The Linux market share on Steam is at a 14 month high as of September 2018

i doubt we will reach higher than 1% any time soon. Proton is great, but it still needs a lot of improvements to be just 1 click to download and play. Drivers still need to get up to date and so on and on. But we are on the right track with it. There are lots of people switching to linux (probably most of them won't stay for long though) as of late. Internet is full of "Hey i switched to Linux" posts. Linus Tech Tips Videos about the proton and Low Spec Gamer one really helped there also to raise some awarness i guess. Exciting times, but i doubt there will be any huge gains in the market share yet. Lets try to report and fix all those small and big issues before.

What I find relatively surprising is the way proton has become accepted by the community. Beginning September, there was a lot of native vs. proton talk, but it seems we have come to an agreement to welcome the technology as a fundamental part of linux gaming in just one month. I bet there are still people that don't agree, but they are aware of the consensus.
It's there, it won't go away and it's pretty awesome.

i doubt we will reach higher than 1% any time soon. Proton is great, but it still needs a lot of improvements to be just 1 click to download and play. Drivers still need to get up to date and so on and on.

you cant expect a change after 1 month
i think its more important what developers will do in the future. no one will switch to linux, because old games work (except online games of course, but if you see the most played games on steam most of them are for linux anyways)

the question is: will new games work with proton?
will developers program their games, that they work with proton? (VULKAN)

you cant say anything about that, but that will be the interesting part of proton

i doubt we will reach higher than 1% any time soon. Proton is great, but it still needs a lot of improvements to be just 1 click to download and play. Drivers still need to get up to date and so on and on. But we are on the right track with it. There are lots of people switching to linux (probably most of them won't stay for long though) as of late. Internet is full of "Hey i switched to Linux" posts. Linus Tech Tips Videos about the proton and Low Spec Gamer one really helped there also to raise some awarness i guess. Exciting times, but i doubt there will be any huge gains in the market share yet. Lets try to report and fix all those small and big issues before.

I totally agree. It feels like things are really coming together currently, but there are just so many things that need to get default to really show the potential.
Things like latest drivers, gamemode integration and steam-hardware support are still not default, while they can enhance the experience dramatically. Then there are so many things we know will come in a matter of time, like faudio and steam output support. That's really exciting for those who are willing to try out those new things and feel the difference, but a newbie user who just jumps over from windows will not be abled to enjoy this as much.


Last edited by const on 2 Oct 2018 at 2:35 pm UTC

I think it's important to remember that these numbers are only for the Steam Hardware Survey, which still seems to be pretty sporadic on how often it appears to Linux users. Where Proton will make most of its difference is in reports to developers on Linux users.

I fully expect more states to start their national distro's as a cost saving measure, with business licenses for Windows increasing as a proportion of software licensing cost. This won't happen in the USA, but it might happen in Europe(France already provides Linux as one of the two OS's on parliamentary laptops) or in China/Saudi Arabia/Brazil.

I don't think deputies and bureaucrats are PC gamers and would evolve into Linux gamers if there was Linux on their computers at work.


Last edited by ageres on 2 Oct 2018 at 3:06 pm UTC

I just read all of you and at times reading you feels like you have a bit too much frown in you guys/gals :P

Sure proton made "wining" games million times easier and this brought a big change, and yes there is still things we need to work on. But come let's just remember the distrowatch motto and take it to heart. How about we put the fun back in computing.

Yes there are a lot case scenarios for gaming where we still need to do a lot of tweaking but hey let's take it as a fun puzzle.
In fact I think that this is truly what we need to do in the long making videos showing us havin' fun experimenting.

deputies and bureaucrats are PC gamers and would evolve into Linux gamers if there was Linux on their computers at work.

Actually both in France , Germany and Spain we already have a few and they are elected already so no, fresh new blood is indeed finally pumping into our political class and thankfully some FLOSS defenders and some gamers are among them.
Problem is most outlets don't exactly want to be talking about those points because "it ain't really news worthy , and what would be the headline anyway ?"

