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Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

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

#21

Post by DiabloD3 »

sonzohan wrote: post #4

When Windows 11 was force-installed on my main game development desktop, I was skeptical, but kept using it. I was annoyed at having to turn off all the tracking and noise (like news articles) When it updated and started shoving AI down my throat, with no easy way to turn it off and suddenly lots of data I don't consent to sharing getting used, 11 became the last Windows OS I'll ever use. Whenever the next version co…

I will warn you, Ubuntu is basically dead now.

Canonical announced that they are no longer using Debian as a base, but the unvetted packages compiled and uploaded by random people on Snap.

Please switch to Linux, but find a distro that actually wants you as a user.

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

#23

Post by malbs »

amarant wrote: post #16
malbs wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to give you a single data point, I've finally committed to linux on my desktop machine at home (I posted in another comment on this thread regarding my sim setup, thats another issue), but on the desktop machine, I installed steam, proton, downloaded a few games from my library, and they just worked on install, no stuffing around at all, no searching the web for fixes to get it going. It's probably been 6 years since…

Yeah I think for the not-so-tech-savvy gamer, there are better distros than Ubuntu. Ubuntu(and Debian) tend to lag behind the cutting edge a bit too. For such users I'd probably recommend fedora (or one of it's variants) or just straight up steamOS

I tried cachy, but I decided I hate the kde plasma environment, I should have chosen some other window manager but wanted to try the recommended one

there is also something to be said, negatively, for the number of distros now, cambrian explosion since the good old days of slack, deb, redhat, suse lol

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

#24

Post by tapoxi »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #14

SteamDeck should be excluded from “Linux use” imho. Especially when it comes to click bait headlines. Like yes it is Linux. But SteamDeck is a completely different beast from desktop Linux. They might as well be entirely different OS’s. Especially if the SteamDeck is being used to play Win32 binaries!

SteamOS is just an immutable Arch, and all Steam Linux games use the Steam Linux container runtime or Proton.

Bazzite and a few others provide a similar console-style experience.

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

#25

Post by HDBaseT »

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…

The key word in the article is "again"

'Valve correcting again the Steam China numbers.'

This seemingly is a common problem with the Steam Hardware Report, with Chinese users being erroneously represented. It constantly gets fixed, although takes a bit. It could be the hardware surveys are sent out at a different time compared to the rest of the world, then combined in the following month.

This is proven by "Ended 2025 at around a 3.5% marketshare, dipped a bit in January, and fell to 2.23% in February."

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

#26

Post by HDBaseT »

malbs wrote: post #23
amarant wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think for the not-so-tech-savvy gamer, there are better distros than Ubuntu. Ubuntu(and Debian) tend to lag behind the cutting edge a bit too. For such users I'd probably recommend fedora (or one of it's variants) or just straight up steamOS

I tried cachy, but I decided I hate the kde plasma environment, I should have chosen some other window manager but wanted to try the recommended one there is also something to be said, negatively, for the number of distros now, cambrian explosion since the good old days of slack, deb, redhat, suse lol

I honestly believe one of the main, highly supported Distros like:

Debian, Arch, Fedora, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Nix, etc are all better choices than Catchy, Manjaro, Bazzite or whatever else niche distro exists.

I commonly find myself running into weird issues that I would of never run into otherwise. Bazzite for example by default, opens Steam on boot. This caused my games drives to not be mapped in Steam. (I assume Steam somehow booted before my drives were properly mapped) I helped my friend for hours troubleshooting his fstab config, rebooting, etc, but then realized it was just a default that he never set.

He quit Linux because of this (and some other minor gripes) and I don't think the gaming distros do much to properly help.

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

#27

Post by HDBaseT »

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.

Whilst I tend to agree, I also don't recommend just pasting every command from ChatGPT into your machine without having some understanding/validating process.

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

#28

Post by cwnyth »

amarant wrote: post #16
malbs wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to give you a single data point, I've finally committed to linux on my desktop machine at home (I posted in another comment on this thread regarding my sim setup, thats another issue), but on the desktop machine, I installed steam, proton, downloaded a few games from my library, and they just worked on install, no stuffing around at all, no searching the web for fixes to get it going. It's probably been 6 years since…

Yeah I think for the not-so-tech-savvy gamer, there are better distros than Ubuntu. Ubuntu(and Debian) tend to lag behind the cutting edge a bit too. For such users I'd probably recommend fedora (or one of it's variants) or just straight up steamOS

As a Fedora user, I would actually recommend Ubuntu for gamers new to Linux, just because companies that offer Linux builds tend to only support Ubuntu. It's a bit more work comparatively to get to smooth sailing on Fedora. I think that work is worth it, of course, but new users might beg to differ.

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

#29

Post by Gigachad »

malbs wrote: post #13
amarant wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean you make good points and all, but on the other hand I really want this to be the year of the Linux desktop, so I'm gonna go with the other interpretation anyway!

to give you a single data point, I've finally committed to linux on my desktop machine at home (I posted in another comment on this thread regarding my sim setup, thats another issue), but on the desktop machine, I installed steam, proton, downloaded a few games from my library, and they just worked on install, no stuffing around at all, no searching the web for fixes to get it going. It's probably been 6 years since…

There is value in the gaming specific distros since they already include all the stuff like controller drivers. I installed Bazzite on my desktop which I have plugged in to the TV and it's been every bit as seamless as the steamdeck. It boots up direct in to steam big picture mode and I can do everything with my xbox controller.

Bazzite is an immutible os which is absolutely the future of linux. Your install will never break on updates since rather than a normal update migration process, it simply boots the next version of the OS image, which if it doesn't work will just revert back to the old image where you can wait for the bug to be fixed to update again.

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

#30

Post by pkulak »

simmanian wrote: post #10

A few weeks ago, I installed linux (Nobara, if you're curious) on my PC and hooked it up to the living room TV to use as a gaming console. I have absolutely no regret. I did it initially because apparently playing games on a shared screen is better for my kid. But I was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly Windows only games run on Linux. The whole experience has been great, and I don't think I'll ever go back. I hav…

The Steam Controller will be such a blessing when it comes out.
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