“A dedicated gaming system with an available OS that most people will never directly access has slightly more users than an operating system that is openly antagonistic to most games” is one of the weirdest flexes I’ve seen from the Linux community, and I’ve been around it for about 20 years.
Can’t hear you over the sound of my GPU crashing 😎
amdgpu: segfault in gem_freeShould be easy enough to hear over the sound of my audio not working!
/s (my audio has worked fine for over a decade)
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The steam deck is hands down the most interesting piece of tech (outside of modern smart phones). It’s wild I’ve been able to get Fallout 3 mods working in the crazy windows proton boot shells that just magically worked.
While I wholeheartedly support and use linux for gaming, I rather blame this on the attempts of apple to block gaming on a mac as much as possible (removing 32bit support, the switch to ARM and not using established standards like opengl and vulkan but building their own ‘metal’)
Unless SteamOS is counted separately from every other distro, I’d say it (via steamdeck) accounts for most of the growth.
I don’t see why people emphasize this distinction. If development is driven for the steam deck it’s driven for linux as a whole.
Well, yes, we all benefit. Most often than not, improvements on steamdeck directly translate everywhere else, but not always. I believe the steam client HW acceleration has been broken for nvidia gpus for a while now(?).
Don’t get me wrong, gaming on linux is better than its ever been. But i wish it would take into account linux as a whole and not just one specific piece of hardware.
Then why not count ChromeOS?
If people are running steam games through chromeos then yeah, count it! I would also count windows for ARM as windows…
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Does Steam run on ChromeOS? Because if it does, and it’s included in those stats, then ChromeOS is woefully underrepresented. ChromeOS has more users than all other Linux put together, but doesn’t show as an OS on the Steam survey at all.
The point is that the Steam Deck is as “Linux” as ChromeOS or Android are.
In other words, Linux means absolutely nothing to the end user on these systems because they’re so clamped down as to be useless beyond the provided playground. The Steam Deck is a bit different but even then what percentage of users actually use Linux directly rather than the provided Deck interface?
If a user is using a Steam Deck then they are using Linux though.
No, they’re not. Not anymore than someone using Android is “using Linux” or you’re “using OS/2” when you find an ancient ATM. This is just more goalpost moving by Linux apologists to make themselves feel better about the “year of the Linux desktop” still being at least 6-8 months away.
It’d say ChromeOS and Steam Deck are important less for whether the are “real” linux and more because by increasing the number of users using a linux base you get better stability in gaming on linux.
I use linux as a daily driver, but I couldn’t care less if others do. But if it leads to a better gaming experience then that’s something I can get behind.
Totally agreed. I’m just seeing far too many people here and elsewhere hailing this as some kind of massive win “FOR LINUX” when in reality it’s a massive win for “THE STEAM DECK.”
SteamOS is real enough distro. AFAIK it even has KDE preinstalled.
Do they not? I have no idea how many steam installs there are on chomebooks but I don’t see why they wouldn’t count towards linux numbers.
Valve controls the data, the data is incorrect. Only trusting steam is just like trusting Elon Musk. Anyone or any company that 100% controls the data should not be 100% be trusted.
Steam has no reason to skew these numbers, and these numbers make sense.
No they don’t make sense, Valve controls who gets the survey, Valve is known to lied, “linux” what?, bot accounts inflatiation, VM possibility counted, etc. We can never confirm these numbers, we can never know if they are based on real humans.
I mean it’s less than 2% of users that seems pretty reasonable lol
Ok, but why to they want to lie about these numbers? Inflate the steamdeck market?
Yes, that is a thing. People have already posted about increase in linux and they assumed Steam Deck. There is no actual number saying it’s the steam deck, it’s just assumed. Plus, this goes back to Valve controlling the numbers, they can sell any number they want and the linux side could be close to the truth. Valve having this much control is the problem i’m talking about.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/07/nearly-40-of-linux-gamers-on-steam-are-on-steam-deck/
So what was that you were saying about nobody know what percent is actually the Steam Deck?
Or maybe this one: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Steam-June-2023-Statistics
Or any of the other sources that break down Steam numbers by distro?
Oh but of course Valve is lying because they totally don’t have literally thousands of developers (many of whom are multi-billion dollar corporations) relying on these numbers for sales projections or anything…
Come on. Use brain.
For anyone that doesn’t see my post lower down: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Steam-June-2023-Statistics
Steam breaks down OS user numbers by distro. This information is out there.
Valve is not about to start lying about numbers and it’s utterly baffling that anyone would think they would. They rely 100% on the trust of publishers and developers. If they lied about their numbers, which these companies use to generate sales projections and make seriously massive financial decisions off of, they would be immediately dumped by everyone and subject to massive antritrust lawsuits.
Valve has done little to upset the games industry, because they understand their position is actually quite precarious.
