install application super easy with one click install buttons that’s it
Example installing discord on Ubuntu through terminal Sudo means root, apt the package manager that’s gonna install the package for us, install telling apt to install said application/software, discord the application. That’s it, you type y and it will install said application.
And I even started a YouTube channel called Linux benchmarks with plenty of simple tutorials of how to setup things like proton and learning those things in apps like lutris or bottles or heroic games launcher which are all gui applications for setting up games.
Editing I use kdenlive another gui application, gimp another gui application, updating it through the store as well or you can do the terminal either one they do the exact same thing.
Here’s my thoughts about using Linux on both a Nvidia setup and now a full amd setup for one year :)
My daughter can’t code (apart from dabbling a bit in Scratch) and she can use Fedora on her laptop just fine.
You don’t need to know how to code certainly. If you choose a “fire and forget” distro like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc… the only thing you would really run into any challenge with is running Windows software. Games are pretty well handled by Steam/Proton at this point, but other Windows software like, say, Word or the Adobe suite can be a challenge. If you’re okay with using alternatives (libreoffice, darktable, gimp) you’ll be fine.
I don’t think you need to wait years for user friendly Linux tbh! I recommend checking out Linux Mint. It’s basically designed for people used to Windows and handles the technical stuff for you.
You can do almost everything through the GUI rather than the command line, so for things like updates, it’ll show you a little notification in the corner by the clock like you’re used to, you open up the software manager, and click the update button.
And most software nowadays can either be downloaded through an app store like interface, or by downloading an executable file from a website.
And if you’ve ever used a mac, there’s a time machine equivalent built in (timeshift). So you can set up an automatic backup daily/weekly/etc and if you mess up something, in most cases you can revert back to a point when it wasn’t messed up.
I say give it a shot, you can always go back if it’s not for you! But usability has improved so much in the last few years.
The LTT videos assume that you are unwilling to spend a bit of time learning your OS. If you can accept that it won’t be a perfectly smooth experience from the start and that you’ll have to put in a bit of effort to make it do what you want, there’s no reason to not try it out.
I recently went for it and left windows for dual-booting, but the only time that I had to boot it was after finding out that if you mount an NTFS partition in linux without first disabling fast boot on windows, it’ll get broken sooner or later.
Now I’m at a point where troubleshooting stuff on linux is far easier than on windows. Because it’s modular and community-driven, you can always get to the root of a given problem with some googling or asking on one of the many great forums. Windows on the other hand is a proprietary monolith and if something stops working, you can only fiddle around with settings or hope for microsoft to fix it.
Getting there took me about 50-70 hours of troubleshooting total spread across a few years. I wasted a lot more than that trying to troubleshoot windows.
I mean I would accept to get into Linux for the start but I am afraid that my OS will be “a ongoing project” so to say.
I found that it’s different from windows, but not really more work. I get annoyed by small things easily, so finding out you have to tweak the registry to set some things in windows has just been frustrating while I can just customize the little things how I like them on linux by changing a config file or even find that there’s a good GUI for it, like with the task bar for example.
If you’re fine with ignoring the little annoyances on windows, you won’t have issues on Linux either.
There will not be the equivalent compatibility at first. But there will be enough compatibility for most users to not care about it anymore. The equivalent compatibility will only exist once literally every hardware and software manufacturer supports Linux on their own as first-class citizen. And they will only do that once Linux has signifikant desktop marketshare. But it doesn’t matter as long as most stuff still runs no matter what. Which is currently the case. And it’s also gotten easy.
another barrier is for nvidia-based GPUs, it just seems like gaming on Linux with AMD works a lot smoother.
Yes this is true as lots of Nvidia users have told me otherwise, when I used a rtx 2060 on Linux for about 6 months before I switched to a amd rx 6700 and it’s been the best experience I have ever had in gaming on a PC in general honestly. Nvidia “works” in terms of installing the driver, playing games do “work” but the big issue is vulkan shader loader on steam and then third party games that run on lutris, bottles that require specific environment variables for the game to not stutter or to switch to dxvk async as a instant fix for loading shaders but async is being kicked out because it’s a hack and includes a lot of patches the devs don’t like.
