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1.85% of Steam users run Linux

141 points by ineov 13y ago

Crito 13y ago
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 that within the past month, but I wonder how many other people like that are.
- jordonwii 13y ago
  I had the same issue. If I recall correctly, there is a relatively simple solution on the Ubuntu forums somewhere.
  - codygman 13y ago
    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.
    - nitrogen 13y ago
      This is one area where Linux in general, and Debian in specific, isn't currently very gamer friendly -- graphics drivers languish at out of date versions for far too long.
    - recursive 13y ago
      Oh well, maybe 2015 will be the year of linux on the desktop.
      - jebblue 13y ago
        For me and my wife and me for work it was 2007.
- jebblue 13y ago
  Gamers tend to use dedicated cards.
  - Crito 13y ago
    Aye, I understand that and wasn't expecting much. FWIW: I just decided to give it another shot and Half-Life seems to work great, surprisingly at 2560x1700.
- Danieru 13y ago
  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.
deleted 13y ago
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munro 13y ago
This is great! To me it's surprisingly high. I think this will be a slow process, because spending a day to backup & reinstall your OS is not a fun process. When I have time to game, I just want to turn my computer on and start gaming. I support gaming on Linux, and honestly even I've been too lazy to setup Linux on my gaming machine. I think the shift will happen as people upgrade their computers, or have to reinstall their OS because of malware. I wonder what percentage of these gamers are using a pirated version of Windows, because my anecdotal experience is that anyone who's built a computer has pirated a copy of Windows. When building a computer on a budget, spending an extra $100 on your video card is more ideal than on the OS. So going legitimate and free would be a very attractive option for gamers.
- abrahamsen 13y ago
  Thanks, that was my initial reaction as well. I'd have expected it to be a few enthusiasts, maybe something like 50.000 worldwide. 1.85 % of the Steam user base is more than a million players!
amscanne 13y ago
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 sure the experience will improve and it's great to see Linux as a growing platform for games!
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- dave809 13y ago
  what is your video card?
- jebblue 13y ago
  I've had a 99.9% success rate with all that I've tried. That's over a dozen popular games so far.
  - recursive 13y ago
    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.
    - jebblue 13y ago
      The key was with all the ones I've tried. Not all the Linux games on steam.
      - mcpherrinm 13y ago
        The grandparent poster's point is if you played "over a dozen", say, 16 games and one of them failed, then 93.75% of games worked for you. Getting to 99.9% requires a lot more games to succeed for even a single failure. Obviously in context you didn't literally mean 99.9%
gyosko 13y ago
I would too if AMD made decent graphic drivers for Linux!
- SwellJoe 13y ago
  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.
  - gyosko 13y ago
    I have a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650(not very powerful and quite old now) and I can play Dota 2,Left4Dead and other games on windows with no problem at all,while on Linux(Ubuntu 13.10) I can barely open the games.
codygman 13y ago
I use steam on linux without problems on xubuntu. The problem is my main OS is debian wheezy and mesa is too old. That means I would have to backport libgl1 (iirc) and not fail (like the past 3 times). I reboot into Xubuntu when I want to game though, and don't have any problems. Well except when I hook up to an external monitor... but I have a hacky xrandr script for that. I don't things are quite "there" yet for most people to game on linux.
- jebblue 13y ago
  >> I don't things are quite "there" yet for most people to game on linux. You mean Debian Linux which is what you're running. Ubuntu runs Steam just fine even with the Unity interface. I can Alt+Enter to go back to the Desktop and do stuff then get back into a game.
  - codygman 13y ago
    No, I mean it's not there for Xubuntu/Ubuntu either. I have the same external monitor problem with both. The graphics drivers however have worked fine for me. However, my girlfriend who is running xubuntu with fglrx (radeon card) has slight issues with textures staying on screen.
aspensmonster 13y ago
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.
- SwellJoe 13y ago
  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.
  - sontek 13y ago
    I'm running it on Fedora 20 as well, I play DOTA2 and Left 4 Dead 2 on it. I don't play either of those very often but they both work well. If they ever port CS:Go to Linux I'll probably have to take a sabbatical from work.
  - shrikant 13y ago
    Netflix runs swimmingly well on my Ubuntu setup using the Pipelight plugin in Firefox. I haven't touched my Windows VM in forever!
    - SwellJoe 13y ago
      Cool. That's relatively new. Last time I did research on the subject, you had to run a browser under Wine, and it was just too much trouble for me to go to the trouble to do it. Still seems a little complicated, requiring Wine, and a Silverlight install, but I guess it's an improvement. And, there are a bunch of things I want to watch eventually that aren't on Amazon for free.