If you committed a crime than someone asked you if you commit the crime, that doesn’t mean you committed the crime. What you said is based on sources on Valve website, Valve numbers, on Valve data collection and Valve Employees. You can not prove the numbers are real or fake, they are only numbers in a crime that would otherwise lead to the bigger crime.
You totally belong here.
SteamOS is responsible for 42,07% of GNU/Linux usage according to steam
40% of linux steam usage
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Huh. I didn’t even know Steam offered Mac games, like, at all.
Fun fact: when Steam came out for Mac, Valve had to update Portal because Mac users couldn’t place orange portals (no right click on Macs!).
Hah I didn’t know that. I was a mac user at the time and Portal was the first game I bought on steam. I had a normal mouse though.
What do you mean by “no right click on mac”? Is there only one button on a mac mouse?
I have a Mac book Pro for work.There is just a lot of random weirdness.
There is no right click, your supposed to do a light two finger touch for right click.If you click too hard it opens the dictionary.
If you plug in a mouse you can get right click, but it isn’t consistent in working.
By default scroll is inverted (up is down, down is up), also windows can have scroll bars but they aren’t clickable, you have to do a scroll gesture.
Almost every Left control + Button action is now Meta key + button. But not everything, its annoyingly inconsistent also new random shortcuts.
For example lock screen isn’t Meta key + l like on Linux or Windows. Its Meta + Shift + Q, shut down is Meta +Left Control + Q.
The keyboard doesn’t match the your countries layout, so keys move around and is missing traditional keys like print screen. To do that you press Meta + Shift + 4 to switch the mouse to a screen cut tool and select the area you cut.
I could go on and on, none of it is obvious and I wouldn’t say any of it is an improvement at best its just different.
My last job I had to use a Mac. Gave myself carpel tunnel or RSI or something using that mouse. I’ve been off of it for five years now, it feels a lot better but still hurts a bit now and then. Never had a problem for decades before that.
As someone who hasn’t used a non-Mac laptop in ages, is it still common to have a left and right click on the trackpad? There are certainly a lot of quirks with Macs and macOS, but honestly the trackpad right click is something that I prefer on Mac over other hardware. But I figured this was more common now.
I usually see both. A physical right click and a two finger tap anywhere. And also both a left click button and a single tap anywhere. And three finger for mmb is unfortunately often not the default but always configurable (love me my 3finger tap to open links in a new tab)
I have had a vareity of HP, Dell, etc… laptops. The trackpads will do gesture stuff but you can clearly feel a left and right button if you push down on the trackpad (e.g. push on left side for left button).
Two finger right click feels much easier, but sometimes the latency is unbearable in games and apps that need need it. Regular taps are instant, two fingers takes like a dozen milliseconds to process.
Oh yea. I still game on Windows but other than that I just use macOS for everything these days and the few games I do run on macOS I still use a mouse for (Cities Skylines actually runs great for example)
Doesn’t the fact you have to use a separate mouse tell you the design is poor?
The better approach would be to detect clicks on the left and right of the trackpad as left/right buttons and support two finger right clicking.
My 2016 Dell had that function, I don’t think it’s specific to Apple and if it was it hasn’t been in a while.
Historically, yes. But their current mouse supports right-click, or 2 finger click on the trackpad. With the old one-button mice, Control+Click would give you a right-click function. macOS has supported 3rd party mice with multiple buttons for over 20 years.
The one-button mouse thing was mostly a way to force developers to think about discoverability in their apps. They didn’t want a bunch of functionality hidden away in right click menus. Forcing developers to design with one-button in mind forced them to provide more discoverable ways to access all the functionality in the UI, they could also provide the right-click menu for extra speed for those who had a 2 button mouse.
What the other person is saying about “discoverability” is not entirely accurate. The Mac mouse has traditionally had one button, going way back. No, I mean waaaaay back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_pointing_devices Cost was a massive factor given the tech of the time and the fact that they were shooting for the home market using hardware that wasn’t readily available off the shelf.
Macs have COMMAND, OPTION, and CONTROL keys. CONTROL+click is the equivalent of a right mouse click, but it may not be implemented by developers as standard in games and I’m not sure if the MacOS system hooks CONTROL+click to the same output as an actual right mouse click.
Modern Mac mice have what’s basically a touchpad instead of buttons, which is awesome since it gives you things like a scroll wheel and a right button. But it’s absolute RSI-buggering trash for the most part.
There has always been a way to right click on any Mac trackpad or mouse but some are not discoverable. Like there will be only one surface to click, but it will still know which side you click on.
Mac’s have right click… it’s the two finger click.
