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Valve have put up their usual monthly survey and the interesting thing for us is that the Linux share is the highest it's been for some time now.
We're currently tracking it every month on a dedicated page which gives you some historical data. As you can see, the current Linux market share on Steam is now at 0.71% as of September's figures. It hasn't been that high since July last year when it hit 0.74%. Although we're still chasing that elusive 1% mark.
With Valve introducing their new Steam Play system near the end of August, it certainly seems to have had an effect. Whether this continues or not is certainly going to be interesting to see, but it's still a pretty good sign. Still not exactly a high percentage when you compare it to Windows at 96.30% for September, but we do have to remember the seemingly ever-increasing user-count on Steam too which means we probably have a lot more users than some would think.
The biggest uncertainty will be people testing out Linux for Steam Play, if they do decide to become fully-fledged Linux users. I've honestly lost count of the amount of people across the net, that said they've officially dumped Windows or they're finally trying Linux out. There's been a lot of positive talk about it lately, so no matter what Valve have put Linux back on the radar.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: GuestIt requires know-how to use Linux systemTell that to my elderly relatives. I'd say Linux is easier to use than Windows these days, but reality matters less than how people perceive it.
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Quoting: tuubiQuoting: GuestIt requires know-how to use Linux systemTell that to my elderly relatives. I'd say Linux is easier to use than Windows these days, but reality matters less than how people perceive it.
I actually agree with both of you :)
Using linux for everyday stuff is totally easy.
Switching from windows workflows to linux workflows can be a hassle or even impossible, especially for professional usage.
Installing linux is super easy 99% of the time.
Making linux work exactly the way you want can be a hassle.
Starting to game on linux can be a hassle.
Getting linux to perform at it's best for gaming is science AND fun for those that can enjoy it.
It's hard to accept, but linux gaming has it's edges and is still not ready for the lazy windows user who just want to start games and have optimal performance. I'd say with the next Ubuntu LTS a lot of things will have made their way upstream and documentation will be available so most can enjoy it right from the start.
Last edited by const on 3 October 2018 at 10:25 am UTC
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Quoting: constMaking linux work exactly the way you want can be a hassle.Whereas making Windows work exactly the way I want is impossible. ;)
Quoting: constGetting linux to perform at it's best for gaming is science AND fun for those that can enjoy it.For the most common gaming hardware on the most common distro (Nvidia / Ubuntu), I don't think this requires more than installing a new graphics driver. Isn't that what you need to do on Windows as well?
But yeah, gaming still isn't as convenient as it could be for someone new to Linux. Worth it though and getting better by leaps and bounds.
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Quoting: tuubiWhereas making Windows work exactly the way I want is impossible. ;)Absolutely true
Quoting: tuubiFor the most common gaming hardware on the most common distro (Nvidia / Ubuntu), I don't think this requires more than installing a new graphics driver. Isn't that what you need to do on Windows as well?Latest drivers are a thing and learning how to install them on your distro ist a lesson needed to learn, but why should it be necessary on a months-old distribution?
But yeah, gaming still isn't as convenient as it could be for someone new to Linux. Worth it though and getting better by leaps and bounds.
After fiddling around with it, I think GameMode is really improving the experience for a lot of games. Then there's stuff like xinerama. And input devices. I'm a linux user for 16 years by now, but handling my various game pads still feels like fighting the system. I just switched to manjaro and my steam controller did not work until i installed the steam-hardware package. On my also relatively fresh Ubuntu 18.04 install, I couldn't get it to work at all. Neither would my 8bitdo controller work. Also, keep in mind that Windows vs. Linux is not fair competition. People have experience with windows, they know people who can help. And they have expectations on how to handle problems that are probably wrong. That's why default behaviour can be really important.
I really think those things will improve in the next years, without doubt. And that's the positive side that can't be overstated: While Windows get's worse over time, Linux improves at tremendous pace.
Last edited by const on 3 October 2018 at 12:49 pm UTC
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Steam Linux Usage For September Revised Slightly Higher. Now at 0.78%:
-> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Steam-September-2018-Revised
At 125 Mio. Steam Users in total these are 975000 Linux Users ... still growing well, I would das ...
Last edited by KuJo on 4 October 2018 at 3:38 am UTC
-> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Steam-September-2018-Revised
At 125 Mio. Steam Users in total these are 975000 Linux Users ... still growing well, I would das ...
Last edited by KuJo on 4 October 2018 at 3:38 am UTC
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Quoting: ageresQuoting: PikoloI 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.
Bureaucrats totally would if that was what was preinstalled on computers they've bought, and governments could make that the easiest way to access government IT systems. But a far more important battleground is education. Just look at what is starting to happen as American teens who used ChromeOS at school go to universities - ChromeOS is on the rise.
This could 100% be utilized to push national Linux distros if governments were forward thinking, but they weren't. With Windows 10 being banned on Russian govn't computers and China developing Ubuntu Kylin, they might just be waking up to digital independence. And Linux happens to be the easiest starting point for any such efforts.
A Chinese company who bought VIA(one of the three companies in the world with a license to use the amd64 architecture) has recently licensed Threadripper(or possibly Ryzen too, I'm not sure) from AMD and got Linux support for their modified version into the mainline kernel in 4.18.
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