gum_ina_package 13y ago
I think the big story here is that ~4% of Steam users run Vista. The year of the Linux desktop is very, very, very far away.
- jebblue 13y ago
  For me and my wife and me at work it was 2007.
- izolate 13y ago
  By the time the year of the Linux desktop arrives, desktop computing will be a relic of the past. The year of linux computing however, is already upon us.
- sontek 13y ago
  For me, year of the Linux desktop was 2003. Year of Linux desktop on my laptop (wifi and battery were an issue for awhile) was 2007. For my wife, year of the Linux desktop was 2011.
  - gum_ina_package 13y ago
    You're right, and sometimes (when a kernel update is released for example), the Year of Linux desktop retoactively gets changed.
    - sontek 13y ago
      That hasn't been my experience and I run Fedora, which is known for running cutting edge technology, compared to more stable distros like Debian. Admittedly, I know how to use linux, so I might not notice problems that beginners do.
- crdoconnor 13y ago
  The Linux desktop will come when Microsoft loses its leverage over hardware manufacturers and they start to preinstall linux and stop putting up barriers to adoption (e.g. remove windows -> lose warranty). It's already better than the windows desktop (xubuntu anyway, not unity, however). The barriers to uptake are no longer technical and haven't been for some years. It's all market + legal now.
sontek 13y ago
This percentage is huge since its fairly new and not all games are ported yet. When you think about this, majority of gamers were already rocking a windows dual boot or separate machine for gaming. This is 1.85% of the user base who switched over to Linux even though not all games were available to them yet.
- maaaats 13y ago
  But at the same time, it may be just a temporarily boost from all the Linux coverage. I myself tested it recently and abandoned it fast, and will not probably try again for a long time as long as almost none of my games are playable in Linux.
- SeppoErviala 13y ago
  I didn't use Steam since switching to Linux in 2008 until now that it is officially available. Some of that 1.85% are new (or returning) customers.
- er35826 13y ago
  This is not true at all. Most gamers aren't rocking dual-boots, and most gamers are still comfortably running with just a single Windows install of various flavors. For a personal anecdote: I've been a gamer my entire life, but I didn't start dual-booting (or using two systems) until I decided to get serious with programming and hacking.
  - jaredmcateer 13y ago
    For me, even then, I didn't dual boot, for a long time I was happy programming in Windows and Linux was but a curiosity until I started working at iStock and one of the technical leads convinced me to give Vim a 2 week challenge where I immersed myself in it. Since then programming with linux as my IDE and Vim as my editor has ruined Windows for me, only thing I use it for now is XMBC + Netflix and Gaming. I bought a dedicated laptop for programming. I have a dedicated box for gaming and one for media. With steam and pipelight it's the beginning of the end for my windows machines. I figure it's going to be gaming, as ever, that will keep the life support on my windows machine going, but it will be relegated to living in the utility room with my htpc if/when the Steam Machine streaming is proven.
mbubb 13y ago
My boys have used the Steam client on Bodhi Linux for the past 6 months or so - it probably registers as Ubuntu. Half Life, HL2, Portal, Team Fortress all work very well. They also play a lot of Minecraft on those computers (not on Steam obviously). They make very serviceable gaming computers.
yeukhon 13y ago
Mac users are still very low. I am a Mac user and I play games on my laptop. I hope they can release more games for the Mac platform as well. Although BF4 is not on Steam platform, it'd be nice to have a Mac version.
- codygman 13y ago
  Linux -> Mac ports and vice versa will be much easier than Windows -> Mac ports so you might be in luck!
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    I wonder how much work they have to do to support retina.
    - hrkristian 13y ago
      Retina is just Apple's marketing term for high-density display, and is something that's been common in PC gaming for a decade. Before the age of LCD my monitor had a whopping 1920x1440 res, many gamers opt into similarly high (16:9) resolutions now. The higher pixel density isn't necessarily a plus, though. I find 1080p does just fine for everything and want my gpu to be able to render with AA, anisotropic filtering (check out Skyrim with and without AF), and other details. There is a constant tradeoffs in an industry where software demands much more than hardware can supply.
      - yeukhon 13y ago
        Thanks. I know a couple desktop tools have issues with retina (or high-density resolution as you said) support that's why I asked. It seems like there might be addition code have to be added.
Glyptodon 13y ago
I use steam on Linux extensively with a lot of more 'Indie' type games like Awesomenauts, Anomaly 1/2 and Guns of Icarus. Mostly no problems. The thing that's always surprised me about Steam for Linux is how close the numbers are to those for Mac users.
drdaeman 13y ago