Which isn’t a right click
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Many MANY other reasons, but the charging point location isn’t one of them and I’ll die on this “just plug it the frick in before you go to bed like once a week or so” hill. 🤣
I have charged my wireless headset while wearing it like ~5x over almost 3 years of using it. Still, in those moments were for one reason or another (mostly me forgetting) it was discharged when I wanted to use it, it would have utterly sucked if I couldn’t wear it while plugged in. I simply had a cable dangling off like with a regular headset.
There will come the time when you are sitting there with an empty mouse and can’t use your system while it charges … for absolutely no good reason
I don’t use the mouse itself (it’s hell for my RSI) but do use the keyboard and trackpad. I just have a Lightning cable hooked up to the computer and maybe once a week I’ll plug it into one or the other before I go to bed.
It’s really no different from a phone, smart watch, laptop, tablet, MPC Live, SMG with LiPO, Tesla Roadster, or anything else with batteries that die really quickly. Is the location of the port a dumb wank exercise in “design” over function? Yes, but the whole thing is and that’s the least of its problems. lol
Even doing this, for a company that has been obsessed with design, having a mouse flipped up with a cable in the bottom looks ugly as hell.
Maybe it forces a clean design while in use, but the whole thing just seems very inelegant.
I have an old Magic Mouse that takes AA batteries. I don’t really see why they didn’t stick with that if they couldn’t figure out a good way to charge it. I don’t use it anymore, but I’d much sooner use that old mouse than the new one with that horrid charging port they they seem to not want to fix.
Or, you know, right click on most mice will work. I wouldn’t want to game on a trackpad anyway.
They have for a really long time. Unfortunately a lot of them are unplayable on modern machines and there is no easy “show me only 64 bit stuff” toggle.
the mac version of steam is the only 64-bit version of steam, since valve can’t be bother to update their app to 64-bits unless forced
They’ll upgrade by 2038
It was a selling point a few years ago, my friend bought a macbook pro for WoW and Steam games, then they yanked support for 32bit which ended our multiplayer sessions
You can get it back, I don’t remember how just that it’s possible.
Many of the most popular games are Windows/Mac only, like Baldur’s Gate 3, Divinity Original Sin 2, Borderlands 3, Elder Scrolls Online, Rust, Call Of Duty BO3.
Wish there was more love for Linux native games.
On windows you ship a game as an exe or uwp app On Mac you ship a .app On Linux you ship the game as a flatpak, or any of the other 14 competing standards
It’s just less straightforward. That said, pick one and ship it and I’m sure the community will get it working on any system eventually. Linux is shown to be the best at creating useful bug reports even for closed source software.
$(date +“%Y”) is going to be the Year of
the Linux DesktopLinux gaming.Lmao. True!
Maybe devs will stop targeting Windows and Mac and instead target Windows and Linux. The number of games that have Mac and Windows versions is too damn high.
We have proton and it works well but any little thing to prevent Mac from gaining more popularity is for the better. There is no place in gaming for a platform that doesn’t even let you upgrade the gpu on their desktop machines.
Apple played a big indirect part in helping Linux. Imagine if no company ever had to worry about supporting anything non-Windows. At least knowing they had to record their app for Mac made these things more obvious
I think this is a clear case of a rising tide lifting all boats.
More gamers outside of Microsoft’s ecosystem is good for everyone.
all the game are still inside Microsoft ecosystem. The big player here is Wine which transforms Microsofts system calls to Kernel(Linux system calls).
That’s true to a point. But there’s motivation to release native clients even if Windows compatibility layers exist, and I’ve seen devs do exactly that. For example, Return to Monkey Island was Windows-only but Steam Deck-certified on launch. Shortly after (within a month IIRC) a native Linux version was released as well. This was great for me because even though it was certified for Steam Deck, somehow it didn’t work quite right on my Linux system. Wine/proton is an extra point of failure and it does fail quite a lot.
The way I see it, proton is bootstrapping Linux gaming. Can’t get gamers without games, and you won’t get games without gamers. Proton is fixing that paradox and getting the gamers in first. Native games are already following, and will likely increase right along with Linux’s market share.
Also, “market share” isn’t necessarily as important as absolute numbers. Most games only need to find a small audience to be successful. 2% 20 years ago was easy to ignore. 2% today is quite a big market, and a viable niche in its own right.
Linux sweep
I hope it won’t age like milk after the new game porting thingy will get stable release and thus mac will get some more ports
I thought the 2% was SD users on Linux? This is 2% of all Steam users?
Yes, 2% of all steam uses Linux (including steamdecks)
I’m confused why you think only 2% of steam deck users would use Linux when it’s the OS that ships with it. Unless I misunderstood what you meant by SD?
Yes, 2% of all steam uses Linux
That’s awesome.
I’m confused why you think only 2% of steam deck users would use Linux when it’s the OS that ships with it.
I didn’t. I thought it meant 2% of Linux gamers were on SD.
It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
-weird Kosh noises
Long live the revolution!
opens Witcher 3
