Update: 04/01/17 21:55 UTC
Doesn't really warrant a new article, but some trending graphs are now available.
New links on the page "Sections: Monthly | Trends" to switch between them.
Not all questions are included, as tweaks need to be done for each one of them to have it automated properly.
This is using the new Chart.js library.
Original article
It's always interesting to see what Linux gamers are running on their main gaming computers, so it's fun to see our statistics grow each month. The latest data is now available.
You can view the statistics at any time here.
If you want to be included, you need to fill out the "PC Info" section of your "User CP".
Quick thoughts
We have nearly a thousand people who have answered the question about their main gamepad, and it's clear that the Steam Controller is an absolute winner for Linux gamers. I'm not surprised, as I personally think it's mostly brilliant with a few edge cases in certain games.
The vast majority of people with an AMD GPU are using the open source driver, which isn't surprising. Considering how far Mesa has come in the past year, it's only going to increase the use of the open source driver.
It's also not really surprising that nearly everyone is using the closed source driver for their NVIDIA GPU. The open source driver doesn't really work for newer cards and will be a long time before it performs well with them.
The chart I am really going to be keeping an eye on over the next year or two, is what vendor people choose for their graphics card. Currently 74% of people use an NVIDIA GPU, but with Mesa coming along and new AMD cards on the horizon, it could change in AMD's favour.
Same for the CPU vendor chart, as I imagine Ryzen will shake things up rather nicely.
Updates
I have changed the charts to be based on percentage, rather than the number of responses. Everything now fits correctly, which looks a lot better. If you hover over a bar, it will tell you the exact amount of responses for that question. You can also hit the "Click for full statistics" to get the full information.
As requested, Deepin Desktop Environment is now an option and I will look to add others as requested. If you have requests for distributions and desktop environments to be added let me know in the comments.
Distributions take longer to put in, as I need an icon created for each of them. What I may look to do is just add-in a fallback Tux icon for distributions where we don't have a unique icon, so that I can add them as and when I get the icons.
I think the next thing I will work on is charts showing the difference over time, as it was requested and it would be interesting to see. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Doesn't really warrant a new article, but some trending graphs are now available.
New links on the page "Sections: Monthly | Trends" to switch between them.
Not all questions are included, as tweaks need to be done for each one of them to have it automated properly.
This is using the new Chart.js library.
Original article
It's always interesting to see what Linux gamers are running on their main gaming computers, so it's fun to see our statistics grow each month. The latest data is now available.
You can view the statistics at any time here.
If you want to be included, you need to fill out the "PC Info" section of your "User CP".
Quick thoughts
We have nearly a thousand people who have answered the question about their main gamepad, and it's clear that the Steam Controller is an absolute winner for Linux gamers. I'm not surprised, as I personally think it's mostly brilliant with a few edge cases in certain games.
The vast majority of people with an AMD GPU are using the open source driver, which isn't surprising. Considering how far Mesa has come in the past year, it's only going to increase the use of the open source driver.
It's also not really surprising that nearly everyone is using the closed source driver for their NVIDIA GPU. The open source driver doesn't really work for newer cards and will be a long time before it performs well with them.
The chart I am really going to be keeping an eye on over the next year or two, is what vendor people choose for their graphics card. Currently 74% of people use an NVIDIA GPU, but with Mesa coming along and new AMD cards on the horizon, it could change in AMD's favour.
Same for the CPU vendor chart, as I imagine Ryzen will shake things up rather nicely.
Updates
I have changed the charts to be based on percentage, rather than the number of responses. Everything now fits correctly, which looks a lot better. If you hover over a bar, it will tell you the exact amount of responses for that question. You can also hit the "Click for full statistics" to get the full information.
As requested, Deepin Desktop Environment is now an option and I will look to add others as requested. If you have requests for distributions and desktop environments to be added let me know in the comments.
Distributions take longer to put in, as I need an icon created for each of them. What I may look to do is just add-in a fallback Tux icon for distributions where we don't have a unique icon, so that I can add them as and when I get the icons.
I think the next thing I will work on is charts showing the difference over time, as it was requested and it would be interesting to see. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
hardpenguin Jan 3, 2017
Although the sample is still pretty small, I'm very glad this survey exists and provides quite a lot of useful information!
