GamingOnLinux estimates >7% of English language install base for Steam is using Linux (if I’m understanding this correctly): GamingOnLinux Steam Tracker
That chart shows what I would interpret as really strong Linux growth. Somewhere around 200% growth in the last 4 years, and seems to be significantly accelerating.
Yeah, indeed. Steam language breakdown is about 40% English, 30% Chinese, 10% Russian, 5% Spanish, 15% other. Chinese speakers overwhelmingly use Windows rather than Linux, so choosing ‘English only’ basically doubles the Linux percentage.
I’d be interested to know why Linux has such bad update in Chinese-speaking regions. (It’s the lingua franca for much of Asia, so not just China, just largely China.) Obviously, inertia plays a part - easier to move to Linux if you know someone else that can help you, which if there’s no-one then you might be a bit stuck. Are the fonts crappy? Are the input methods greatly superior in Windows?
I’d be interested to know why Linux has such bad update in Chinese-speaking regions.
I wonder if language in particular may be a factor hindering Linux adoption there?
- How does the documentation for Linux (including forums, how-tos, blogs, etc) available in Chinese dialects compare to what is available in English, and how well does machine translation work for translating the English sources?
- The documentation available online for Linux very often involves the command line. How much of a pain is it for people who only speak Chinese dialects to use an English command line? If the commands are available in Chinese, how well do the machine translations of the English documentation sources work for that purpose.
I feel that there are probably significant language barriers that have an effect here, and effectively create a chicken-and-egg problem for Linux adoption, possibly limiting Linux usage to Chinese people who are relatively proficient in English.
For reference, here’s an article about what proportion of Chinese people speaks English (it seems to be around 5%?): https://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/how-many-people-in-china-speak-english
Guessing Linux is associated mostly with the government attempts to make their own distribution. I think in their context windows may feel safer.
they do not care about many of the things that people in western societies care about. they do not care about privacy. they want to use the same type of computer their friends and coworkers are using. 11 is a higher number than 10.
unless there’s a chinese linux distro that gets pre-installed at the factory, along with a government ban of windows (it could happen), they will be the last society to adopt.
11 is a higher number than 10
Jokes on them. I am using 24.04.
I would put it down to censorship. Not of Linux directly but of information about noncomformity. Windows is the default OS for desktop PCs and I imagine it is easier to get exposed to the idea of searching an alternative in the west than in China. If you never question the oppressive bullshit corporations are doing to you, you will not think to break free and use Linux.
i find this a little difficult to believe when china develops and promotes their own linux distro and desktop environment
I like how all Arch based distros are in “quotes” by the way.
Right? It’s oozing with sarcasm, like—ArCh LiNuX
lmao
Why would you run Ubuntu core? Are they only running steam?
I was wondering who’s gaming on their thermostat.
i’m presuming people are using a just enough os (JEOS) distro to install a gui of their choice and steam and not much else.
That makes sense. Pure gaming machine
this is steam as snap package, just like how they count flatpak steam
I have one machine where I run steam as a headless instance as I just use it for remoteplay to the TV.
Oh shit, that’s smart
To add another layer, I actually run it as a container - Steam Headless
mint at 0.30%
Got my new bazzite gaming laptop YTD!
Screw you, windows, I’m out
Man I wonder when Valve manages to ship a 64-Bit Steam Client.
My understanding is that Steam has nearly or completely removed the old 32 bit dependencies recently.
checks the HL3 calendar
soon™
Linux mint 21: loses a little
Linux mint 22: wins a little
my brother in christ. they just updated their pc
Still increases in other areas ☺️👍
Importantly, there was a net increase in Linux users and a net decrease in Windows users.
It’s been moving fast. It barely moved like a decade ago
awesome!
I’m curious as to how much profit is lost by M$ or Apple for each basis point of the market that switches to Linux.
Apple probably isn’t seeing it as a factor. Anyone switching from MacOS to Linux on Apple hardware has purchased Apple hardware and will likely continue doing so because they’re the kind of people who buy Apple products and you can’t change that about a person.
Of those Windows users switching to Linux, how many of them have decided to stop using a Windows license they’ve had for years? Instead of upgrading to 11 for free, they’re switching to Linux? Or, how many of them are rocking the Activate Windows watermark? There’s probably a pittance or two lost in ad revenue, but Microsoft almost isn’t a B2C company anymore.