You can turn off the vulkan loader as Nvidia has a way of loading shaders rather quickly, but it does it in the most stupid way possible that example in apex I had to wait 5minutes in the lobby to load all of my shaders so that the game wouldn’t stutter when I entered a game. It pinned all of my cpu cores to 100% to load it instead of the GPU doing it which is so weird, this is supposedly already fixed in the “vulkan beta Nvidia driver” but who the normal user is gonna fuck around in the terminal to install a beta version of a driver that could easily break something.
While on amd all you need for gaming is mesa 23.1 or above so that you have gpl/graphics pipeline library, and then you can disable the pre caching vulkan loader, then that’s it, everything else is smooth sailing already as drivers are already preinstalled, Wayland is more supported on amd because of its open source nature, and games run amazing on it. Best investment you could make if you want to fully switch to Linux as your main operating system ngl.
The only upside to Nvidia is that your new gpu’s will mostly work out of the box while the newest amd cards will need to mature for a bit before buying but if you run something like arch and you use mesa git + the newest kernel patches then the experience will get better and better everyday as the drivers mature for those cards
Nvidia here under Linux, been running Nvidia hardware/drivers for about five years now with little in the way of problems. The latest hardware is supported on release, and my performance while gaming is fantastic.
Even Wayland support is maturing under Linux running Nvidia hardware/drivers, to the point whereby it’s mostly as usable as Wayland gets now.
At least you have the option of running the latest Nvidia hardware under Linux, it seems dedicated GPU support under MacOS is dwindling by the month.
Pop OS does wonderfully with Nvidia nowadays. Check it out!
Does kernel anti cheat really help anything, though? I’m curious about it. Like, how much worse would cheating be without it? I play Apex on Linux. It runs EAC and yes, there are some cheaters but it’s not that bad from what I can tell.
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Well it can stop users from plugging other devices into their computer when they have valorant launched, so things like hacks on a USB wouldn’t be possible, and that it can see all of your usb devices on your pc, and then it can see what’s being opened on your computer, it basically can see everything your doing which is a huge privacy concern. that’s why people had been talking about that someone could easily use the rootkit to do some malicious shit with it, while on eac on Linux it can only see our home partition lol, but on windows it can see a bit more of your file system as permissions aren’t rlly a thing on windows Sept the admin stuff. Apex handles cheaters kinda well these days so it’s more about reporting and banning those people. Anticheats are only supposed to stop the user from loading cheats but if it fails to do that which it usually does then it’s up to the support team of that game to ban them
Yeah I’m fine with that personally. If a game wants that level of fuckery I’d rather just go without it anyway tbh.
Exactly :)
I’ve never looked back to Windows since switching my gaming rig to Linux about a year ago.
One of my favorite things is when a game launches with a DX12 option that says “Windows 10/11 only”. Au contraire, game option. You’re about to run on a penguin.
I have a steam deck but I also recently changed from Windows to Pop!_OS on my gaming rig. I’m very much enjoying it so far
Is Pop OS the new “I use Arch” meme? I see people mentioning it almost everywhere linux is talked about.
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Pop OS is based off of Ubuntu so I mean makes sense.
Pop OS is the new Ubuntu if anything.
Kinda sad people dismiss Linux Mint, but I can definitely see how PopOS can appeal more to users.
I have used Pop!_OS and nothing but it, for almost three years on my computer; I am sure there are sexier distros out there, but it gets the job done. Nothing wrong with Mint either.
Nah, people aren’t smug about using POP OS it’s more like Ubuntu for gamers.
I don’t think so. Maybe I’m misunderstood, but the “I use Arch” meme was meming on the fact that using Arch was a flex, like it’s harder to get into, and you’re a true blooded Linux user if you’re using Arch.
