Steam survey shows Linux marketshare hitting 1.0% • Hacker News Board

Re: Steam survey shows Linux marketshare hitting 1.0%

#11

Post by vardump » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 10:08 AM UTC

xxs wrote: post #7

vardump wrote: post #4

Nowadays OS matters pretty little. Personally, on some level, I don't even notice difference working macOS, Linux and Windows. Other than platform specific development work, it doesn't really matter in the big picture. Other than that, only Linux allows me true visibility to its innards. Fast to fix almost any issues, should they happen. And I say this as someone who has for example no problem debugging Windows kerne…

Windows has no epoll(), but of course that doesn't matter for games.

Windows does have I/O completion ports, which is, frankly, superior. Then again, Linux has io_uring.

Again, pointless in the big picture. Most of the time these details are hidden by libraries.

Re: Steam survey shows Linux marketshare hitting 1.0%

#12

Post by The_rationalist » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 10:14 AM UTC

quijoteuniv wrote: post #6

vardump wrote: post #4

Nowadays OS matters pretty little. Personally, on some level, I don't even notice difference working macOS, Linux and Windows. Other than platform specific development work, it doesn't really matter in the big picture. Other than that, only Linux allows me true visibility to its innards. Fast to fix almost any issues, should they happen. And I say this as someone who has for example no problem debugging Windows kerne…

I think it matters a lot, specially on machines that are not that new, with modest resources

Or especially in machines that are new, my new aero 4k laptop is awfully supported, even on arch linux/manjaro

Re: Steam survey shows Linux marketshare hitting 1.0%

#13

Post by mhitza » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 10:17 AM UTC

Definitely the number is gonna increase dramatically next year with the Steam deck. Unless it's going to fail in some major way.

Re: Steam survey shows Linux marketshare hitting 1.0%

#14

Post by foxhill » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 10:17 AM UTC

i’ve been using linux as my daily driver for just over a year. steam on linux has been great, and proton (wine) has been indispensable. big title games i’ve played with _no_ issues at all:

* Cyberpunk 2077 (ok that has issues, but it has the same issues for windows users..)

* Dying Light

* Titanfall

* The Division

along with _many_ other indie/small games.

honestly the only thing left is titles that include invasive anti-cheat. when that day comes, i don’t know if most of my friends will have any reason to remain on windows.

and who could blame them? finally, they won’t need to deal with a company that collects data from them without their knowledge, runs ads in their taskbar, demands they have a useless microsoft account, restarts their machine on a whim for updates, etc.

i hate that i’m going to say this out loud, but could 2022 really be the year of linux on the des- why does it feel so wrong to say that? :)

Re: Steam survey shows Linux marketshare hitting 1.0%

#15

Post by londons_explore » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 10:20 AM UTC

vardump wrote: post #4

Nowadays OS matters pretty little. Personally, on some level, I don't even notice difference working macOS, Linux and Windows. Other than platform specific development work, it doesn't really matter in the big picture. Other than that, only Linux allows me true visibility to its innards. Fast to fix almost any issues, should they happen. And I say this as someone who has for example no problem debugging Windows kerne…

I find there is a lot of OS-specific knowledge for deep-diving.

Want to get symbols to debug the kernel? That'll be the microsoft symbol server on windows, or a System.map file in Linux...

Want to make something happen with every boot of the system? That'll be a system service on windows (and by the way they have all kinds of gotchas about what kinds of stuff they can access) or a systemd service on linux.

Want to make a file creatable, writable and deletable by a specific user, but disallow reading back the file contents? Thats easy with windows ACL's, but on linux you're going to have to mess with seccomp.

Need to script something quickly? Well thats either bash on linux or powershell/batch files on windows.

It turns out regularly using two OS's requires almost double the learning time to be as effective on both - there is overlap with concepts, but little overlap with implementations.

Re: Steam survey shows Linux marketshare hitting 1.0%

#16

Post by sen » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 10:20 AM UTC

Taek wrote: post #2

I've been gaming on linux for almost a year now and I've had no issues at all. I've mainly been playing popular titles but Proton makes every game feel like it's a linux native game.

