The day I'm sure many have been waiting for, and just as many probably thought it wouldn't happen. Linux has finally hit 1% again on the Steam Hardware Survey.
Not the first time, in fact years ago when Steam for Linux was pretty fresh we actually saw it remain over 1% for a while. That didn't last long though, and it's been bouncing around at sub 1% for multiple years now as we've been showing on our dedicated Steam Tracker.
Want to see what systems our readers are running? Check out our statistics page.
If we take how many monthly active users Steam has which Valve reported at over 120 million at the start of this year, that would give us an estimated 1,204,000 monthly active Linux users on Steam.
The question in my mind is: why are we seeing a sudden surge? Starting in April 2021 it started to gradually slowly move upwards but now it's a much more pronounced jump. Perhaps this is as a result of the Steam Deck announcement? It certainly wouldn't be surprising to see more people try out Linux as a result of it so they know a bit more about what to expect.
What do you think has caused the recent up-tick in users? Let us know in the comments.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: PJQuoting: SchattenspiegelLet's hope the ones crossing over do not come into contact with GNOME desktop first. Otherwise they might start to find windows 11 not so bad after all. ;-)and that's debatable. My personal experience is that when I introduce some non-techie to Linux Gnome works best (with addad dock and some minor tweaks). Those were folks that actually kept using Linux.
With "techies" KDE is usually the best choice. Sucks with default settings but you can do almost anything with it.
IMO one of the issues with Linux desktop is by default every single DE sucks... even though every single one (among the major ones) is actually awesome.
Gnome out of the box is ugly and to make it useful you have to add plugins to it. The default should be a useable desktop without the user having to do anything.
Imagine if a Windows user had to add a taskbar themselves...
Say what you want about KDE but out of the box it is useful and a user doesn't have to do anything to it.
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Quoting: rustybroomhandleI wager a hefty chunk of Linux users do not allow the survey because "oh no, privacy!"
I'm not sure. I could also imagine Windows users say "No, why would I?!?", while Linux users, having eagerly waited for their vote, scream "Hell yeah!". At least I did! ;)
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Quoting: EikeQuoting: rustybroomhandleI wager a hefty chunk of Linux users do not allow the survey because "oh no, privacy!"
I'm not sure. I could also imagine Windows users say "No, why would I?!?", while Linux users, having eagerly waited for their vote, scream "Hell yeah!". At least I did! ;)
You are all making this too complex. In my experience people just click yes to anything that pops up without reading it.
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Quoting: LachuI will be happier if the jump was after releasing this version of proton (which should support any Windows games).
Proton will never support all Windows Games. But "most" should suffice.
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Proton is why I got back on Linux, so I'd say that's what making it grow.
Now I have both things I love in same system: Games I like to play and open source OS that I can tinker with.
Considering I'm also a gamedev and developer in general, Linux is perfect for me.
Now I have both things I love in same system: Games I like to play and open source OS that I can tinker with.
Considering I'm also a gamedev and developer in general, Linux is perfect for me.
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Quoting: KohlyKohlGnome out of the box is ugly and to make it useful you have to add plugins to it. The default should be a useable desktop without the user having to do anything.
Imagine if a Windows user had to add a taskbar themselves...
Whether Gnome is pretty or not will always boil down to personal preference. All desktops provide the means to launch applications, switch between them and arrange windows. That's pretty much all I need a desktop for. Most distros nowaday come with Gnome as their default choice and many of them in turn add their set of extensions to add functionality deemed missing. Ubuntu or Pop OS is perfectly usable OOTB.
The really grating thing about Linux? The users that have to start a flame wars just about anything. DEs, init systems, audio servers, file systems. The list goes on.
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Quoting: gradyvuckovicI would expect the Steam Deck announcement timed with the latest LTTs video, probably has something to do with it.
I also fully expect we will see more months of 'less than 1%', since we're 'well above the trend line' right now, but that's nothing to feel bad about. What matters is that the trend is good, we're inching higher. Eventually it will be normal to see months above 1%.
Next milestone: 2%!
sure, just wait more 30 years for the 2% mark
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Quoting: PJWhich is fine if you're introducing them to it and doing that for them, but if someone tries Linux by themselves the Gnome user experience will be quite different.Quoting: SchattenspiegelLet's hope the ones crossing over do not come into contact with GNOME desktop first. Otherwise they might start to find windows 11 not so bad after all. ;-)and that's debatable. My personal experience is that when I introduce some non-techie to Linux Gnome works best (with addad dock and some minor tweaks).
The other question is, as opposed to which other options? If it was me, I'd put new non-techie Linux users on Mate or Cinnamon.
QuoteIMO one of the issues with Linux desktop is by default every single DE sucks... even though every single one (among the major ones) is actually awesome.Mint with Mate is IMO good, and very familiar to a classic Windows user, right out of the box. Taskbar that shows tasks, at the bottom by default, windows that act normally, menu on the left end, the good old fashioned WIMP stuff. You can change it, I personally tweak Mate to give me an extra taskbar up the right hand side where I keep launchers, but how it starts out is the basic Windows style deal (only without various Windows-style annoyances).
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Quoting: Dan_igrokI wonder how those results are computed. Are these based on total connected users every day? Are they based on a sample of users? On all users at one particular moment?I don't think over a million is a small enough sample for a whole lot of that.
Many factors could explain the "up-and-down" pattern shown on the graph.
One possible explanation could be that many Linux users aren't hardcore gamers and don't connect to Steam all the time, which could explain the pattern. If we have a small sample of users, then the amount of Linux users fluctuate more.
I'm wondering more about what's happening with Chinese users. Very often when Linux % surges it's because Chinese user share dropped and so that very-low-Linux-use group was taken out of the pool. Someone needs to get Chinese gamers using Linux.
Of course it's also still true that the Steam Survey, which these numbers are based on, is opaque. We have no way of knowing how accurate it is or how it selects the sample; we do know that Valve has publicly mentioned correcting errors in it before now, which if you're an optimist means that after all these years of error correction it's probably pretty much OK, and if you're a pessimist means that all we know about it is they do make mistakes.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 2 August 2021 at 8:01 pm UTC
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyThe US ban on Huawei getting modern CPUs will probably encourage them to put more effort into Ubuntu Kylin, the distro maintained by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.Quoting: Dan_igrokI wonder how those results are computed. Are these based on total connected users every day? Are they based on a sample of users? On all users at one particular moment?I don't think over a million is a small enough sample for a whole lot of that.
Many factors could explain the "up-and-down" pattern shown on the graph.
One possible explanation could be that many Linux users aren't hardcore gamers and don't connect to Steam all the time, which could explain the pattern. If we have a small sample of users, then the amount of Linux users fluctuate more.
I'm wondering more about what's happening with Chinese users. Very often when Linux % surges it's because Chinese user share dropped and so that very-low-Linux-use group was taken out of the pool. Someone needs to get Chinese gamers using Linux.
Of course it's also still true that the Steam Survey, which these numbers are based on, is opaque. We have no way of knowing how accurate it is or how it selects the sample; we do know that Valve has publicly mentioned correcting errors in it before now, which if you're an optimist means that after all these years of error correction it's probably pretty much OK, and if you're a pessimist means that all we know about it is they do make mistakes.
Simplified Chinese did fall by 0.4 % points, not more than the usual variation. English did go up by almost 2% though - the steam linux tracker has an entire graph for different languages. I didn't expect Russian to command a 10% market share though!
Last edited by Pikolo on 2 August 2021 at 8:48 pm UTC
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