I wonder what percent of Steam games run on GNU/Linux. From my experience this is currently a very small value, as most of the games I want/wanted to play are/were not available. Let's check my library... 82 titles total (not counting the junk/demo/beta entries), 18 of them have declared GNU/Linux support, that's 21%. Way more than I expected (before I started counting I thought it would be somewhere between 5 and 10%), but still almost none of the games I'd play (new ones I haven't played yet or old ones with personally high replay value). So, it's still WINE and/or dual-boot for gaming. No changes here.
velodrome 13y ago
Gaming on Linux still has a long way to go: 1) The drivers are still crappy. It's getting better but it still needs a lot of work. To simply manage multiple screens or to change resolution requires a restart! Nvidia is still better than AMD drivers. 2) Many games just get the Linux ports to a "working" condition and leave it at that. The games are really buggy. Valve games are top notch and deserve a lot of credit for creating a good experience. Thank you Valve. 3) Ubuntu needs to create a stable platform people can build on. Getting people to use LTS is good but it is still buggy (I have a lot of issues with Unity). Also, LTS software gets stale really quickly - there needs to be a solution for this (without PPAs).
- forktheif 13y ago
  The open source drivers for my ATI card are pretty good. Performance isn't spectacular but it's acceptable, and I've not run into any serious bugs for years, and I have no trouble changing resolution at all.
  - Maakuth 13y ago
    Is there any kind of hardware acceleration for 3D graphics? If no, then those drivers are pretty much useless for gaming.
    - codygman 13y ago
      There is hardware acceleration for the open source fglrx (radeon) drivers, nouveau (oss for nvidia), and closed source nvidia drivers.
      - velodrome 13y ago
        For me, the open source radeon drivers do not work at all. I am on an AMD 7790 on Ubuntu 13.10. Is the hardware not supported yet? Is the AMD open source driver better than the closed source one?
        13y ago
frozenport 13y ago
Bigger Question: Do linux folk spend money on software?
- jibsen 13y ago
  I seem to remember some statistics showing Linux users generally donating more for Humble Bundles than Windows and Mac users. That doesn't mean they are more inclined to buy Steam games of course, but it does seem to indicate they do not mind spending money on games.
Nursie 13y ago
I must actually install native linux steam at some point, think I'm still running under wine!
philliphaydon 13y ago
What's more interesting to me is 20% of the users are on Windows 8/8.1
sandGorgon 13y ago
Very exciting times for Linux gaming this year. With next quarter's Intel Broadwell chipset - which incidentally runs off official open source drivers on Linux [1] [2] - we should have a pretty awesome Steam experience on Linux. As the Intel dude puts it : * Intel’s Ben Widawsky, who works on Intel’s Linux graphics driver efforts, says that “Broadwell graphics bring some of the biggest changes we’ve seen on the execution and memory management side of the GPU… [the changes] dwarf any other silicon iteration during my tenure, and certainly can compete with the likes of the gen3->gen4 changes.”* Pretty the much the only reason I'm putting off buying a laptop right now. [1] http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/12/30/1550239/intel-releases-5000-pages-of-open-source-haswell-documentation http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/12/30/1550239/intel-releas... [2] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_broadwell_linux&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_bro...
Sandman 13y ago
Keep in mind that this only shows how many Linux users run native steam clients. A lot of us also run Steam through Wine so that we can play Windows-only games. It's a buggy experience, but what can you do...
ksk 13y ago
Don't want to rain on the parade but - What is the error margin of this poll/survey? A margin of error of +/-2% would be very good for most polls. There is definitely a need for a 'third' choice when it comes to desktop gaming platforms, hopefully Linux can take off sometime in the future.
- ergo14 13y ago
  Thats data that is automaticly gathered by steam - it's not a "survey" where you can pick OS.
  - ksk 13y ago
    Is it opt-in or opt-out? Edit: Nvm found my answer http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey Its optional. Also other people have mentioned that steam randomly chooses users to take part in the survey and then asks them if they want to participate.
wldlyinaccurate 13y ago
I took the survey while I was playing DotA2 on Ubuntu, but since taking the survey I no longer use Steam on Linux. The main reasons are that only 4/50 games in my library are available on Linux, and because graphics performance still sucks (Intel HD4400). I'll try it out again whenever a new game is available or when there's a graphics driver update, but at the moment I'd much rather reboot into Windows than pull my hair out over how bad Linux is for gaming.
stephann 13y ago
When Linux reaches 2.85% I will replace my MACOSX with linux on macbook pro
Bjuukia 13y ago
Part of the reason I use linux is that I want control. I like games too, but Steam doesn't give me control. I would prefer Steam didn't manage my games, I want everything separate from each other. Until I can do that, I won't use Steam (I've tried) It wouldn't surprise me if there's a fundamental difference in thinking between linux vs other users. It's great that Steam's been providing Linux games, but that's just not enough for me.

