Steam On Linux Usage Spikes To Nearly 2% In July, Larger Marketshare Than Apple macOS

Thank god for Valve and how awesome they've been to Linux users
- I really hope they release Steam OS for everyone soon. I'd love to install it on my laptop, currently running ChimeraOS which is functionally very similar, but would love to have the stuff like tdp control working in the overlays too without needing third party tools or workarounds.
  
  It would be especially cool for the other handhelds out there like the ROG Ally
  
  I know that there is that unofficial HoloISO that people use for desktop, it seems to work just fine but i would prefer an official distro release myself
- They’ve done such amazing work for Linux. Linux gaming wouldn’t be the same without them.
- Now we just need an open source steam client and they will be the literal proof that companies can contribute to GNU/Linux and still stay on top.
  
  lutris?
- Too young for what? I'm older than the company is and I don't recall any devilish controversies.
  
  Are you getting them confused with another company? Valve's done bad things in the past of course, but they're still a lot better than most other gaming companies that I know of. I typically put Valve alongside companies like Capcom and Sega as "one of the not bad ones" in terms of malicious practices.
- So awesome they run a monopoly on videogames through their useless closed source spyware.
  
  Well, their position is what allowed them to do so much for Linux. And their desire to distance themselves from Microsoft, which I'm absolutely on board with.
  
  It's not useless. None of the launchers are. I greatly appreciate the auto updating of games, earning achievements, among others things. Sure they have issues, but they would have been dethroned years ago if people didn't like their software compared to companies like Epic.

Count me as one of those new Linux users. I've been trying to switch since the 90's and Linux gaming is finally viable. I know this is in large part thanks to Valve, so thanks, Valve!
- The day win10 stops being supported is the day I switch to Linux
- If the games you are playing don't run on linux than you are mostly playing crap designed by people who's main goal is to empty your pockets and who think that you are stupid
  
  Or you are playing games made on a tight budget focusing on the largest userbase: windows (>90% according to Steam hardware survey)
  
  why are you guys downvoting him, he's right

I bet the Deck has a lot to do with this.
- It does, but as a result we can now set up Linux on other machines and play a huge range of games. This removes one of the main obstacles for many people with Linux.
- Love the Deck. I actually finish games with retro or pixel art aesthics with the deck compared to my PC or consoles. The pick up and go aspect and the smaller screen helps me keep coming back to it instead of abandoning it.
- The deck has a lot to do with it whether people are playing on it or not. It's the thing that's made them make the big push into supporting games on Linux, which applies to other distros than just the Steam one.
  
  It also pushes developers to ensure their games run on Linux, even if it's through Proton
- Yeah that's what I'm thinking. Great that Linux is getting more representation overall though. Wonder how anti-cheat implementations work nowadays, I remember them not being supported on Linux before, so games didn't run.
  
  Actually the common anti cheat solutions provided Linux support for a while, but the developers/publishers have been choosing not to enable it.
- It was the reason I moved to Linux. Though with another arch based distro and not the deck

Linux FTW. Number 1 on servers, now number 2 on Steam! Watch out, Microsoft /s

Not surprised. Steam on Linux just works. Click a checkbox in settings to use Proton. Then only way it would be easier is if it would automatically detect Proton and use it. I don't think it does yet?
- It automatically uses Proton for titles that Valve has whitelisted as compatible. To play anything else you need to check a box in the settings. Honestly, it should probably just be checked by default.
  
  Probaby just to deter non tech savy people to blame all the problems on steam without realising it wasn't made for linux in first place. There may not be a lot but with how popular steam deck is, I won't be surprised if a lot of people are trying out linux for the first time.
- I think enabling steam compatibility for all titles do exactly that?

Good, now we need devs to officially support Linux.
- I noticed that wine/dxvk/proton works better than many native Linux versions. This is usually because the game studio does not think Linux is a priority and ships a half-assed implementation. Better to use the optimized version through wine/proton/dxvk.
- I just want games officially supported for proton. Linux ABI is still way too inconsistent compared to Wines, and a bitch to work with. Not to mention, performance tends to be better on proton games lol.
- Well, "officially support" can just mean check if their game runs via proton on the Steam Deck at launch. Fine by me, that is the bare minimum I expect, but to be fair launch day support on linux is still a fairly new thing. Not something I would have expected just a few short years ago.

