After a few days delay, the Steam Hardware Survey has now been updated with the latest numbers and Linux is still just about holding above 1%.
It has seen another small drop though of 0.04% so the Linux user share is now at 1.02%. As you can see on our dedicated Steam Tracker.
As a reminder, this survey is opt-in and currently it isn't clear how the Steam Deck that uses SteamOS 3 Linux will affect it. Valve couldn't give a clear answer when asked about it during my original review. I was told it would show up as Linux, but when asked if it would show the survey in Gaming Mode / Deck UI, it didn't sound like it would yet as it's not a priority to add it in. Which is fair, Valve have a huge amount they need to get fix up right now with various bugs and quirks.
Quoting: Purple Library GuySo does anyone have a good grasp of why the Chinese seem to pretty much not use Linux at all?I can only speculate that because Windows 10 is free of charge for all intents and purposes, why use Linux when less of your software works with it?
Bill Gates was of a similar opinion as far back as 1998.
Quoting: Bill GatesGates shed some light on his own hard-nosed business philosophy. "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/4145017/view/3133946090937137590
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualPerhaps I should rephrase. Does anyone have a good grasp of why the Chinese seem to use far less Linux than people in other countries do? I mean, most North American consumers are basically unaware that Windows costs money, so I don't see any difference there.Quoting: Purple Library GuySo does anyone have a good grasp of why the Chinese seem to pretty much not use Linux at all?I can only speculate that because Windows 10 is free of charge for all intents and purposes, why use Linux when less of your software works with it?
Why aren't there a bunch of Chinese techies and Chinese tinkerers and Chinese programmers making a Linux community? It's not like they don't have any, there's tons of huge Chinese universities.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 8 March 2022 at 11:48 pm UTC
Quoting: Purple Library GuyWell, as I said, it's only speculation that this sentiment is more widespread. I don't know myself.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualPerhaps I should rephrase. Does anyone have a good grasp of why the Chinese seem to use far less Linux than people in other countries do? I mean, most North American consumers are basically unaware that Windows costs money, so I don't see any difference there.Quoting: Purple Library GuySo does anyone have a good grasp of why the Chinese seem to pretty much not use Linux at all?I can only speculate that because Windows 10 is free of charge for all intents and purposes, why use Linux when less of your software works with it?
I'm curious, too—it's a good question.
The Chinese government has likely switched completely over to Linux by now. The Steam survey only counts users who are using Steam, so really this is a question of, "why do Chinese gamers seem to use far less Linux than people in other countries do?"
Interesting question given that GNU/Linux has been labelled 'communist' in the past.
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