Victory 🙌

Wait, If Windows is 96.21% and Linux is 1.96%, then MacOS is 1.83%?

Wouldn't that make Linux 2nd place?

Before opening the comments, I spent several seconds contemplating if I should mention this, or if people would think I was some pedantic nerd dickhead and downvote me to hell. Glad someone else already covered this.
- We still think you're a pedantic need dickhead, but we upvote you for that!
- Pedantic / thread about Linux. You're safe, cuz.
- Yeah, I contemplated mentioning it too, knowing I might come off as pedantic, but figured what the hell. Others must have noticed too, right?
- lol, this is the only reason I came in here.
- It's OK this was cause OP has the permissions for it
I actually love the irony of this meme, as that's exactly what happened haha
This is a post from the future, after MacOS temporarily jumps to a whopping 2% after it gets its yearly single port of a 5 year AAA old game.

It's actually second now.

Linux now has more steam users than MacOS

Which, as an ex MacOS user, is a mindboggling fact it took this long.
- I guess people just trying to do things with what they have. I had a friend who plays LoL on a Mac. She also used Steam on it but there were very few games.
- Aren't modern Macs literally not able to run games due to them being arm?

Even if it's Steam Deck, this just goes to show that desktop Linux is totally viable; it just needs more commitment from companies

Maybe this is the year for desktop Linux!
- Man I remember when KDE came out and us young naive kids thought "this is it... It's virtually identical to win95/98... But without the bsod"
  
  I feel old.
- It definitely is! Now I feel silly for calling it a year early, last year.
- Windows 10 has support into next year. Personally I use Linux and Windows but I'm sticking with gaming on Windows until support runs out. I think next year will be the year of linux
A stable ABI wouldn't hurt either though
- .. Yes, but realistically the work to make the Linux ABI "more stable" can probably go to use elsewhere
Yeah! That thing almost nobody touches because it's literally just there to run a proprietary storefront and act as a translation layer for games is totally going to win the desktop!

Just next year!

For the last twenty-five years or so.
- commitment from companies
  
  The biggest of big tech refuses to accept Linux as a desktop OS. They need to port their software for Linux to get people over.
desktop Linux is totally viable

I think this shows the opposite.

If a FREE option that claims to be more efficient/faster (but usually isn't in real life) is less than 2% of the market, something is wrong. Very, very wrong. Since when do people turn down free stuff, unless that free item is that bad?
- Because the vast majority of computers come with Windows preinstalled, and the vast majority of users can't be bothered to update their OS unless they're forced, let alone reinstall something else. I'm fairly certain the numbers would be very different if there were a significant number of blank laptops on the market, let alone ones shipped with Linux.
Lol steam Deck is already on the edge of not being able to play new AAA console titles. There will be a few ten thousand left who will feel like there is value in buying a second.

This is the new Steam Link. They've probably lost millions internally.

Maybe 10 years from now if they keep pumping massive money into it but it's certainly not even close to comedically viable.
- Valve sold out of steam decks for multiple production runs now. And other companies are now investing in handhelds after seeing the success of it. Steams intention with the Deck was to kick start the handhelds market and make SteamOS the default operating system for that form factor. I don't know if they profit from the deck directly but i definitely have bought more games since owning one.
  
  Not to mention that most people have a favorite game they go back to that runs on older hardware, AAA certainly makes up a very small percentage of my gameplay
- If you try to run any new AAA title on any current handheld you're going to have a bad time and bad battery life IMO. I think you could even extend this to modestly old gaming rigs that already struggle badly with poorly optimised new titles.
  
  I see the Deck praised often for its emulation capabilities and indie game performance - and to be honest those aspects are appealing enough to me if I was interested in buying another portable computer.
  
  This is the new Steam Link
  
  Out of curiosity, what makes you think this?
  
  I doubt this is the case as thin client gaming accessories are a very niche product, and the Deck hardware is grossly overqualified in this regard IMO
- Anything I have a challenge running at a good frame rate, I'll just locally stream from my PC. 60fps all day long with the power of anything my PC can run. Don't sleep on that local game streaming, super handy and sips power.
- You mean like those AAA titles the fucking Switch can't run?
  
  That's literally the only thing close to competition that the Deck has, and it skullfucks it in terms of horsepower.

Math don't add up, Linux would be second because whatever else would only have 1.83.

Second place baby!

But second place wasn't looking so saucy like the medal biting guy

Also works for Reddit vs lemmy user count

I like to think we are in fact happier here than on Reddit.

I actually feel sorry for that first placed kid on the picture: he formally won but clearly feels beaten by the sheer enthusiasm of the 3rd place one.

