Here is the latest instalment of Steam's Hardware Survey, as usual we do our monthly thing and compare it and talk about it and make sure you know not to use it as a hard figure.
Linux-only results for July 2014
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64 bit 32.77% -3.75%
Linux 3.10 64 bit 7.75% +0.66%
Linux Mint 17 Qiana 64 bit 7.45% +2.04%
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 5.57% -0.46%
Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS 64 bit 5.26% +5.26%
Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS 64 bit 5.05% -0.39%
Other 36.15% +0.71%
Linux Overall Total: 1.11%, so we lost 0.09%
Last Month: 1.20%
My thoughts on it
As expected small movements that don't really mean much! I do wonder what distribution "Linux 3.10 64 bit" is as it's now the second most popular around. Any thoughts to share?
Things to note
Distro-hoppers will mess up the statistics, Linux users are far more likely to switch between different distributions than say a Windows user due to how many we have. So, the Linux-only stats will be quite turbulent.
Just be aware these results will probably not be that accurate as we don't know how they do their percentage results, they could be rounding up, rounding down or truncating the percentages. So a 0.5% could actually be nearly 0.6% as it could be 0.59% but they could do no rounding and simply truncate it.
Also it won't be every Steam user (it's a survey not a full statistic), so it can be as simple as not actually showing the survey to many Linux people.
Let's face it we know they don't survey 100% of their user base, only a small fraction of it, so bear that in mind as well.
Linux users typically shy away from any form of DRM, so you can bet there is a large bunch of Linux users who just simply refuse to use Steam.
Final Note: Look at it this way, Steam has around 75 million active users, 1% of 75 million is about 750,000 people. What developer wouldn't want to hook into a market that big? We are still under-represented in my eyes.
We will continue to be under-represented until we have more developers talking up Linux, and while this survey doesn't really mean that much having it rise to Mac levels would be a big breakthrough for us. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Linux-only results for July 2014
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64 bit 32.77% -3.75%
Linux 3.10 64 bit 7.75% +0.66%
Linux Mint 17 Qiana 64 bit 7.45% +2.04%
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 5.57% -0.46%
Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS 64 bit 5.26% +5.26%
Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS 64 bit 5.05% -0.39%
Other 36.15% +0.71%
Linux Overall Total: 1.11%, so we lost 0.09%
Last Month: 1.20%
My thoughts on it
As expected small movements that don't really mean much! I do wonder what distribution "Linux 3.10 64 bit" is as it's now the second most popular around. Any thoughts to share?
Things to note
Distro-hoppers will mess up the statistics, Linux users are far more likely to switch between different distributions than say a Windows user due to how many we have. So, the Linux-only stats will be quite turbulent.
Just be aware these results will probably not be that accurate as we don't know how they do their percentage results, they could be rounding up, rounding down or truncating the percentages. So a 0.5% could actually be nearly 0.6% as it could be 0.59% but they could do no rounding and simply truncate it.
Also it won't be every Steam user (it's a survey not a full statistic), so it can be as simple as not actually showing the survey to many Linux people.
Let's face it we know they don't survey 100% of their user base, only a small fraction of it, so bear that in mind as well.
Linux users typically shy away from any form of DRM, so you can bet there is a large bunch of Linux users who just simply refuse to use Steam.
Final Note: Look at it this way, Steam has around 75 million active users, 1% of 75 million is about 750,000 people. What developer wouldn't want to hook into a market that big? We are still under-represented in my eyes.
We will continue to be under-represented until we have more developers talking up Linux, and while this survey doesn't really mean that much having it rise to Mac levels would be a big breakthrough for us. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
the survey popped up when I had just installed Steam on Wine to see if I could get certain games to run on wine again. So I refused it, then restarted my Linux install and I haven't received the survey at all again. I'm mainly using Linux Mint, was using Manjaro for the past month though... distro hopping is so much fun.
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how do u get the survey??? i've been playing nearly everyday on linux since steam came to linux and i never once had the survey. how do u get the damn thing???
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Quoting: EKRboiObvisouly I don't have any data to back any of this up but it's what makes sense to me from my experience, that said..Well said.
I still need Windows for gaming just because there are lots of titles that doesn't run on Linux - on most likely never will. I do use SteamOS for all gaming I can (there is Linux version available) despite the fact the quality of Linux versions are much worse compared to Windows versions.
There is still very long way to go for Linux gaming. Personally I believe SteamOS is not going to be successful among big masses for many years. More likely we will have articles like "How to make your Steam Machine a good gaming device - install Windows".
Consoles are living their own lives and I don't believe console games would be interested about PC/Steam Machines at all.
I believe Valve is able to make SteamOS successful in the long run. It just takes some time.
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[quote=edqe]
I suggest you give the UE4 linux demos a try if you have not. I still fire them up just to see them and get excited for what is to come. I keep reading people saying that OpenGL is every bit as capable as DX11 to produce sweet looking visuals.. until those demos I was not completely convinced and the engine isn't even done yet for linux. Now I don't think OGL is as optimized as DX in general as it always seems to be more taxing on my system, but things are bound to get better.
https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Linux_Demos
Quoting: EKRboiI still need Windows for gaming just because there are lots of titles that doesn't run on Linux - on most likely never will. I do use SteamOS for all gaming I can (there is Linux version available) despite the fact the quality of Linux versions are much worse compared to Windows versions.
I suggest you give the UE4 linux demos a try if you have not. I still fire them up just to see them and get excited for what is to come. I keep reading people saying that OpenGL is every bit as capable as DX11 to produce sweet looking visuals.. until those demos I was not completely convinced and the engine isn't even done yet for linux. Now I don't think OGL is as optimized as DX in general as it always seems to be more taxing on my system, but things are bound to get better.
https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Linux_Demos
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Quoting: neowiz73the survey popped up when I had just installed Steam on Wine to see if I could get certain games to run on wine again. So I refused it, then restarted my Linux install and I haven't received the survey at all again. I'm mainly using Linux Mint, was using Manjaro for the past month though... distro hopping is so much fun.
Ugh, the exact same thing happened to me just now. :/ Hadn't seen the survey for months before that.
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I also received the notification after just reinstalling in wine. It might have something to do with that.
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Quoting: EKRboiI suggest you give the UE4 linux demos a try if you have not. I still fire them up just to see them and get excited for what is to come. I keep reading people saying that OpenGL is every bit as capable as DX11 to produce sweet looking visuals.. until those demos I was not completely convinced and the engine isn't even done yet for linux. Now I don't think OGL is as optimized as DX in general as it always seems to be more taxing on my system, but things are bound to get better.
https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Linux_Demos
Thanks for reminding. I have not tried UE4 demos yet but I have heard only good so far.
I'm not an expert in any way but as far as I know OpenGL is very much as capable as Direct3D and with extensions even more. DX12 should fix many problems developers are facing today but I hope upcoming(?) OpenGL 5.x is going to have many improvements as well. Lately there has been many blogs and articles about weaknesses of OpenGL so hopefully a new version will address those problems as well.
What comes to games I think one big problem is that most of the games on Linux seems to support only OpenGL 3.x while Windows versions uses DX11.
Personally I wouldn't mind if developers would drop OpenGL 3.x support and use OpenGL 4.x only. Of course it would mean that open source drivers would be useless at this moment and drop support for older GPUs but if that would help to get Linux versions par with Windows I'm OK to pay that price.
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