9mo ago

Linux user share on Steam breaks 2% thanks to Steam Deck

www.gamingonlinux.com Linux user share on Steam breaks 2% thanks to Steam Deck

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.

35 comments

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.
- You forgot mentioning the chokers and thigh highs you have bought since then.
  
  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.
- 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!
  
  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
- You are truly reborn my child 🥹 welcome to our family 🫡 love you, being here :* <3
- 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.
- 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.

big Deck energy
- I've really been enjoying the docking experience.
  
  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.

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

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

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.
- 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.

My new steam deck will compliment my Linux desktop nicely!

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.
- 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.
  
  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.