141 points by ineov 13y ago

Crito 13y ago

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 that within the past month, but I wonder how many other people like that are.

jordonwii 13y ago
I had the same issue. If I recall correctly, there is a relatively simple solution on the Ubuntu forums somewhere.
- codygman 13y ago
  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.
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    This is one area where Linux in general, and Debian in specific, isn't currently very gamer friendly -- graphics drivers languish at out of date versions for far too long.
  - recursive 13y ago
    Oh well, maybe 2015 will be the year of linux on the desktop.
    - jebblue 13y ago
      For me and my wife and me for work it was 2007.
jebblue 13y ago
Gamers tend to use dedicated cards.
- Crito 13y ago
  Aye, I understand that and wasn't expecting much. FWIW: I just decided to give it another shot and Half-Life seems to work great, surprisingly at 2560x1700.
Danieru 13y ago
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.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

munro 13y ago

This is great! To me it's surprisingly high. I think this will be a slow process, because spending a day to backup & reinstall your OS is not a fun process. When I have time to game, I just want to turn my computer on and start gaming. I support gaming on Linux, and honestly even I've been too lazy to setup Linux on my gaming machine. I think the shift will happen as people upgrade their computers, or have to reinstall their OS because of malware. I wonder what percentage of these gamers are using a pirated version of Windows, because my anecdotal experience is that anyone who's built a computer has pirated a copy of Windows. When building a computer on a budget, spending an extra $100 on your video card is more ideal than on the OS. So going legitimate and free would be a very attractive option for gamers.

abrahamsen 13y ago
Thanks, that was my initial reaction as well. I'd have expected it to be a few enthusiasts, maybe something like 50.000 worldwide. 1.85 % of the Steam user base is more than a million players!

amscanne 13y ago

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 sure the experience will improve and it's great to see Linux as a growing platform for games!

