UPDATE: It seems Valve adjusted the survey after both we and Phoronix covered it, the actual percentage is 1.12%, so we actually dropped by a few % this month.
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 results for October 2014
Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS 64 bit 0.52% +0.09%
Linux Mint 17 Qiana 64 bit 0.13% +0.03%
Linux 3.10 64 bit 0.10% +0.02%
Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS 0.08% +0.02%
Total: 1.18% + 0.02%
Last Month: 1.16%
My thoughts on it
It seems that - although small - Linux usage has been seeing an increase among Steam users. This could be attributed to a number of factors, including the much bigger and better range in games we're seeing.
Just for comparison, the figure for overall Linux usage this time last year was 1.06%.
Things to note
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 remember it is a survey, so it won't ask every single one of you to do it. It would only be truly accurate if it did it behind the scenes, but that's not what a survey is for this is just to get a general idea.
The stats are also quite different to our own survey. For example, Steam states that around 20% of Linux users use AMD CPUs, while our own survey puts that number closer to 30%. You can compare these stats yourself to see some discrepancies and take into account that neither survey is perfect.
Final Note: Look at it this way, Steam has around 100 million active users, 1% of 100 million is about 1,000,000 (1 million) people. What developer wouldn't want to hook into a market that big?
Final, Final Note
This monthly article used to be done by Liam. It's a pretty important thing to have because it gives us an idea of the growth of Linux gaming. Unfortunately, I have a few other articles which I take care of here so it would be nice to get a volunteer from the GOL community to do this. It is just once a month and very quick to do. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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 results for October 2014
Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS 64 bit 0.52% +0.09%
Linux Mint 17 Qiana 64 bit 0.13% +0.03%
Linux 3.10 64 bit 0.10% +0.02%
Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS 0.08% +0.02%
Total: 1.18% + 0.02%
Last Month: 1.16%
My thoughts on it
It seems that - although small - Linux usage has been seeing an increase among Steam users. This could be attributed to a number of factors, including the much bigger and better range in games we're seeing.
Just for comparison, the figure for overall Linux usage this time last year was 1.06%.
Things to note
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 remember it is a survey, so it won't ask every single one of you to do it. It would only be truly accurate if it did it behind the scenes, but that's not what a survey is for this is just to get a general idea.
The stats are also quite different to our own survey. For example, Steam states that around 20% of Linux users use AMD CPUs, while our own survey puts that number closer to 30%. You can compare these stats yourself to see some discrepancies and take into account that neither survey is perfect.
Final Note: Look at it this way, Steam has around 100 million active users, 1% of 100 million is about 1,000,000 (1 million) people. What developer wouldn't want to hook into a market that big?
Final, Final Note
This monthly article used to be done by Liam. It's a pretty important thing to have because it gives us an idea of the growth of Linux gaming. Unfortunately, I have a few other articles which I take care of here so it would be nice to get a volunteer from the GOL community to do this. It is just once a month and very quick to do. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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That should be 1.06% for last month, not 1.16%.
(Also, the increase is 0.12% points, if you want to be pedantic :P)
The increase over last year is good.
You might as well stop posting the 'news' about it until the difference is a point or more.
Thanks Liam, great to see you back.
Manjaro is Arch. As Linux Mint is Ubuntu. And NO, Ubuntu is NOT Debian.
If you add together the distros they list, it comes to 0.83%, so the remaining 0.35% must be "other". That seems to fit our own results as well.
Manjoro is Arch-BASED, and Ubuntu is Debian-BASED.
Sure :). Message me closer to the end of the month and we'll sort it out.
Manjaro is based on arch, linux mint is based on ubuntu, and yes, ubuntu is not debian, is based on debian. But I wonder how is this related to was I was talking about.
That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the info, but they should add that "Other" category, so we could see if it grows and how it behaves.
every time i start up steam in wine i get this survey...
and i have counted this... this year i have gotten the survey 6 times under wine steam and 1 time under linux native.
also whats worth to note.. 2 of those times under wine i had the survey right after i reinstalled steam, it didnt pop up before reinstall.. but right after i opened it after reinstall it asked for survey.
so my bet is that those who are distro hoppers are getting survey more. those under windows seem to get also more and we single linux distro users get it super rarely
I'm not buying into conspiracy theories here, but I agree - I've had the survey twice in 18 months under Ubuntu, but when I was on Windows it would pop up every other month or so. And I think I do more gaming now than I did then too!
Of course, if I was buying into conspiracy theories, I'd suggest that Valve's marketing for Steam Machines will have more impact if, after 3 months of their launch, they've doubled or trebled the market share...
I think it usually just does it when you reinstall steam or something. (Most if not all of the times I've gotten the survey was then).
no its not.. its arch and other distros that dont have LSB package installed by default
even if the kernels are newer they still report Linux 3.10
So use both FOSS (can be easy to set up dual screen for doing non gaming stuff) and FGLRX updates proprietary divers for my ATI card.
Its not performance that makes me avoid FOSS for gaming...its reliability and actually getting the games to work or be stable.