Regretfully most racing sims (and any other sims that use peripherals) are still a huge pain to get going, even with Proton. At most you can get the actual game "running" (with performance sacrifices over Windows), but you still won't get things like Force Feedback, and half your peripherals features probably won't work (or will work intermittently for no reason).

I'd love nothing more than to never use Windows again, and I use Linux for 90% of my daily use, but if I have to have Windows still installed for any major games at all then it's just easier to keep using Windows for all gaming, where gaming really does "just work", every time.

Re: Steam survey shows Linux marketshare hitting 1.0%

#17

Post by go_elmo » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 10:22 AM UTC

foxhill wrote: post #14

i’ve been using linux as my daily driver for just over a year. steam on linux has been great, and proton (wine) has been indispensable. big title games i’ve played with _no_ issues at all: * Cyberpunk 2077 (ok that has issues, but it has the same issues for windows users..) * Dying Light * Titanfall * The Division along with _many_ other indie/small games. honestly the only thing left is titles that include invasive…

Same here. Switched 2 months ago after using WSL all the time & being annoyed over many things, including "failing updates" on windows. Did a dualboot but haven't used windows since. Game to add to your list: - CS:GO

Re: Steam survey shows Linux marketshare hitting 1.0%

#18

Post by qart » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 10:25 AM UTC

What is the point of these surveys when we know how many "level farming" operations[1] are going on in China, etc.? Casual CSGO has become unusable these days. Of course, apart from farming operations, cheaters come from across the world. And AFAIK, most cheats software is available only for Windows. Valve's esports-grade games like CSGO, and DOTA2 are free. There is no penalty for getting banned in such a context. It is easy for the "farmer" or cheater to create a new account, and start playing again.

I would be more interested in knowing what percent of paying customers run whatever OS. This info would be useful to new game developers too.

[1] I won't post links because my comment might get auto-flagged as spam, but interested readers can find them easily by searching for something like "Buy CSGO High Tier Accounts".

Re: Steam survey shows Linux marketshare hitting 1.0%

#19

Post by deltasixeight » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC

Just to be fair and balanced I'm a hardcore linux user and gamer and I've tried gaming on linux and I've hit many issues. 365 games on steam and while some windows games work I've hit probably just about every possible issue you can hit with other games. Graphical artifacts, freezing, stuttering, and even full OS reboots.

Sometimes I read this thread and scratch my head. I get enthusiasm for FOSS, but enthusiasm to the point of delusion? Honestly, Linux is not up to par with windows in terms of running games that are basically designed for windows. Thus the experience compared to windows for these things is definitively inferior.

Re: Steam survey shows Linux marketshare hitting 1.0%

#20

Post by vardump » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 10:27 AM UTC

encryptluks2 wrote: post #9

vardump wrote: post #4

Nowadays OS matters pretty little. Personally, on some level, I don't even notice difference working macOS, Linux and Windows. Other than platform specific development work, it doesn't really matter in the big picture. Other than that, only Linux allows me true visibility to its innards. Fast to fix almost any issues, should they happen. And I say this as someone who has for example no problem debugging Windows kerne…

> Nowadays OS matters pretty little. > Other than platform specific development work, it doesn't really matter in the big picture. Yes it does. It just doesn't matter to you.

Right. I can just talk for myself. I do think in the big picture what really matters for the most is really just a good web browser.

Thinking about this, I just realized I tend to pick OS according to device type.

For laptops, macOS for the best touchpad, security and speedy open-lid-to-machine-actually-usable time. But I'd sure like "upgradeability" and "repairability" over thinness, something 2012 Macbooks still had. But for now, practicality wins.

For desktops and workstations often Windows, sometimes Linux. Windows got good desktop performance and nice commercial software library. Freedom to choose your hardware, CPU and GPU. And of course gaming.

For servers, it's pretty much always Linux or possibly some BSD. Minimal, easy to admin, fast, efficient and secure if configured correctly.