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dave809 13y ago
what is your video card?
jebblue 13y ago
I've had a 99.9% success rate with all that I've tried. That's over a dozen popular games so far.
- recursive 13y ago
  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.
  - jebblue 13y ago
    The key was with all the ones I've tried. Not all the Linux games on steam.
    - mcpherrinm 13y ago
      The grandparent poster's point is if you played "over a dozen", say, 16 games and one of them failed, then 93.75% of games worked for you. Getting to 99.9% requires a lot more games to succeed for even a single failure. Obviously in context you didn't literally mean 99.9%

gyosko 13y ago

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

SwellJoe 13y ago
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.
- gyosko 13y ago
  I have a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650(not very powerful and quite old now) and I can play Dota 2,Left4Dead and other games on windows with no problem at all,while on Linux(Ubuntu 13.10) I can barely open the games.

codygman 13y ago

I use steam on linux without problems on xubuntu. The problem is my main OS is debian wheezy and mesa is too old. That means I would have to backport libgl1 (iirc) and not fail (like the past 3 times). I reboot into Xubuntu when I want to game though, and don't have any problems. Well except when I hook up to an external monitor... but I have a hacky xrandr script for that. I don't things are quite "there" yet for most people to game on linux.

jebblue 13y ago
>> I don't things are quite "there" yet for most people to game on linux. You mean Debian Linux which is what you're running. Ubuntu runs Steam just fine even with the Unity interface. I can Alt+Enter to go back to the Desktop and do stuff then get back into a game.
- codygman 13y ago
  No, I mean it's not there for Xubuntu/Ubuntu either. I have the same external monitor problem with both. The graphics drivers however have worked fine for me. However, my girlfriend who is running xubuntu with fglrx (radeon card) has slight issues with textures staying on screen.

aspensmonster 13y ago

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.

SwellJoe 13y ago
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.
- sontek 13y ago
  I'm running it on Fedora 20 as well, I play DOTA2 and Left 4 Dead 2 on it. I don't play either of those very often but they both work well. If they ever port CS:Go to Linux I'll probably have to take a sabbatical from work.
- shrikant 13y ago
  Netflix runs swimmingly well on my Ubuntu setup using the Pipelight plugin in Firefox. I haven't touched my Windows VM in forever!
  - SwellJoe 13y ago
    Cool. That's relatively new. Last time I did research on the subject, you had to run a browser under Wine, and it was just too much trouble for me to go to the trouble to do it. Still seems a little complicated, requiring Wine, and a Silverlight install, but I guess it's an improvement. And, there are a bunch of things I want to watch eventually that aren't on Amazon for free.

gum_ina_package 13y ago

I think the big story here is that ~4% of Steam users run Vista. The year of the Linux desktop is very, very, very far away.

jebblue 13y ago
For me and my wife and me at work it was 2007.
izolate 13y ago
By the time the year of the Linux desktop arrives, desktop computing will be a relic of the past. The year of linux computing however, is already upon us.
sontek 13y ago
For me, year of the Linux desktop was 2003. Year of Linux desktop on my laptop (wifi and battery were an issue for awhile) was 2007. For my wife, year of the Linux desktop was 2011.
- gum_ina_package 13y ago
  You're right, and sometimes (when a kernel update is released for example), the Year of Linux desktop retoactively gets changed.
  - sontek 13y ago
    That hasn't been my experience and I run Fedora, which is known for running cutting edge technology, compared to more stable distros like Debian. Admittedly, I know how to use linux, so I might not notice problems that beginners do.
crdoconnor 13y ago
The Linux desktop will come when Microsoft loses its leverage over hardware manufacturers and they start to preinstall linux and stop putting up barriers to adoption (e.g. remove windows -> lose warranty). It's already better than the windows desktop (xubuntu anyway, not unity, however). The barriers to uptake are no longer technical and haven't been for some years. It's all market + legal now.

sontek 13y ago

This percentage is huge since its fairly new and not all games are ported yet. When you think about this, majority of gamers were already rocking a windows dual boot or separate machine for gaming. This is 1.85% of the user base who switched over to Linux even though not all games were available to them yet.