Heck over here in France a tv channel that is tax payers funded and is solely dedicated to political life debating the new laws text etc made a tiny documentary about the relationship often troubled and tumultuous between game studios and politicans , and focused their first part on "those elected officials who love video games" and only showed Alexis Corbière and Rachid Hamioui , and well let's just say non green party and non left wingers politician who are gamers weren't all too pleased to be left out of the documentary...

As in they threaten to sue the direction team for that "spiteful and clearly politically charged omission" ...

To which Vanessa Derivière answered in her great usual style "Politically charged no, revealing that I was afraid to even ask and only went asking to the ones that have been "out of the gaming closet for a while now" that's for dead certain. And given your reactions and the way you attack me and attribute me malicious intent I sure as hell won't be giving yer silly asses a ringer for part 2 when I'll be filming it . Kindly the evil biased documentary director"


Last edited by TheSyldat on 2 Oct 2018 at 4:07 pm UTC

If i recall well, we were at .59% last month. That would make a relative 20% increase in proportion.

Nah, you're counting the wrong way. If we were at .59 and went up to .71, the increase is relative to .59 as the 100% value, meaning this would be more correct: (.79 / .51) * 100 - 100

We're up 25.42%! :D

According to my phone's calculator app ((0.71 - 0.51)/(0.51)) * 100 is about 20.34.

So . . . the PUBG wave has crested?
Still don't trust the Steam Survey numbers anyway.

9 people are extremely friendly and helpful, but the 10th makes Apple fanboys go "Daaaaaaaaamn!!!" :))).

My experience with any tech community ever.

I agree but with the strikethrough added.

...we need friendly and welcoming community - they need to feel that Linux OS is for everybody and not for small tech elite.

Problem number one for the majority of people who tried Linux and then gave up, because thy were trolled on reddit by some elitist a**hole. Even some of the people on the Linux gaming sub-reddit are just insufferable. A few weeks back I was called out for having a "parasitic way of thinking" because I dared to express my view that an OS is nothing more than a tool and I will use both Windows and Linux for whatever purpose they best suit me. Then there was this other person, who tried to explain to me that not having Photoshop or Vegas Pro was somehow the fault of both the developer and the user. Essentially, people who need professional software had to be ashamed they need non-Linux software and use Linux anyway. Because f*ck your job - open source for life :). You just need a bit of a thick skin when you're in the Linux community. 9 people are extremely friendly and helpful, but the 10th makes Apple fanboys go "Daaaaaaaaamn!!!" :))).

True, but I would like to point out that the GamingOnLinux community we have here is pretty much the nicest gaming community on internet, at least from what I have experienced.

9 people be like: Everything is awesoooooome!
and the 10th be like: It would be even more awesome if it was DRM-free, but yeah, it's awesome.

Praise be to Liam's excellent moderation.

Nobody so far noticed the potential clickbaity headline: "1% of Steam users will use Linux by end of 2018"

In the [linked graph](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/index.php?module=steam_linux_share) market share is rising so rapidly between July and September that if same trend continues graph would reach 1% in end of December.

Though of course for that to happen there needs to be some luck involved (ie. number of Chinese users don't increase, people don't switch back to Windows etc.).

So . . . the PUBG wave has crested?
Still don't trust the Steam Survey numbers anyway.

PUBG has been in decline for some time now. Their player graph on SteamDB paints a terrible picture for their future...

...we need friendly and welcoming community - they need to feel that Linux OS is for everybody and not for small tech elite.

Problem number one for the majority of people who tried Linux and then gave up, because thy were trolled on reddit by some elitist a**hole. Even some of the people on the Linux gaming sub-reddit are just insufferable. A few weeks back I was called out for having a "parasitic way of thinking" because I dared to express my view that an OS is nothing more than a tool and I will use both Windows and Linux for whatever purpose they best suit me. Then there was this other person, who tried to explain to me that not having Photoshop or Vegas Pro was somehow the fault of both the developer and the user. Essentially, people who need professional software had to be ashamed they need non-Linux software and use Linux anyway. Because f*ck your job - open source for life :). You just need a bit of a thick skin when you're in the Linux community. 9 people are extremely friendly and helpful, but the 10th makes Apple fanboys go "Daaaaaaaaamn!!!" :))).