I'm sure 99% of it is Steam Decks
- The post says ~42 % is Steam OS
- Actually its only 44% steam decks!
- @cipherlab @pnutzh4x0r Nonetheless, it's quite the achievement. That's exactly what Linux needs: visible, tangible and reputable hardware that's ostensibly better than the competition. It's great to be flexible, but you still need to have a face.
- Less than that though they are a large slice.
  Most Windows and practically all Mac instances are preinstalled by the hardware vendor. There are very few companies selling preinstalled Linux gaming machines other than the Steam Deck. I expect they might be a majority of new Linux steam users for some time as they are by far the lowest entry cost in terms of hardware, prerequisite technical knowledge and time.
  Many gamers who dabble with Linux are still taking the path of least resistance and dual booting for gaming. Linux first people like myself will continue to grow in number but as long as it is a DIY thing realistically we will always be a few percent at best as most people want a simpler out of box gaming experience.
- Due to the steam summer sale perhaps?
  
  This is what finally got me to buy one.
- I found way to many Linux gamers in the wild. So no, they are not Steam Decks.

Yes! Not only do I have a Deck, but I've switched my main PC to Linux. Sick of Micro$oft's shit!

It's awesome that Linux is becoming almost a mainstream desktop operating system. The year of Linux is here just another year or 2 and gaming on Linux will be near perfect. But sadly we will not able to play any kernel anticheat games like valorant but who gives a fuck about that game anyways lmao
- Yes, I'll switch from Windows to Linux but at the moment I dont trust myself to be able to use Linux as I cannot code and havent any deep knowledge about cpmputers. So I hope that in the next few years there will be the compatibility and ease of use on Linux like there is on windows now.
  Edit: ok, thanks everyone.
  I am very pro open source and very pro linux (obiously)
  With "coding" i ment doing stuff with the terminal. I am mostly concerned with stuff not working when it should and then that the fix is only doable in the terminal and requires trial and error and knowledge and so on...
  I was mostly discouraged by the LTT videos about Linux as a daily driver, haming and working on linux and so on. And they made it look that you have problems significantly more frequent than on a windows machine.
  And yes, i need to use full office suite, most other programms can be FOSS or linux alternatives tho.
  
  You definitely don't need to know anything about writing code to use Linux! The closest thing to it is the terminal, which is something you basically never need to use on a standard setup like Pop!OS or Mint. I've gotten plenty of my friends using Linux, many of them have never even had to look at a terminal.
  
  I don't even know how to code LOL I know the bare minimum of installing packages either through the gui or through the terminal which isn't coding, just simple commands for installing packages that the gui would do for you
  You have gui stores like gnome software, kde plasma discover gui store that let you install application super easy with one click install buttons that's it
  Example installing discord on Ubuntu through terminal Sudo means root, apt the package manager that's gonna install the package for us, install telling apt to install said application/software, discord the application. That's it, you type y and it will install said application.
  And I even started a YouTube channel called Linux benchmarks with plenty of simple tutorials of how to setup things like proton and learning those things in apps like lutris or bottles or heroic games launcher which are all gui applications for setting up games.
  Editing I use kdenlive another gui application, gimp another gui application, updating it through the store as well or you can do the terminal either one they do the exact same thing.
  Here's my thoughts about using Linux on both a Nvidia setup and now a full amd setup for one year :)
  https://youtu.be/55_TtnN7dnk
  
  You don't need to know how to code certainly. If you choose a "fire and forget" distro like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc... the only thing you would really run into any challenge with is running Windows software. Games are pretty well handled by Steam/Proton at this point, but other Windows software like, say, Word or the Adobe suite can be a challenge. If you're okay with using alternatives (libreoffice, darktable, gimp) you'll be fine.
  
  My daughter can't code (apart from dabbling a bit in Scratch) and she can use Fedora on her laptop just fine.
  