maaaats 13y ago
But at the same time, it may be just a temporarily boost from all the Linux coverage. I myself tested it recently and abandoned it fast, and will not probably try again for a long time as long as almost none of my games are playable in Linux.
SeppoErviala 13y ago
I didn't use Steam since switching to Linux in 2008 until now that it is officially available. Some of that 1.85% are new (or returning) customers.
er35826 13y ago
This is not true at all. Most gamers aren't rocking dual-boots, and most gamers are still comfortably running with just a single Windows install of various flavors. For a personal anecdote: I've been a gamer my entire life, but I didn't start dual-booting (or using two systems) until I decided to get serious with programming and hacking.
- jaredmcateer 13y ago
  For me, even then, I didn't dual boot, for a long time I was happy programming in Windows and Linux was but a curiosity until I started working at iStock and one of the technical leads convinced me to give Vim a 2 week challenge where I immersed myself in it. Since then programming with linux as my IDE and Vim as my editor has ruined Windows for me, only thing I use it for now is XMBC + Netflix and Gaming. I bought a dedicated laptop for programming. I have a dedicated box for gaming and one for media. With steam and pipelight it's the beginning of the end for my windows machines. I figure it's going to be gaming, as ever, that will keep the life support on my windows machine going, but it will be relegated to living in the utility room with my htpc if/when the Steam Machine streaming is proven.

mbubb 13y ago

My boys have used the Steam client on Bodhi Linux for the past 6 months or so - it probably registers as Ubuntu. Half Life, HL2, Portal, Team Fortress all work very well. They also play a lot of Minecraft on those computers (not on Steam obviously). They make very serviceable gaming computers.

yeukhon 13y ago

Mac users are still very low. I am a Mac user and I play games on my laptop. I hope they can release more games for the Mac platform as well. Although BF4 is not on Steam platform, it'd be nice to have a Mac version.

codygman 13y ago
Linux -> Mac ports and vice versa will be much easier than Windows -> Mac ports so you might be in luck!
- yeukhon 13y ago
  I wonder how much work they have to do to support retina.
  - hrkristian 13y ago
    Retina is just Apple's marketing term for high-density display, and is something that's been common in PC gaming for a decade. Before the age of LCD my monitor had a whopping 1920x1440 res, many gamers opt into similarly high (16:9) resolutions now. The higher pixel density isn't necessarily a plus, though. I find 1080p does just fine for everything and want my gpu to be able to render with AA, anisotropic filtering (check out Skyrim with and without AF), and other details. There is a constant tradeoffs in an industry where software demands much more than hardware can supply.
    - yeukhon 13y ago
      Thanks. I know a couple desktop tools have issues with retina (or high-density resolution as you said) support that's why I asked. It seems like there might be addition code have to be added.

Glyptodon 13y ago

I use steam on Linux extensively with a lot of more 'Indie' type games like Awesomenauts, Anomaly 1/2 and Guns of Icarus. Mostly no problems. The thing that's always surprised me about Steam for Linux is how close the numbers are to those for Mac users.

drdaeman 13y ago

I wonder what percent of Steam games run on GNU/Linux. From my experience this is currently a very small value, as most of the games I want/wanted to play are/were not available. Let's check my library... 82 titles total (not counting the junk/demo/beta entries), 18 of them have declared GNU/Linux support, that's 21%. Way more than I expected (before I started counting I thought it would be somewhere between 5 and 10%), but still almost none of the games I'd play (new ones I haven't played yet or old ones with personally high replay value). So, it's still WINE and/or dual-boot for gaming. No changes here.

velodrome 13y ago

Gaming on Linux still has a long way to go: 1) The drivers are still crappy. It's getting better but it still needs a lot of work. To simply manage multiple screens or to change resolution requires a restart! Nvidia is still better than AMD drivers. 2) Many games just get the Linux ports to a "working" condition and leave it at that. The games are really buggy. Valve games are top notch and deserve a lot of credit for creating a good experience. Thank you Valve. 3) Ubuntu needs to create a stable platform people can build on. Getting people to use LTS is good but it is still buggy (I have a lot of issues with Unity). Also, LTS software gets stale really quickly - there needs to be a solution for this (without PPAs).