Whereas, Pop_OS is kind of the opposite. I’m fairly new to Linux (been using a Linux system as my daily driver for about a year), and Pop_OS was recommended as a beginner-friendly distro. Plus, it worked well with Nvidia cards with minimal effort. So maybe it seems like a lot of people are using Pop_OS and are bringing it up, because there are a lot of newer Linux users.
I think it’s basically the recommendation if you use Nvidia cards, since I think they have the most up to date Nvidia drivers? Could be wrong but that was the spiel last time I tried it.
Their installer automatically just has the proprietary drivers, which is really helpful for newer users.
I am using it specifically because of the hybrid Nvidia graphics on my laptop. Because they sell laptops with this setup, their OS supports it flawlessly. I’ll be honest, I’d rather be using something like Nobara, but there were games that weren’t working and I don’t have the patience to figure out how to get them working. Pop just works. That’s what I need.
Why is Pop OS required? Can’t you simply use their nVidia drivers in other Linux distributions?
The process is less streamlined. There isn’t some universal installer that works on all distributions. Especially not for drivers.
Basically when you install Pop OS it’s just available. It’s usually…not on a lot of Linux distributions.
I will bet money it’s not a proprietary driver and simply copied from another project. Where can I see the source code?
Edit: yep, it’s actually the stock Nvidia drivers that you can build and install on literally any Linux OS (and easier on Arch if you use paru by typing “paru nvidia”). So Pop OS implementation is nothing special.
Well yeah, the point is that they provide the driver from the beginning by including it in the ISO, meaning you dont need to set up the driver after installation and it just works
Because it’s just amazing for new users, much better than Ubuntu.
POP!_OS is also amazing because of System76s computer manufacturing efforts and the fact that they are building a wayland compositor desktop environment apart from GNOME and KDE which will probably have its first stable release on Ubuntu 24.04.
It’s the most excited I’ve been for a while.
It’s just a neat little distro. Probably the only one I’ve used that haven’t imploded itself with daily use so far.
Pop is no meme, it’s awesome and easy.
I also noticed that. It takes all the pressure off me though because I’m an arch user and have been for 10 years 😂
maybe if valve recompiled tf2 for fucking 64 bit macOS users would use steam more it’s 2023 for fucks sake
Steam still runs on Rosetta2. They just gave up and aren’t even trying anymore, probably thanks to apples hostility to them and no Vulkan
that’s their prerogative but then no one should be surprised when Mac usage slumps
I did my first Linux Steam hardware survey yesterday so I’m doing my part!
man, I missed it! Is it still going on?
Valve claims it’s monthly but my previous survey was October last year so I doubt that. I don’t believe it was related to the article in the OP. They seem to just randomly pop up after an update. A surprise to be sure but a welcome one.
Previous 12 months:
June 2023: -0.03%
May 2023: +0.15%
April 2023: +0.48%
March 2023: -0.43%
February 2023: -0.11%
January 2023: no difference
December 2023: -0.06%
November 2022: +0.16%
October 2022: +0.05%
September 2022: -0.04%
August 2022: +0.04%
July 2022: +0.05%It would seem Linux among Steam users shows a growth tendency.
Hopefully this tendency keeps going strong!What happened in April and March?
looks like what happened was that A LOT of Chinese users entered the data which caused windows to go up significantly and linux to drop off slightly
But how does that explain the huge increase the month before? It would need to have a lot of user using Linux for a bit and then stop using it after
Looks like it was around the end of March when Valve announced the date they’d end support for Win7 and Win8. So perhaps a part of the Windows userbase went to Linux. If for fear, as a final push to drop Windows, etc., I don’t know, but perhaps they may have influenced.
These wild swings don’t make me very inclined to trust steam numbers
Nice. Steam with Proton works really great for me so far. If only wine would be as good for other software. Trying to get my Affinity products to work on wine or DAZ Studio is a nightmare and I probably will just use a VM 😩.
I used to check winehq or protondb before buying games. I don’t do that anymore because everything just works in Linux these days.