Apple probably isn’t seeing it as a factor. Anyone switching from MacOS to Linux on Apple hardware has purchased Apple hardware and will likely continue doing so because they’re the kind of people who buy Apple products and you can’t change that about a person.
When they are ready for a new computer, are they going to spend double to buy Mac hardware when they specifically want a Linux machine? Many will say no.
We’re at a point in history where an Apple computer is kind of difficult to recommend as a Linux box because they’ve pulled off of x86. Gaming. On Linux. On Apple Silicon. I bet you can do it, the Asashi or whatever people have done a remarkable job of reverse engineering from no published documentation at all from what I hear. But, we’re several generations of Apple Silicon in, I imagine the people who have jumped ship for Linux have done so by now, leaving the blue bubble brigade to themselves.
Remember, to many people, that Apple badge on the lid of that laptop isn’t just a billboard for a company you don’t own, it’s the badge of an in-group. There are entire states in the union where they won’t let you buy food if you’ve got a Samsung phone. It’s now government policy in Israel.
These are private computers for gaming with Steam installed. This will literally be less than pocket change to them. They likely lose more from pirated Windows and secondhand purchasers of Apple products.
The amount of money tech giants lose will not be affected for a long time. The main achievement for Linux right now would be to get a foothold, to make it known to the public, to normalise its use. The big change will come when organisations start moving to Linux (which you would think would be a priority considering the fact that it is free and more secure).
which you would think would be a priority considering the fact that it is free and more secure
And regularly used across their back end already.
Probably needs more corporate spyware which Linux users aren’t likely to tolerate.
They make more on cloud servers than as operating systems nowadays.
I’ve read the same thing but I’ll bet a dollar that no one using Linux is paying for any Microsoft cloud services.
Some people use Linux but don’t mind about Microsoft
Ex: a lot of people in computer science
I noticed a lot of students use Linux for their studies because in CS we pretty much only use Linux, but they run Windows at home or they solely run Linux for studying so they don’t care about the rest
They would’ve stayed with Windows if it provided the same features and full compatibility
As a somewhat side fact, most of Microsoft’s own cloud services are running on Linux. This fact nudges me to believe the opposite of your conclusion. That is to say, changing your OS doesn’t necessarily change the software you use.
That said, I would be very surprised if Microsoft’s cloud offerings were as popular among Linus users.
That would essentially mean the only reason to use Linux over Windows is ideological opposition to Microsoft, which is sheer nonsense.
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We are already at >7% for English-speaking Steam users. At this rate 15% isn’t terribly far off.
But, even now, it’s getting increasingly difficult to tell your manager “we should lower our product’s sales by 7%”.
Linux use on steam has also passed mac use. The three most popular mac versions are still used by more than the 3 most popular linux versions, but the total for macs is under 3%.
And for me personally, I didn’t even have to give anything of value up to make the switch. I kept my old windows machine in a running condition as a backup, but I think I’m about ready to start retiring that machine entirely, at least as a windows machine.
I’m surprised Bazzite isn’t higher on the list, here, it really seems like the OS I hear about whenever Linux gaming comes up.
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Why do you not like immutable distros?
I’m asking as a long time Mac user, just tried Linux this year, and have settled on atomic fedora and bazzite, so looking to learn not imply I know more than you or anything like that. I’m just very sold on them and the ostree idea.
See the problem is that you’re a normal computer user and not one of the 3% that actually like the experience that is the traditional Linux desktop.
Gatekeepy bullshit.
Bazzite is great, and immutable just means some things are done slightly differently, that’s all.
Somehow that does not help me know what I’m missing.
Basically, traditional Linux allows you to mess around every part of it and even completely break it if you weren’t careful enough. This is really great and powerful for people that knows what they’re doing, but for 99% of users, the ability to change the underlying operating system is not really necessary.
Thanks. That’s fair, I mostly don’t want to deal with that most of the time (I would if I had a spare computer)
Is that not possible while still having an ostree, or is that just because the ostrees are all basically just fedora?
My point is you’re not missing a damn thing.
It gives the "it just works"Ness that a Linux gaming distro for Linux noobs needed. (So far anyway)
Immutable distros are perfectly fine for 99% of use cases and are far less likely to be broken by and end user following poorly made guides on the internet.
I switched to Bazzite based on a recommendation and it’s been a fantastic OS for me (gaming and light development/home labbing) and I no longer have any desire to distro hop.