[Relevant]

Even if it was all gamers, that'd push a lot of companies to care about Linux a whole lot more. Venn diagram of people who spend a lot of money in tech stuff and people who play games is almost a circle nowadays.

I've worked in server-side systems development for over a decade, in all sizes of company, and Linux has been ubiquitous on the server side for ages: it's simply the most problem free way of maximizing the hardware you have, not to mention cheaper (both upfront and TCO).

It's only on the desktop that it's not.
- Yup, outside of the desktop, Linux rules the world.
- I meant companies that make apps for desktop, like Adobe.
I don't even think Valve really care about Linux. At least not in the same way that Linux users care about Linux.

They just care about getting the costs of Steam Deck down, and don't want MS to go mental and pull the rug from under their business model.

I'm surprised by how much of my Steam library would work on the Deck, tbh. Out of nearly 1300 games, 407 are verified, and 931 are verified and playable. Be nice if you could stream the rest (either from your own PC or an external provider), but Geforce Now showed that was a minefield (I suspect due to exclusive streaming rights already being to sold to someone else) and publishers freaked the fuck out, despite it being none of their business where I run my purchased games.
- They care about Microsoft not 100% controlling access to the platform Steam customers use. Valve cares about Linux because they need an escape strategy if Microsoft ever locks them out.
- I've only found 2 games out of my library so far that don't work
- You can stream from your own PC. They have remote play and Steam Link for android.
- Valve has been pro linux and anti-windows way before steam deck... did people forget about the Steam machines?

This, but desktop linux users are on the step for 193rd place while excitedly screaming and holding a third-place sign. Steamdeck users are on the 3rd-place step while calmly playing their deck.

I'm in this comment, and I'm okay with that.

It's the year of the Linux desktop, y'all! Woohooohooo! Yeah! Rock on!
- Fuck yeah! Just like last year!
- It’s the year of the Linux ~~desktop~~, handheld y’all! Woohooohooo! Yeah! Rock on!
  
  Wait, I think that already happened with Android.
  
  It's the Year of the Linux Handheld squared, then. We win twice.
- Fwiw I'm in it too. I'm not going to say what year was the year of Linux on the desktop for me, but it wasn't a meme yet. And I've continuously run an actively used Linux desktop (or mostly laptop) since, often at work but always at home. I unironically prefer it to Windows and Mac, which I also also daily drive and consider to be worse in most ways that matter to me.
  
  I think desktop Linux gamers are right to cheer for the Steamdeck, as its success translates quite directly to an improved gaming experience on desktop Linux. So yeah, the reason this meme is so clear to me is because I see it in the mirror each morning.
- Look out, we've got a 3%er here.
Not really, it’s closer to 50/50
- I stand by the meme even if I can't stand by the statistics in it.

Linux is life

Linux is Shrek?
- Knowledge is power.

Is that before or after Steam Deck users? Would it be higher than 1.96 if we included steam deck in the count?

After steam deck.
People are installing Windows 11 en-masse on that Steam Deck!
- No they aren't

Truly a Linux moment

I like this meme format

So uncanny that in the Ubuntu bug tracker, bug #1 is Microsoft & bug#2 simply does not exist.

Does SteamOS count as Linux? How about Android?

Yes, SteamOS does count as Linux. Android does not. The Android and iOS Steam app is just for social features / store, not for playing games so neither show up on the survey.

SteamOS Holo, which is what the Steam Deck uses, makes up 42% of the Linux systems in the survey results.
- Wow 42% is actually a lot less than I had imagined
- Which OS is #2 then? MacOS is now behind Linux.
Does SteamOS count as Linux?

Why wouldn't an Arch branch not be Linux?

How about Android?

Completely irrelevant because Steam games don't run on Android.
- There is a Steam app for Android so I figured that would count...
- Why wouldn't an Arch branch not be Linux?
  
  Because it's Valve's own OS. They might consider being first-party sufficient reason to not to lump it in with its third-party cousins.

Is that counting steam decks?

Yup

linux all the way!

Doin my linux gaming thing since 2013

Who does Number 2 work for?

As a Linux user, fuck off and die completely.

90 percent of Linux users being Steamdecks, where the consumer didn't really make a choice to build the SD framework on Linux.

Almost every Windows user never made the active choice to use Windows either, and Steaw Deck is 40% of Linux users.
Idk the percentage of microsoft windows users that just used the preinstalled OS of the pc they bought, and never actively decided on an OS. But I assume it's very high.
A lot of people choose the steam deck over it's windows competitors, and mostly because the software experience is better on the deck vs. Windows.

I have a Deck and a ROG Ally. Windows on the Ally sucks, and I'm going to return it. The hardware is generally pretty good other than the SD card slot issue, but the software being constantly broken ruins the whole thing.
- You can put SteamOS on other systems now