Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

1.85% of Steam users run Linux

itsmdaily.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 123 posts

Re: 1.85% of Steam users run Linux

#21

Post by i80and »

amscanne wrote: post #5

Anecdote. I actually installed steam yesterday (for the first time, I'm not a gamer) to see the available games for Linux. I was pleasantly surprised that there were a few that looked okay. So I bought a couple. None worked -- mysterious launch errors, etc. No luck after a couple hours of debugging. DISAPPOINTED! I seriously question how many people actually run on Linux vs. login and browse the store? That said, I'm…

Most games work, but the problems fall into a few categories:

1) Missing libraries: Almost always 32-bit/64-bit problems.

2) Missing executable: this is usually fixed sooner or later.

3) Graphics problems: This shouldn't be a problem on NVIDIA systems, and the Intel Mesa drivers are pretty good these days, but it still can occur.

Re: 1.85% of Steam users run Linux

#22

Post by code_duck »

amscanne wrote: post #5

Anecdote. I actually installed steam yesterday (for the first time, I'm not a gamer) to see the available games for Linux. I was pleasantly surprised that there were a few that looked okay. So I bought a couple. None worked -- mysterious launch errors, etc. No luck after a couple hours of debugging. DISAPPOINTED! I seriously question how many people actually run on Linux vs. login and browse the store? That said, I'm…

I installed steam for Linux a few days ago. Machine is a Core Duo, nvidia GeForce 610 running Ubuntu 13.10.

So far I've installed and played Half Life, Half Life 2, Amnesia and Don't Starve with zero problems.

Re: 1.85% of Steam users run Linux

#23

Post by recursive »

jebblue wrote: post #10
amscanne wrote: post #5

Anecdote. I actually installed steam yesterday (for the first time, I'm not a gamer) to see the available games for Linux. I was pleasantly surprised that there were a few that looked okay. So I bought a couple. None worked -- mysterious launch errors, etc. No luck after a couple hours of debugging. DISAPPOINTED! I seriously question how many people actually run on Linux vs. login and browse the store? That said, I'm…

I've had a 99.9% success rate with all that I've tried. That's over a dozen popular games so far.

In order to get a number like 99.9%, you'd have to have over ~700 games, even with optimistic rounding. "Over dozens" calls this into question.

Re: 1.85% of Steam users run Linux

#24

Post by recursive »

codygman wrote: post #13
jordonwii wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same issue. If I recall correctly, there is a relatively simple solution on the Ubuntu forums somewhere.

The solution isn't so simple on wheezy if you want to keep your install sane. AKA don't install debs from ubuntu/other repos. When I last checked, what was necessary is backporting a new verison of libgl1-mesa and possibly other things. Haven't had time to see if that fixes it yet though.

Oh well, maybe 2015 will be the year of linux on the desktop.

Re: 1.85% of Steam users run Linux

#25

Post by jebblue »

recursive wrote: post #23
jebblue wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a 99.9% success rate with all that I've tried. That's over a dozen popular games so far.

In order to get a number like 99.9%, you'd have to have over ~700 games, even with optimistic rounding. "Over dozens" calls this into question.

The key was with all the ones I've tried. Not all the Linux games on steam.

Re: 1.85% of Steam users run Linux

#26

Post by aspensmonster »

Out of the table, it seems 0.85 percent run some flavor of Ubuntu. That leaves the other 1.00 percent running some other flavor. I've got it running on Debian GNU/Linux (Testing) and play TF2 and CS:S from time to time. I even picked up CS:GO during one of their mega sales for five bucks or so in the hope that they eventually port it over to Linux.

Re: 1.85% of Steam users run Linux

#27

Post by Danieru »

Crito wrote: post #2

For what definition of "users" and "run"? I signed up for Steam and installed it on linux, downloaded TF2 only to find that it would not work with Wheezy/my integrated Intel GPU (I didn't investigate beyond some "you don't support GLX_WHATEVER message, it could have been either) , then deleted the installation and haven't done anything with it since. I presumably am not counted in this statistic since I did not do th…

Every month Steam asks a random subset of Steam users a hardware survey.

OS choice is a new aspect of the survey. The survey's original intention was to find things like 64bit penetration, number of cores, monitor resolution, internet connection type, and power of GPU. Most of it is automated.

We don't know Valve's exact methodology. I would hope they take a random sample of users who logged in the prior month and send them the survey. If you get selected a window will popup and ask you for permission to run the survey. If you say yes then it gathers your system data. They should only count you as a linux user if you were on linux when you took the survey.

This still leaves room for Valve to cheat in the selection process but otherwise the survey should be meaningful.

Re: 1.85% of Steam users run Linux

#28

Post by SwellJoe »

gyosko wrote: post #8

I would too if AMD made decent graphic drivers for Linux!

I've found they've gotten pretty good. I have a 7970 and a couple of R290 GPUs, as well as whatever ATI GPU is in my laptop (a 6000 series Mobility GPU), they all seem to work fine under Linux. Admittedly, I don't do a lot of gaming, though I just bought a few new games in the winter sale, since they've added so many Linux games (and some of them are freakin' awesome games).

I haven't actually tried any of the really tough games, like Half Life or whatever yet...but, I'm actually super excited about playing Left 4 Dead 2 on Linux on one of the new GPUs. So, we'll see soon enough.

Re: 1.85% of Steam users run Linux

#29

Post by SwellJoe »

aspensmonster wrote: post #26

Out of the table, it seems 0.85 percent run some flavor of Ubuntu. That leaves the other 1.00 percent running some other flavor. I've got it running on Debian GNU/Linux (Testing) and play TF2 and CS:S from time to time. I even picked up CS:GO during one of their mega sales for five bucks or so in the hope that they eventually port it over to Linux.

I'm running it on Fedora 20. Haven't tried any of the really complicated games yet, but just bought some new ones during the sale, so will know soon what's up.

As a data point: I wouldn't have bought anything during the sale, had they not had so many games that work with Linux. I reboot into Windows so rarely that it seems like an ordeal to do just for a game. Likewise, I'm considering canceling my Netflix account because I haven't used it in two or three months...don't want to reboot, and Amazon Prime videos work fine under Linux.

Post reply on HN