Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March • Hacker News Board

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#171

Post by jijijijij » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 10:15 AM UTC

nananana9 wrote: post #128

komali2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're entering a world where developers are going to need to start implementing anti cheat that works on Linux. It's clearly possible, and as we break past 5% it's no longer economically viable to ignore Linux. Especially once the GabeCube comes out...

The goal of kernel mode anticheat is to prevent other kernel-mode modules from tampering with the game's memory. This can kind of be done on Windows, as there's a pretty short list of kernel binaries, and all device drivers are signed. This is out of the question on Linux, where there's probably 100,000 distro kernel binaries floating around, plus the ability to build your own with whatever modules you wish. The only…

I think, it's not unreasonable to see basically a verifiable reference single-purpose gaming OS everyone has to use in competitive esports games. Steam and Linux are probably positioned well there.

Would be hilarious, if all gaming ultimately settles on a hardware independent console platform running on a locked-down linux! This would really please and piss off every faction at the same time. But honestly, not the worst compromise IMO.

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#172

Post by heavyset_go » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 10:16 AM UTC

BatteryMountain wrote: post #130

zelphirkalt wrote: post #121

I wish things were working so seamlessly for me, as people describe in the comments. There seems to be something wrong with Steam and how it works, so that in my machine (and CPU and GPU from 2019, with official Linux drivers from standard repos, running Debian KDE) it almost never manages to start a Windows game. I will click the green "Play" button, it will change to a blue "Stop" button, as if the application was…

Honestly, don't use debian for gaming, as it is too far behind. Gaming stuff needs a bit more bleeding edge packages. I use Fedora + KDE and everything just works. Fedora's packages are at most a month behind but usually get updates within a week of upstream changes. Debian can be months behind (which makes it rock solid for server workloads). So give Fedora+KDE a try, it works great. It's the one combo that solves a…

This is correct, if you want a good desktop Linux experience, you want to use a rolling release distribution.

Debian will ship with old pieces of software that are updated and fixed on a daily basis upstream. Some of those changes and bug fixes really are showstoppers and you'll be stuck with them for months/years. Same thing with older kernels.

Debian is great for servers, but if you're doing graphics, sound or multimedia heavy tasks, you want the latest Wayland, Pipewire and driver support at the bare minimum.

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#173

Post by ErroneousBosh » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 10:17 AM UTC

HerbManic wrote: post #36

thrdbndndn wrote: post #5

I've probably said this a bunch of times already, but based on my past experience, any analysis built on month-to-month changes in the Steam Hardware Survey should be taken with a very large grain of salt, if not considered outright useless for any serious conclusions. The clue is already in the article itself. The author notes that "part of the jump at least appears to be explained by Valve correcting again the Stea…

Even if it wasn't for corrections, one has to look at the longer trends and not just single months. Loads of people switch to Linux but I do wonder how many are still there a year later? I say this as someone that been a Linux daily runner since about 2010.

> Loads of people switch to Linux but I do wonder how many are still there a year later?

Everyone who bought a gaming PC last year, only to be told it has to be scrapped now because Windows 11 doesn't like the colour of the power cable.

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#174

Post by gchamonlive » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 10:18 AM UTC

I am a long time windows pc gamer, but lately I was having to re-pair my DS4 controller every week or so. But the windows Bluetooth device manager will just refuse to remove that device. So I was periodically having to open the old school device manager, click show hidden and remove the controller there. By the fifth time I got fed up, replaced windows with Bazzite and am happy now. Good riddance.

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#175

Post by deafpolygon » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 10:21 AM UTC

petu wrote: post #133

deafpolygon wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you use the gyro sensors to play? I looked into it before but couldn’t wrap my mind around how we’re supposed to do that.

If you're asking how it's setup/configured, then Valve ships "Steam Input" that can do a lot of things and one of them is translating gyro data to mouse events. Some games support gyro directly, but even then AFAIK people prefer Steam Input due to how configurable it is.

More like, how does gyro help you play some games?

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#176

Post by heavyset_go » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 10:22 AM UTC

thinkloop wrote: post #22

AI fixes Linux on the desktop. Whatever obscure issues you’re facing, you’re a quick prompt away from the solution.

LLMs regularly give wrong advice for debugging and fixing Linux stacks, especially desktop stacks.

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#177

Post by mikkupikku » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 10:22 AM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #170

vkazanov wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody who has been around linux almost for as long as it exists, i must say that is a very strong statement. In real life: systemd IS useful, Wayland is becoming (has become?) the default, ubuntu is the most popular desktop distro family.

In my experience, Snap is frustrating to use, buggy and is opinionated in ways I don't like. It's also a weird choice for servers running Ubuntu. I recall some CLI utilities being moved to Snap and you can't install them with apt anymore.

Ubuntu on servers has always been "a choice", Debian is definitely the preferable of the two. Even on desktops, I'd sooner suggest Debian or Mint than Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a dead distro coasting on a reputation 15(+) years out of date.

(And it used to be that Ubuntu was still a defensible choice for maximizing the chance of getting help online, but LLMs have effectively neutralized this advantage.)

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#178

Post by bregma » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 10:25 AM UTC

jijijijij wrote: post #155

helterskelter wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was probably a lot more true in the past but Linux users tend to be more privacy conscious and do things like spoof their user agent, so this is almost certainly an undercount. You basically used to have to do this to browse the web before Firefox became one of the dominant browsers.

Privacy minded Linux users probably also know, spoofing your user agent is likely to increase fingerprint entropy and actually decreases privacy. It may have been true in the past, but I don't think anyone even recommends it anymore.

There's still plenty of web sites that check the OS and if it's not Mac OS, Windows, or Andoid it's no service for you. Faking your UA is not always about privacy, it's about defeating stupidity.

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#179

Post by TurdF3rguson » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 10:25 AM UTC

PurpleRamen wrote: post #123

TurdF3rguson wrote: post #110

Skyrocketed above 5% is an expression I would discourage anyone from using because it's a broken metaphor. Unless the trajectory of that rocket was a few degrees from horizontal. How about grasshopper-ed above 5%?

The number doubled in the last year. April 2025 it was around 2.3%, and has been jumping around 2-3% for several years. Skyrocking seems justified when looking at a greater picture. Though, it's a longer process, not something that suddenly happened immediately. The combination of Steamdeck, proton, good gaming-distributions and Windows 10 phasing out, while Windows 11 sucks and becoming an AI+Ads-infested mess, seem…

Right but clearly 5% is still much closer to the ground than it is to the sky. Not that ground-rocketed makes any more sense because it doesn't.

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#180

Post by ErroneousBosh » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 10:31 AM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #59

vkazanov wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in the overall kernel space there is nothing but Linux-based kernels right now.

You should broaden your hardware horizons. Straight out of Linux Foundation, https://www.zephyrproject.org/ There are no Linux kernels on Sony PlayStation nor Nintendo's Switch, or even Microsoft's XBox. Windows with its 80% market share has no Linux kernel. Zero Linux kernel running on the ca 15% Apple desktops. Zero Linux kernels running on iOS and iPadOS. No Linux kernels on Arduino or ESP32, althought they certai…

> There are no Linux kernels on Sony PlayStation nor Nintendo's Switch, or even Microsoft's XBox.

Except the ones in the network cards and SSD, and probably a bunch of other embedded components.

The year of Linux Everywhere was decades ago.