  I don't think you need to wait years for user friendly Linux tbh! I recommend checking out Linux Mint. It's basically designed for people used to Windows and handles the technical stuff for you.
  You can do almost everything through the GUI rather than the command line, so for things like updates, it'll show you a little notification in the corner by the clock like you're used to, you open up the software manager, and click the update button.
  And most software nowadays can either be downloaded through an app store like interface, or by downloading an executable file from a website.
  And if you've ever used a mac, there's a time machine equivalent built in (timeshift). So you can set up an automatic backup daily/weekly/etc and if you mess up something, in most cases you can revert back to a point when it wasn't messed up.
  I say give it a shot, you can always go back if it's not for you! But usability has improved so much in the last few years.
  
  The LTT videos assume that you are unwilling to spend a bit of time learning your OS. If you can accept that it won't be a perfectly smooth experience from the start and that you'll have to put in a bit of effort to make it do what you want, there's no reason to not try it out.
  I recently went for it and left windows for dual-booting, but the only time that I had to boot it was after finding out that if you mount an NTFS partition in linux without first disabling fast boot on windows, it'll get broken sooner or later.
  Now I'm at a point where troubleshooting stuff on linux is far easier than on windows. Because it's modular and community-driven, you can always get to the root of a given problem with some googling or asking on one of the many great forums. Windows on the other hand is a proprietary monolith and if something stops working, you can only fiddle around with settings or hope for microsoft to fix it.
  Getting there took me about 50-70 hours of troubleshooting total spread across a few years. I wasted a lot more than that trying to troubleshoot windows.
  
  There will not be the equivalent compatibility at first. But there will be enough compatibility for most users to not care about it anymore. The equivalent compatibility will only exist once literally every hardware and software manufacturer supports Linux on their own as first-class citizen. And they will only do that once Linux has signifikant desktop marketshare. But it doesn't matter as long as most stuff still runs no matter what. Which is currently the case. And it's also gotten easy.
- another barrier is for nvidia-based GPUs, it just seems like gaming on Linux with AMD works a lot smoother.
  
  Nvidia here under Linux, been running Nvidia hardware/drivers for about five years now with little in the way of problems. The latest hardware is supported on release, and my performance while gaming is fantastic.
  Even Wayland support is maturing under Linux running Nvidia hardware/drivers, to the point whereby it's mostly as usable as Wayland gets now.
  At least you have the option of running the latest Nvidia hardware under Linux, it seems dedicated GPU support under MacOS is dwindling by the month.
  
  Yes this is true as lots of Nvidia users have told me otherwise, when I used a rtx 2060 on Linux for about 6 months before I switched to a amd rx 6700 and it's been the best experience I have ever had in gaming on a PC in general honestly. Nvidia "works" in terms of installing the driver, playing games do "work" but the big issue is vulkan shader loader on steam and then third party games that run on lutris, bottles that require specific environment variables for the game to not stutter or to switch to dxvk async as a instant fix for loading shaders but async is being kicked out because it's a hack and includes a lot of patches the devs don't like.
  You can turn off the vulkan loader as Nvidia has a way of loading shaders rather quickly, but it does it in the most stupid way possible that example in apex I had to wait 5minutes in the lobby to load all of my shaders so that the game wouldn't stutter when I entered a game. It pinned all of my cpu cores to 100% to load it instead of the GPU doing it which is so weird, this is supposedly already fixed in the "vulkan beta Nvidia driver" but who the normal user is gonna fuck around in the terminal to install a beta version of a driver that could easily break something.
  While on amd all you need for gaming is mesa 23.1 or above so that you have gpl/graphics pipeline library, and then you can disable the pre caching vulkan loader, then that's it, everything else is smooth sailing already as drivers are already preinstalled, Wayland is more supported on amd because of its open source nature, and games run amazing on it. Best investment you could make if you want to fully switch to Linux as your main operating system ngl.
  The only upside to Nvidia is that your new gpu's will mostly work out of the box while the newest amd cards will need to mature for a bit before buying but if you run something like arch and you use mesa git + the newest kernel patches then the experience will get better and better everyday as the drivers mature for those cards
  
  Pop OS does wonderfully with Nvidia nowadays. Check it out!
- Does kernel anti cheat really help anything, though? I'm curious about it. Like, how much worse would cheating be without it? I play Apex on Linux. It runs EAC and yes, there are some cheaters but it's not that bad from what I can tell.
  
