this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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Linux Gaming

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Linux user share on Steam breaks 2% thanks to Steam Deck (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
35 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A moment I've no doubt many Linux fans have been waiting to see. The Linux user share on Steam has smashed through the 2% barrier.

Not actually for the first time though, it did initially rise up above 2% in March 2013, shortly after the original Steam for Linux release when it left Beta. Part of the reason it had higher numbers at the start, was that Valve added a special Tux item into Team Fortress 2 only on Linux but it quickly dropped in the following months.

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[–] [email protected] 130 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (5 children)

Only dimly related, but since I'm in this 2%, I can't help reflecting that in the 11 months since joining Lemmy, I have:

  • Canceled all of my streaming subscriptions

  • Built a massive Plex Server

  • Rekindled my love of Unix building said server

  • Began pirating movies, TV, music, and software like a fucking syphilitic pegleg

  • Began experiencing Star Trek TNG for the first time, pirated, on my Plex Server, running Linux

  • Bought a steam deck and began experimenting with Arch

Don't ever let anyone tell you your feed doesn't influence you, no matter how media literate you are.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You forgot mentioning the chokers and thigh highs you have bought since then.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I omitted to mention that the number of thigh highs in my wardrobe have remained largely unchanged, so far anyway, and that I managed to avoid letting jeans-mania spill over into whatever passes for my real life.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Fuuuuuuuck, you made have the same realization.

  • Ditched W10 for Mint

  • Bought a NAS and set up all .arrs and cancelled all my subscriptions (- Spotify)

  • Home media server with Jellyfin

  • Shared said server with friends and family via Tailscale

  • Set up my very first server on a low end device running headless Debian, all from scratch with docker and Portainer. Currently running a Valheim server

All this with 0 previous Linux experience. Reddit beeing cunts made me learn a lot of cool new things these part 12 months!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

For me:

  • OpenSUSE Tumbleweed PC
  • Synology NAS
  • Steam Deck
  • Plex shared with the family
  • Cancelled Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime.
  • Got a VPN docker container on the NAS with qBt

Feelsgoodman.jpg

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago

You are truly reborn my child 🥹 welcome to our family 🫡 love you, being here :* <3

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Arch. Not even once.

For reals though, it's my favorite distro because it taught me a bunch and also, once I understood that bit, it really is the only one that just worked on all my machines at the time, 15 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I'm on a similar journey and have started self-hosting as many services as I can. I've got Jellyfin (open source Plex alternative), a WebDAV server to replace google drive, a Valheim server, and a git server to host the code. I'm doing this with kubernetes on an old mini PC I picked up for 50 bucks on eBay. I plan to put more mini PCs in my friends' and family's homes to build a cloud for us with backups of everything stored in multiple locations. It'd be cool to pass it down to the next generation and have our family memories preserved in a medium we own completely.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 6 months ago (1 children)

big Deck energy

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I've really been enjoying the docking experience.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I still haven't tried docking my deck, I've stuck mostly to vanilla. I mostly just plug my deck in and go to town, unplugging and re-plugging as needed to change positions. I mostly use my deck in bed, but docking might get me to be a bit more adventurous.

I'll have to try docking, I hear it's a pretty good experience.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

It's nice to see Linux is doing well on Steam. It's great that Steam Deck/OS is so successful. 👍
Also kudos to Arch, I must admit I'm surprised to see Arch as the most popular among other distros.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Steam Deck runs on Arch so it's no surprise it's up so high.

Edit: it doesn't count as Arch. The Steam Survey results page has a bug where it doesn't show SteamOS as top listing for Linux OS when combined Windows, Mac and Linux view is selected.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't, the os is immutable and just based on Arch. Arch is counted separately in the Stream hardware survey too.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

That's interesting. When you look at the steam survey results under OS Version, with Windows Mac and Linux combined it shows under Linux that Arch is in first followed by Ubuntu 22, but when you switch the view to Linux only, the OS Version shows SteamOS Holo in first, followed by Arch, then Flatpack runtime and Ubuntu. So yes you're right. This shows why I thought SteamOS counted as Arch. My bad.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

SteamOS Holocaust

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Oops. Thanks autocorrect

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What's interesting is Arch surpassed Ubuntu prior to the Steam Deck release. They were neck and neck for a bit after that, then the Steam Deck helped it push past.

https://boilingsteam.com/distros-used-for-gaming-ubuntu-recovers-a-little-pop-os-sinks-further-down/

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of how many people ended up installing other gaming distros after purchasing a Deck.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

A lot of Linux enthusiasts use Arch, but it's far from the most popular among regular Linux users. So we're seeing early adopters since Arch users are probably more likely to tinker to get things working than Ubuntu users.

So if we start seeing Ubuntu take over Arch, that means we're seeing Linux gaming reach the mainstream.