Took a bit to figure out the immutable stuff for some very niche things I needed done, but other than that ezpz
Without having tried it, I think Bazzite fits a certain user group very well, but is less suited for other users. Which is fine.
I don’t really see how it’s particularly good for homelabbing, but use whatever works for you.
I don’t really see how it’s particularly good for homelabbing
I’m assuming by that he meant as a distro for his personal PC that he uses to SSH into his home lab or access the web interfaces. Not to run on the servers
This is correct.
I didn’t pick it for home labbing as a primary as I mostly use that machine for gaming, but just to show how well it works overall as a general purpose OS. I did end up switching over to their Dx branch for updates so that helped for some of that stuff as well.
The person who replied to you is correct. I meant as a machine to write scripts on, manage servers, etc. I do agree though Bazzite probably isn’t the best for everyone, but that’s what is great about Linux, there is a OS for everyone
I think it was more of a fad for a short while, but there are a lot of other much more entrenched and mainstream distros
Bazzite has been one in a LONG line of Trendy Distros Of The Month. People have been trying to make CachyOS happen, Zorin has made a couple appearances, ElementaryOS and Pop!_OS traded blows for awhile, Nobara was in there, a long while ago there was Peppermint, I’m forgetting a lot of them.
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I honestly think for most people atomic systems should become the default, so I’m team bazzite right now.
It just feels like they need to get over decades of bad app/file hygiene to improve.
I’m convinced Atomic systems are going to be useful in a lot of applications but I’m not giving up a typical Linux system for my main computer yet.
Atomic distros should replace Chromebooks and managed work/school computers. They shouldn’t replace personal all-purpose computers.
I have just run into such an insane amount of problems with atomic distros. The thing is that you don’t know it will be a problem until you start having a need for the functionality
I still daily drive bazzite, but embedded programming, wireshark (constantly breaks upgrading on atomic fedora), any VM that had to connect to the LAN, any sort of document signing, key management, using any sort of government ID software like Belgium’s EID to log in on a web browser, and much more is very difficult with most of the examples being dead in the water and will apparently never be attempted to be fixed.
It works great for most people, until they need to do 1 thing outside of the mainstream and it falls apart. Hell, there is literally no documentation at all on how adding a user to a group is fundamentally broken (fedora’s fault, not bazzite) and you have to copy groups manually from a non-documented file to /etc/group.
Feels like youre really diminishing Bazzite’s popularity here. Ive seen it regularly talked about here and in a lot of YouTube videos for around a year now. Its also currently used by 5.5% of the Steam Linux player base (you can see by filtering the results by Linux only), making it one of the most popular distros for gaming right now. Also, CachyOS is just ahead of it at 6.74%. Definitely not flavor of the month numbers imo
I’m on Bazzite because I use my PC at the TV with a controller these days. It’s simple to use for that. That’s pretty much it.
Also Mint gets a ton of traction here too.
This graphic is just a bit misleading, and the more detailed results show the opposite story. Bazzite is as 5.53% of Linux users, up 1.29% from last month and one of the most used single distros.
Source?
The page linked in the post. Click the drop down to filter by Linux only.
bazzite is bringing in new users, not converting old ones.
That list is just weird and only shows a few specific distros. If you go to the Linux only results you get way more info. It shows Bazzite as used by 5.53% of respondents, +1.29% from last month.
Ah, that makes way more sense. Nearly 6% of the gaming Linux market for such a new distro, and rapidly growing, sounds much more like where I would’ve expected Bazzite to place, based on my own experience and the tune of most recommendation threads here.
Agreed. Ive been active in a lot of Linux communities for a good while now, and I’ve never seen a single distro being recommended as much as Bazzite. Mint was probably the closest, but it’s always had detractors due to its stable base affecting hardware support.
3% is insanely high for those of us who remember the early 2000s. I am loving this.
Gaben embracing Arch has been great for Arch in general. I can’t even remember the last time my Arch install crashed.
Now that you’ve mentioned… Knocks on wood
Been using Arch for daily driver, web server, large data analytics machine, gaming, music making, programming, visual design and a while lot more for 15 years now. The only time I’ve had an issue with something in the official repos was when freecad was compiled with a version of a library that wasn’t compatible with a very specific thing I wanted to do and I had to recompile it. That’s it. 15 years. One issue. Not sure that even this Gaben fellow could improve on that…
It was gaming all along guys