  Well it can stop users from plugging other devices into their computer when they have valorant launched, so things like hacks on a USB wouldn't be possible, and that it can see all of your usb devices on your pc, and then it can see what's being opened on your computer, it basically can see everything your doing which is a huge privacy concern. that's why people had been talking about that someone could easily use the rootkit to do some malicious shit with it, while on eac on Linux it can only see our home partition lol, but on windows it can see a bit more of your file system as permissions aren't rlly a thing on windows Sept the admin stuff. Apex handles cheaters kinda well these days so it's more about reporting and banning those people. Anticheats are only supposed to stop the user from loading cheats but if it fails to do that which it usually does then it's up to the support team of that game to ban them
- Yeah I'm fine with that personally. If a game wants that level of fuckery I'd rather just go without it anyway tbh.
  
  Exactly :)

I've never looked back to Windows since switching my gaming rig to Linux about a year ago.
One of my favorite things is when a game launches with a DX12 option that says "Windows 10/11 only". Au contraire, game option. You're about to run on a penguin.

I have a steam deck but I also recently changed from Windows to Pop!_OS on my gaming rig. I'm very much enjoying it so far
- Is Pop OS the new "I use Arch" meme? I see people mentioning it almost everywhere linux is talked about.
  
  Nah, people aren't smug about using POP OS it's more like Ubuntu for gamers.
  
  I don't think so. Maybe I'm misunderstood, but the "I use Arch" meme was meming on the fact that using Arch was a flex, like it's harder to get into, and you're a true blooded Linux user if you're using Arch.
  Whereas, PopOS is kind of the opposite. I'm fairly new to Linux (been using a Linux system as my daily driver for about a year), and PopOS was recommended as a beginner-friendly distro. Plus, it worked well with Nvidia cards with minimal effort. So maybe it seems like a lot of people are using PopOS and are bringing it up, because there are a lot of newer Linux users.
  
  I think it's basically the recommendation if you use Nvidia cards, since I think they have the most up to date Nvidia drivers? Could be wrong but that was the spiel last time I tried it.
  
  Because it's just amazing for new users, much better than Ubuntu.
  
  POP!_OS is also amazing because of System76s computer manufacturing efforts and the fact that they are building a wayland compositor desktop environment apart from GNOME and KDE which will probably have its first stable release on Ubuntu 24.04.
  It's the most excited I've been for a while.
  
  It's just a neat little distro. Probably the only one I've used that haven't imploded itself with daily use so far.
  
  I also noticed that. It takes all the pressure off me though because I'm an arch user and have been for 10 years 😂
  
  Pop is no meme, it's awesome and easy.

maybe if valve recompiled tf2 for fucking 64 bit macOS users would use steam more it's 2023 for fucks sake
- Steam still runs on Rosetta2. They just gave up and aren't even trying anymore, probably thanks to apples hostility to them and no Vulkan
  
  that's their prerogative but then no one should be surprised when Mac usage slumps

I did my first Linux Steam hardware survey yesterday so I'm doing my part!
- man, I missed it! Is it still going on?
  
  Valve claims it's monthly but my previous survey was October last year so I doubt that. I don't believe it was related to the article in the OP. They seem to just randomly pop up after an update. A surprise to be sure but a welcome one.

Previous 12 months:
June 2023: -0.03%
May 2023: +0.15%
April 2023: +0.48%
March 2023: -0.43%
February 2023: -0.11%
January 2023: no difference
December 2023: -0.06%
November 2022: +0.16%
October 2022: +0.05%
September 2022: -0.04%
August 2022: +0.04%
July 2022: +0.05%
It would seem Linux among Steam users shows a growth tendency.
Hopefully this tendency keeps going strong!
- What happened in April and March?
  
  looks like what happened was that A LOT of Chinese users entered the data which caused windows to go up significantly and linux to drop off slightly
  
  Looks like it was around the end of March when Valve announced the date they'd end support for Win7 and Win8. So perhaps a part of the Windows userbase went to Linux. If for fear, as a final push to drop Windows, etc., I don't know, but perhaps they may have influenced.
- These wild swings don't make me very inclined to trust steam numbers

Nice. Steam with Proton works really great for me so far. If only wine would be as good for other software. Trying to get my Affinity products to work on wine or DAZ Studio is a nightmare and I probably will just use a VM 😩.
- I used to check winehq or protondb before buying games. I don't do that anymore because everything just works in Linux these days.