True, but I would like to point out that the GamingOnLinux community we have here is pretty much the nicest gaming community on internet, at least from what I have experienced.

9 people be like: Everything is awesoooooome!
and the 10th be like: It would be even more awesome if it was DRM-free, but yeah, it's awesome.

Praise be to Liam's excellent moderation.

Hah thanks, some people think i'm too heavy handed at times but it has to be done otherwise shit gets out of hand.

Hah thanks, some people think i'm too heavy handed at times but it has to be done otherwise shit gets out of hand.

Actually to be honest I think it's quite the opposite way around you're too light on the moderation hammer use. But I know damn well that when it gets out of the drawer and is wileded a bit too often it loses its impact...
Sad that some people are so slow to pick up on certain things.

But yeah so far you're doing a good job at trying to get everyone to play nice.

Why wouldn't they? Ubuntu Kylin is sponsored by the Chinese academy of sciences and Windows 10's snooping is a competitor to the great firewall.

except that:
1)microsoft already helps the chinese government to spy on their people, so they dont need an custom linux for that

2)they would have an bad time convincing developers to support linux and as an result, many consumers will use windows (even if they had to pirate it) to have acess to more games/softwares.

I fully expect more states to start their national distro's as a cost saving measure, with business licenses for Windows increasing as a proportion of software licensing cost. This won't happen in the USA, but it might happen in Europe(France already provides Linux as one of the two OS's on parliamentary laptops) or in China/Saudi Arabia/Brazil. It's an interesting tactic to keep homegrown IT talent in the country.

i have no hope for my country (Brasil), we spent tons of $$ to migrate the data from an proprietary format to a free one, then we saved millions by adopting linux and free software, then the goverment change and guess what? it goes back to MS hands.
at least in a few states, its a shame.

it take some time to recoup the investiment of an migration, and before that happens microsoft is able to lobby the government in going back to lock then selves.

also, the government tried to push the people to use linux, but what happened?
some shit companies made crap distros that made an bad reputation for linux, combine that with the fact that it lacked games/softwares, and we have an recipe for disaster, people now know linux and hate it, wich is worse than not knowing it at all, the distro was so bad that NO ONE who used it would like linux and migrate for it (or keep in on their computer)
to this day people have an bad impression of linux.
looks like the national crap distros had priority over international good ones.
the government even went so far as giving an tax discount for computers sold with linux, but it was useless, people just dumped it and instaled pirated versions of windows on it.


Last edited by elmapul on 2 Oct 2018 at 7:51 pm UTC

There is a reason the only North Korean OS was Android based - Linux is the easiest place to start.

On the desktop, "[Red Star OS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS)" has always been based on "traditional" Linux (not Android)... The "mobile" version - based off Android - is a recent thing, from the last year or so.


Last edited by Cyba.Cowboy on 2 Oct 2018 at 8:53 pm UTC

we are getting there :) tnks to dxvk and valve proton

It's possible that people using Steam on Wine were now more likely to get their survey on Linux again due to proton. It could also be a statistical anomaly. Time will tell.

On a positive note, I got a survey last night. On Linux obviously. :D

I personally think people using steam in wine should at least decline to take the survey unless it shows up in their native client so as to avoid inflating windows numbers. Hopefully it won't be an issue now anyway thanks to proton.

Well, this is a prove Steam Play/Proton works. More Windows gamers might wanted to try Linux and/or might not need dual-boot anymore.

Also, PUBG already declining on PC in my hometown. Most people I know (who's gamers) playing Fortnite (some) or PUBG on mobile (most) because both are free-to-play and plus as mobile games, it can be played anywhere.