I would also like to see a survey about Linux adoption after using the Deck.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I figured most of that crowd would go to Mint.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's what I recommend, and I'd expect Mint to eventually be #2 or #3 once it hits mainstream.

I use something else though (openSUSE Tumbleweed), but I think Mint has way better community support without a lot of the nonsense that Ubuntu has. Mint Debian is my recommendation 9/10 times.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's what I recommend, and I'd expect Mint to eventually be #2 or #3 once it hits mainstream.

No snark intended, but what do you mean by "hits mainstream?" It's been around for a long time, and it still hasn't surpassed Ubuntu, as far as I am aware. I genuinely don't understand what you mean.

I agree that it's generally user friendly, but many distros like Elementary and Manjaro are trying to become more user friendly, too. Couple that with the gaming community likely being the first larger group of adopters, and they'll be looking for gaming-oriented distros like Bazzite, Pop, Chimera, and Garuda.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Linux gaming is still an "early adopter" thing. Many popular games don't work, so the people who are willing to give those up care more about running Linux than playing those games, which means tinkerers and stubborn people.

The more Linux is compatible day 1 for popular games, the more attractive Linux gaming will be. At a certain point, mainstream users will move to Linux and they'll probably use Ubuntu and Mint more than other distros.

But that's not where we are. Ubuntu is probably the most popular distro for regular users, and those users seem to not play games much on Linux. That means they're either dual booting Windows, or just not playing games.

they'll be looking for gaming-oriented distros like Bazzite, Pop, Chimera, and Garuda

Maybe, but none of those are showing up on top of lists.

I think most mainstream users will use Ubuntu because that's what they already associate with Linux. People are aware of it by word of mouth, so it seems "safer" than using a gaming-specific distro. They'll likely naïvely think that gaming-specific distros are "gaming only" and want something "general purpose" if they're going to bail on Windows.

But these new users aren't going to be using Arch most likely, so seeing that at the top tells me that Linux gaming is at the "early adopter" phase.

That being said, I've been a Linux gamer since before Steam came to Linux and I remember signing up for an account back in 2013 or whatever when they did come (I think I was on Arch at the time, go figure). Before that point, I mostly played Factorio, Minecraft, and a handful of games I got from Humble Bundle back when they were new and indie-focused (Humble games mostly worked on Linux back then).

Anyway, that's my 2¢. I'm on openSUSE now, so I'm not really contributing to any of the top distro stats.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Fedora recently hit top three for most installed gaming distros, and that's likely because of Bazzite (which just a Fedora Atomics Spin).

But I appreciate your explanation, and I think it's well thought. Only time will really tell what happens, but having the Steam Deck out there only helps adoption in the long term.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Oh absolutely. People can easily see what's officially supported on Linux and try games on their Steam Deck before committing to a desktop install.

I have a Steam Deck and three of my coworkers either have one or want one, and only one of them is interested in Linux itself. Every time they complain about something on Windows, I casually ask if Steam Deck does that. :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

I only briefly dabbled with Arch >10 years ago. But it has always been evident that it is an incredibly powerful distro. The fact that its wiki is so extensive is a testament to how much people are using it. The problem it has always had is that most companies tend to support other ones (Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat/Fedora, Alpine), so it never really had any corporate love. With Valve's backing, we can see just how widespread Arch could be if it had more money behind it.

Not that this is necessarily a good thing of course. Look at how money has corrupted Ubuntu and Red Hat. All I want to point out is that it can do anything that the most well-supported distros try to do. And the fact that it has done so without any corporate support is a true testament to how powerful it is.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago

Wow ok, let's just act like it wasn't because I just installed Linux on my new gaming PC 🙄

[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I moved my Desktop to Linux when the Steam Deck was announced. Before that I had no idea that Linux was able to play almost any game using Proton.

So I think the Steam Deck has also boosted Desktop numbers.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

I found that there is a branch called Bazzite that is essentially Steam OS for desktop, I've been using it for a few months now with four monitors and no major hiccups.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago

My new steam deck will compliment my Linux desktop nicely!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Be interesting to see the numbers next month because of the whole Recall thing that people seem to have gotten really mad about.

I don't want to get my hopes up, but I've seen a lot of people saying they switched to Linux. But that could just be the circles I'm in though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I’ve used Linux exclusively for years. Can’t you just turn Recall off? Or better yet, use Windows 10? It’s still supported for more than a year from now. Could probably get away with it for like 2 years if security isn’t critical for your system.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Sure you can turn it off, and realistically this isn't that bad an antifeature. But Microsoft has been making a lot of unpopular decisions (Randomly restarting, Edge shilling, the tpm requirement, general privacy violations, ads in the start menu), and this is by far the worst reaction I've seen from Windows users I follow.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I think Proton is the smartest thing Valve ever did. Steam is going to get about 90% of the gamers moving from Windows to Linux.