I switched to Linux last year, and have been having a mostly smooth single-player experience. It's not perfect, but the improvements that have been made in Linux gaming (in large part by Valve) are undeniable.
- Ask yourself why is not perfect
  
  Plenty of people ask themselves that, which is precisely why so much work has been done to improve it.
  Like come one, just drop your attitude here.
  
  It's interesting that Lemmy is still small enough I can remember a shithead from yesterday with a certain username that is also being a shithead today...

Hardly surprising, especially with SteamDeck's popularity. Great news regardless! Steam is really making a difference here.

Damn this zer0 really has it out for people enjoying things today I hope whoever pissed into your chereos stops soon
- Free software fundamentalist that probably worships Stallman too.

I'm doing my part, I have installed Steam on two new Ubuntu installs recently, lol.

Well, I'm certainly helping with that.
Running Garuda, and I can play so many of my favorite games.
I also have GOG games, they usually run great too. I have Fallout New Vegas and runs incridibly well on just wine.
- What is Garuda? Quickly googling didn't help me for some reason
  
  Is an Arch based distribution. It comes pre-riced and comes with shit preloaded so you just start gaming. I like how the KDE dragonized looks, and also is very convinient, since I wanted to start gaming without too much of a hassle.

I would fully switch to linux - I have done some dabbling with it, including setting up a media PC w/ steam on it - but I cannot run any of my business or productivity apps.
Specifically, Autocad, Revit, and VR software do not work. So wahwah
- On the same boat, I would gladly change, but most of my collaborators still use software you can only use on windows, I could use VMs or emulators, but it usually breaks my workflow anyway.

I'm one of these statistics. I got a cheap SSD on Prime Day and installed Pop!_OS. The first thing I did was install Steam.
I still boot to Windows the majority of my time because of other apps or games that I need but I'm trying to get away from Windows.

NixOS on steam deck is currently my daily driver because it's dedicated, portable linux hardware with better than iGPU performance I can actually afford. Having said that I'm only about a week in, but adding Jovian NixOS modules to my previous configs has been enough to make it a pretty solid experience so far. Amazing portable gaming is a nice bonus.
- How does NixOS compare to SteamOS on the Deck? Does it work just as smooth? Also, is EMUDeck compatible with NixOS?

I feel like such an outsider cause for me proton is such a piece of shit that it barely if ever works even if the title is rated platinum
No matter the district either
- I have yet to have any issues with the 50ish games I have played on Proton.
  
  Im genuinely happy for you to have things actually work out
  I wish it would be the same for me
  I even had shit break after restarting it 5 minutes after closing it
- lol that's the funny thing about linux right? and with all the various distros and setups it can be rather hard to diagnose what the issue is.
  
  The inability to use proton correctly is a constant over 3 wildly different distros
- I wonder if it's a software or hardware issue on your end that might be causing it.
  Been using proton since it started and it's definitely not always as seamless and requires tweaking or going to protondb and checking bug reports, changing your proton version, and etc, but generally it has worked with me on multiple iterations of hardware.
  
  I wish I knew man, protondb tweaks never once helped me either
  I never noticed anything else be as freaky as proton
- Try XanMod kernel and ProtonGE - I've had great performance and stability and been using those for couple years now with steam Linux gaming
  
  If it doesn't work on stock Idk if I trust a random what I assume is a kernel mod
  Protonge was only marginably better and it only worked like that through lutris

That's an almost 25% increase, that's huge!