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: hardpenguinAlthough the sample is still pretty small, I'm very glad this survey exists and provides quite a lot of useful information!I am hoping it grows as more people learn GOL exists. Even so, with some questions having nearly 2K people answering, it does at least now give us a good indicator. I mean, it is a survey after all, it's to show the general trend from Linux gamers.
It's a fun distraction for me too.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: GuestHi Sir Liam,
I don't know if it's just me but I'm curios how Linux gamers are scattered around the world. Are you open to the idea of adding the continent where a GOL member resides?
North America
South America
Europe
Asia
Africa
Australia
Antarctica
I live in the Philippines (Asia) and we do have a Linux community here but it is not focused on gaming.
Thanks :)
I like this idea. Mainly because I want to see if there are any Linux gamers in Antarctica. I bet they get much better internet speeds than here in Manchester.
I looked over the Linux distro breakdown with interest because I was wondering if anyone was using Solus. I only found out about it a couple of weeks ago. Has anyone used it? Is it good/bad?
0 Likes
Quoting: rick01457I looked over the Linux distro breakdown with interest because I was wondering if anyone was using Solus. I only found out about it a couple of weeks ago. Has anyone used it? Is it good/bad?
It's very good. Just a shame the Roccat driver software isn't available through their software channel, like quite a few other things.
1 Likes, Who?
Philadelphus Jan 4, 2017
Huh! My desktop resolution (1920×1200) is actually the second-most common. I totally would not have guessed that. (Though I kinda regret going for it now, as it makes it troublesome to record full-screen videos for YouTube.)
Also, are the graphs truncating things to show only ten options? In the first graph of Linux Distributions (Combined) things like SteamOS and Slackware show up, but are absent from the Linux Distributions (Split) graph. I can see this being a stylistic choice (for instance if there are several dozen distributions with only a few users each), I'm just curious if it's intentional.
Also, are the graphs truncating things to show only ten options? In the first graph of Linux Distributions (Combined) things like SteamOS and Slackware show up, but are absent from the Linux Distributions (Split) graph. I can see this being a stylistic choice (for instance if there are several dozen distributions with only a few users each), I'm just curious if it's intentional.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: PhiladelphusAlso, are the graphs truncating things to show only ten options? In the first graph of Linux Distributions (Combined) things like SteamOS and Slackware show up, but are absent from the Linux Distributions (Split) graph. I can see this being a stylistic choice (for instance if there are several dozen distributions with only a few users each), I'm just curious if it's intentional.I think there used to be a combined "others" entry in these cases, or was this only discussed in comments somewhere? Anyway, under the graphs there's a "Click for full statistics" thingy you can click to see the rest.
0 Likes
Quoting: PhiladelphusAlso, are the graphs truncating things to show only ten options? In the first graph of Linux Distributions (Combined) things like SteamOS and Slackware show up, but are absent from the Linux Distributions (Split) graph. I can see this being a stylistic choice (for instance if there are several dozen distributions with only a few users each), I'm just curious if it's intentional.Those two graphs are quite different. All graphs show a max of 10 items.
The combined graph has SteamOS (for example) as the others are combined, so Xubuntu, Kubuntu and so on go under "Ubuntu-based" which frees up space for more. Even though SteamOS is technically just Debian-based (unless it has a lot of divergence?), it's useful to show it by itself anyway.
All graphs allow you to view the full statistics of each in the dropdown below them.
0 Likes
I was going to say I'm missing the special questions we used to have in the monthly surveys, but I couldn't come up with somethin interesting to ask. Maybe the following could the be a one-time question (instead of adding to the user data survey)?
Quoting: GuestI don't know if it's just me but I'm curios how Linux gamers are scattered around the world. Are you open to the idea of adding the continent where a GOL member resides?
0 Likes
Doc Angelo Jan 4, 2017
I have to say that I wouldn't have thought that 67% are not dual booting - not even another Linux distro. Is it really that common for Linux gamers to not have a Windows partition ready for the case a game will not have Linux support - or just older Games which do not work well with Wine?
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