Linux just gained another .13% usage, while Windows lost .23. Another win for Linux
0.13%? This is definitely the year of linux desktop.
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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It's interesting that windows 10 lost more than windows 11 gained, .09% of users jumped ship because they didn't want windows 11
I don't thing any of these changes are statistically enough to make these kind of assumptions
Yeah seriously, any change less than ~2% is within margin of error.
No, there are probably loads of other factors at play
Funny though
Chill! That's only 2% in total. We can feel happy for Valve doing the pioneer work and maintaining software for Linux.
Percentages can hide the impact of tendencies. Steam has 132MM monthly active users, assuming the poll is a representative sample. Then, 2% is a bit over 2.6MM people using a linux device. This doesn't include steamOS. That's at least equivalent to an entire small country's population using Linux.
But it does include SteamOS
Hey, where u get those numbers from?? I thought they stopped disclosing these a few yrs back. Personally I would've guessed its closer to 150m myself but I'd like to see any reports or more informed speculation if possible.
That's more than Mac
Tbh for some reason I always assumed there were more Linux gamers than Mac gamers lol
NGL, a few more rounds of sweet Asahi releases Linux might be better for gaming on the M1 series over MacOS. The devs actually have a Vulcan support built. Apple never bothered, lol.
Linux has always enjoyed better game support than MacOS. Even before Valve's efforts, it was possible to get most games running - sometimes fine, but often with bugs or defunct features. Some games ran even better with wine than on a modern Windows installation of its time.
However, this does not mean it was easy.
That old joke from like 2003 still rings true:
"You know which games are good on Mac because they already came out 5-10 years ago." 😂
"Arch Linux"
I use Arch, btw.
I use deck, btw
64 bit
"Steam Decks"
Rounding error.
That's me, that's all me
come on where's my survey I want to get surveyed
For October 2024
Thanks, didnt know there was a link. ill be adding that as url.
Goat
Ubuntu 24.04LTS reporting in!
If you run Steam under Wine or variant under Linux which I assume many do, does that count as Windows or Linux?
I don't think I've seen anyone run Steam through Wine. What would be the reasons for that?
I haven't used it in a while, but last time I tried Lutris there were many games that relied on the Steam on Wine runner.
It used to be common and useful. I did this even after Valve shipped a native Linux TF2 as at the beginning the Wine method gave better results on my hardware. But that time has long passed as Valve has integrated Wine (Proton) and in almost all cases the Linux native builds will outperform Wine (and Steam will let you use the Windows version via Proton if you want even if there is a native Linux build).
So while I suspect that there are still a few people doing this out of momentum, habit or reading old tutorials I am not aware of any good reasons to do this anymore.
But why would you run steam under wine? The games themselves make sense, but steam not so much.
- Launching Steam games outside of Steam can be very difficult. Some games outright won't allow it.
- Steam provides native libraries such as the overlay, networking and matchmaking tools, achievements... You need to have Windows versions of these which wouldn't be distributed by default in the Linux version of Steam.
- In the past Steam just didn't run under Linux, so you had no other option.
There used to be a time when Steam for Linux didn't exist.
Oh, does it allow you on Linux to download all games with the native client? On the Mac that doesn’t work, so then I run it through Wine.
On Linux you can run native version of Steam, which then uses Wine (actually Proton, which is based on Wine) for running games. So Steam is not wrapped within Wine, but the games are (if needed/enabled)
There is an option in settings to allow trying all games. By default it only allows it for tested and verified games. But it is a simple checkbox then you can download and run any Windows game.
Steam on Linux has it's own version of wine(proton) built in.
So you can launch Windows games through the Linux native Steam client.
does it allow you on Linux to download all games with the native client?
yes, and then you run them using Proton, Valve's tool based on Wine, specially made for doing exactly that.