1y ago

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

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

According to these new numbers from Valve, the Linux customer base is up to 1.96%, or a 0.52% jump over June! That's a huge jump with normally just moving 0.1% or so in either direction most months... It's also near an all-time high on a percentage basis going back to the early days of Steam on Linux when it had around a 2% marketshare but at that time the Steam customer size in absolute numbers was much smaller a decade ago than it is now. So if the percentage numbers are accurate, this is likely the largest in absolute terms that the Linux gaming marketshare has ever been.

Data from Valve: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam?platform=combined

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217 comments

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.
  
  Their installer automatically just has the proprietary drivers, which is really helpful for newer users.
  
  I am using it specifically because of the hybrid Nvidia graphics on my laptop. Because they sell laptops with this setup, their OS supports it flawlessly. I'll be honest, I'd rather be using something like Nobara, but there were games that weren't working and I don't have the patience to figure out how to get them working. Pop just works. That's what I need.
  
  Why is Pop OS required? Can't you simply use their nVidia drivers in other Linux distributions?
  
  The process is less streamlined. There isn't some universal installer that works on all distributions. Especially not for drivers.
  Basically when you install Pop OS it's just available. It's usually...not on a lot of Linux distributions.
  
  I will bet money it's not a proprietary driver and simply copied from another project. Where can I see the source code?
  Edit: yep, it's actually the stock Nvidia drivers that you can build and install on literally any Linux OS (and easier on Arch if you use paru by typing "paru nvidia"). So Pop OS implementation is nothing special.
  
  Well yeah, the point is that they provide the driver from the beginning by including it in the ISO, meaning you dont need to set up the driver after installation and it just works
  
  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.
  
  Pop is no meme, it's awesome and easy.
  
  I also noticed that. It takes all the pressure off me though because I'm an arch user and have been for 10 years 😂

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