forktheif 13y ago
The open source drivers for my ATI card are pretty good. Performance isn't spectacular but it's acceptable, and I've not run into any serious bugs for years, and I have no trouble changing resolution at all.
- Maakuth 13y ago
  Is there any kind of hardware acceleration for 3D graphics? If no, then those drivers are pretty much useless for gaming.
  - codygman 13y ago
    There is hardware acceleration for the open source fglrx (radeon) drivers, nouveau (oss for nvidia), and closed source nvidia drivers.
    - velodrome 13y ago
      For me, the open source radeon drivers do not work at all. I am on an AMD 7790 on Ubuntu 13.10. Is the hardware not supported yet? Is the AMD open source driver better than the closed source one?
      - 13y ago

frozenport 13y ago

Bigger Question: Do linux folk spend money on software?

jibsen 13y ago
I seem to remember some statistics showing Linux users generally donating more for Humble Bundles than Windows and Mac users. That doesn't mean they are more inclined to buy Steam games of course, but it does seem to indicate they do not mind spending money on games.

Nursie 13y ago

I must actually install native linux steam at some point, think I'm still running under wine!

philliphaydon 13y ago

What's more interesting to me is 20% of the users are on Windows 8/8.1

sandGorgon 13y ago

Very exciting times for Linux gaming this year. With next quarter's Intel Broadwell chipset - which incidentally runs off official open source drivers on Linux [1] [2] - we should have a pretty awesome Steam experience on Linux. As the Intel dude puts it : * Intel’s Ben Widawsky, who works on Intel’s Linux graphics driver efforts, says that “Broadwell graphics bring some of the biggest changes we’ve seen on the execution and memory management side of the GPU… [the changes] dwarf any other silicon iteration during my tenure, and certainly can compete with the likes of the gen3->gen4 changes.”* Pretty the much the only reason I'm putting off buying a laptop right now. [1] http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/12/30/1550239/intel-releases-5000-pages-of-open-source-haswell-documentation http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/12/30/1550239/intel-releas... [2] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_broadwell_linux&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_bro...

Sandman 13y ago

Keep in mind that this only shows how many Linux users run native steam clients. A lot of us also run Steam through Wine so that we can play Windows-only games. It's a buggy experience, but what can you do...

ksk 13y ago

Don't want to rain on the parade but - What is the error margin of this poll/survey? A margin of error of +/-2% would be very good for most polls. There is definitely a need for a 'third' choice when it comes to desktop gaming platforms, hopefully Linux can take off sometime in the future.

ergo14 13y ago
Thats data that is automaticly gathered by steam - it's not a "survey" where you can pick OS.
- ksk 13y ago
  Is it opt-in or opt-out? Edit: Nvm found my answer http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey Its optional. Also other people have mentioned that steam randomly chooses users to take part in the survey and then asks them if they want to participate.

wldlyinaccurate 13y ago

I took the survey while I was playing DotA2 on Ubuntu, but since taking the survey I no longer use Steam on Linux. The main reasons are that only 4/50 games in my library are available on Linux, and because graphics performance still sucks (Intel HD4400). I'll try it out again whenever a new game is available or when there's a graphics driver update, but at the moment I'd much rather reboot into Windows than pull my hair out over how bad Linux is for gaming.

stephann 13y ago

When Linux reaches 2.85% I will replace my MACOSX with linux on macbook pro

Bjuukia 13y ago

Part of the reason I use linux is that I want control. I like games too, but Steam doesn't give me control. I would prefer Steam didn't manage my games, I want everything separate from each other. Until I can do that, I won't use Steam (I've tried) It wouldn't surprise me if there's a fundamental difference in thinking between linux vs other users. It's great that Steam's been providing Linux games, but that's just not enough for me.