This is awesome! Hopefully we see even more devices coming out with SteamOS in the near future

Suck on that apple

Steam is spyware ditch that shit, if you can't because you MUST play your games you are a junkie with an addiction
https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/steam
- Why isn't anyone talking about how much this link is exaggerating all of it's points? Did anyone read it? Disclaimer: I use steam and I take the good with the bad.
  It collects your address, CC info, name etc -- It's an online store. You give it this info to purchase things. It's quite clear why this is happening. Don't like it? Don't shop online. Actually, don't use a credit/debit card at all because they are certainly recording your spending habits and selling that data.
  t was proven that Steam's VAC system records your internet history and uploads it to an official Valve server -- This claim is from a Reddit thread. These redditors reverse engineered some VAC stuff (anticheat for some games like Counterstrike) and found that Steam was (and may no longer be) hashing visited URLS. These hashes were checked locally (within the software, not over the internet) against a list of known hashes for URLS for cheat software. If positive, these hashes were sent over the internet to valve, and could be used for evidence to ban cheaters. This is bad! It is recording user's internet habits without their knowledge or consent. HOWEVER, it is a total exaggeration to claim Valve is just recording all your internet history and sending it to a server somewhere. Could they do it? This is a risk for closed-sourced software but this isn't what was happening.
  Steam records and publicly broadcasts your program usage habits -- Steam does track your program use habits and this is bad! Every console does this now, though, unless you decide to not connect it to the internet. But this site also claims it does it publicly and this is an exaggeration: You are anonymous on steam to the "public" unless you de-anonymize yourself, and you can turn off your "public" broadcast of game play in the settings. The author seems to think steam is a social media network: It only is if you use it that way. It doesn't recommend friends to you or send you news articles or whatever.
  Steam attempts to collect your telephone number -- Account theft is a problem on steam. The phone number thing is a way they can implement two-factor for people allergic to learning how to secure their accounts (some people on steam are also children, I must point out). This makes their platform harder for scammers to use. I use their phone app for two-factor authentication, I don't know if they accept other 3rd party authenticators.
  Steam requires an internet connection etc It's an online storefront program???? You knew what you were getting into when you downloaded it. I don't like how it needs to be constantly connected, this is bad, true.
  Steam is self-updating software -- It's DRM yes, true. It's annoying, sure.
  Yes, I totally get it, I could live in the woods, just use cash to purchase everything and only play unpatched games on offline consoles I don't connect to the internet. Don't all AAA games come with some form of DRM these days? Does the person who wrote this article also avoid streaming services and digital cable because it also records your entertainment habits? Do you, @zer0@thelemmy.club? Are you addicted to streaming services and debit cards?
  Anyway, this is a ridiculous burden for the consumer to avoid all this. That's my point. If you'd like this to change, it needs legislation to restrict what corporations do with our data, not SCARY CAPS LOCK IN RED TEXT.
  
  Steam shares your informations with third parties. Since you don't live in the woods would you mind sharing your name, telephone number and CC info with us?
- How about letting people enjoy things? If you don't want to play games or have access to the biggest gaming library there is currently, then it's fine, won't blame you. People have the freedom to decide if they want to limit their privacy a bit (while things stated on that website like credit card, address, browsing history, chat logs and forum posts are like: no shit, they sell games, have an internal browser and chats and forums, of course they do that. And with that defenition, you are currently as well on a spyware platform, because your posts are saved unencrypted on your homeserver) to have access to their games where some have invested A LOT of money in, before knowing about such things.
  
  And before you say: but it is open source!: Doesn't hold the administrators back from still selling your data using software analyzing the database. And to give more examples what would be spyware with their definition:
  Any kind of online shop (credit card, address, mail etc)
  Any kind of forum that doesn't somehow encrypt everything while still working as a forum
  Using the internet at all because your ISP has access to your IP at least
  
  How about letting people enjoy things?
  How is this person's criticism preventing you from enjoying things?
  
  You have the absolute freedom to be stupid and i have the absolute freedom to call you an idiot
- Always funny to see this Mr.robot like nutcase linked Just read through what this person considers spyware and have a bit of a laugh
  Man thinks the while world is after him with that level of paranoia
  
  Hello, what's your real name and your street address?
- Cool article, but it bases most of its claims off Valve’s ToS for steam, their privacy policy, and an old Reddit post that has multiple people disputing its claims in comments. So no actual traffic snooping or any individual research into what the application is actually doing.
  Yea they’re definitely going to store purchase-related information (Name, Address, Cc info, etc.), just about every digital storefront does. Where’s the actual danger at?
  
  Would you mind sharing your name and address and cc info? I need these for a scientific research, you can send them in pm if you don't want to post them here, i promise that i won't share them with anyone else
- @stappern @zer0 steam ??