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Yeah, by a whole permille I bet.
I’ve been using Arch for a little over a year, and it’s been fun. I’ve learned so much more about computers and Linux itself. I highly recommend trying out Linux and you can do it here: https://distrosea.com/ - It’s a website where you can try out different Linux distros in your web browser.
I can’t switch because Nvidia Linux drivers suck and AMD X3D chips still have issues.
What distro your using?
I tried Linux mint cinnamon
I’m on Bazzite for almost a year now and I didn’t have a single issue with my 5800X3D.
Nvidia seems to be the biggest hurdle for most people. The simplest solution I’ve found has been universal Blue, Bazzite (specifically the Nvidia images). You don’t have to think twice about Nvidia as everything is preconfigured for you out of the gate, forever, in perpetuity.
I’m not aware of the x3d issues you speak of.
People often repeat that Nvidia is a nightmare to get working and that you need to install some sort of pre-packaged distro that configures Nvidia for you but… that hasn’t been true for years?
Get any distro you want, from Fedora to Arch, install nvidia-open, reboot… that’s it? Maybe install extra packages for 32 bit support, video decoding and CUDA if you want, optionally. Not different from installing Nvidia drivers on Windows at all, except you’re not running a .exe, but that’s true for any package.
I believe one of the problems is that nvidia is an out of kernel driver so it requires each kernel update to rebuild it. There is a lot of distro’s that handle this with a proper configuration of dkms but some dont and it causes issues that are hard to solve for the average user.
OpenSUSE has drivers that nVidia releases and hosts on the nVidia repo specifically for Leap or Tumbleweed. I’ve never had driver issues.
I worry about losing performance and I play raytracing games
I’ve been running Linux on my desktop for more than 30 years, so I’ve switched for a while. And while I’d certainly like to see it become more commonplace, I’m not sure a few decimal points are really going to change anything. It’s nice that it’s making progress, of course, but all in all, it’s rather insignificant.
While it’s under 10, or more likely 15%, nobody will care about it.Developers already care about it. Not all of them, not all the way, but many are aiming for steam deck compatibility via proton. It’s not perfect, and some devs are vehemently holding out, but it’s progress!
That doesn’t seem to take a lot of effort. It’s still a windows binary. And it’s unfortunately simpler than figuring out if the user runs X or not.
macOS is barely 15% and people care a lot about it.
As people already stated in the comments, this may not be a permanent change for some (they find out something like destiny 2 refuses to work on Linux without bans, some other tools needed for certain use cases are not there yet or windows only), but I think is super important people understand there are alternatives, and not only windows or Mac. Hopefully gives more people awareness that something else is out there. And would be really cool if we had more of the user base that is on the verge to throwing away the machine because of windows 11 restrictions and instead, gives machines a second chance.
All we can do is guide them. Personally, I guide them to treasure I cannot have, since I’m damn near obligated to run and deeply understand Microsoft Windows because I work for IT support.
All of my work tools are Windows centric.
I do use windows for work as well, but if people want adoption, it starts at home. I do see a need for Linux distros in general will have to make even a bigger shift for the user needs instead of whatever agenda people like to imply (I think open source is a good goal, but if I introduce Linux to someone, I will not for certain preach endlessly about this).
We need more adoption, but I also see some camps will decide to further distance themselves from these groups of users.
Lemmy Linux copium is one of the strongest in the world.
How else are we going to achieve nuclear fission?
Don’t you mean fusion? Fission is separate and we’ve already achieved it a long time ago.
Haha, yup! Brain bork moment. :)
We’ve achieved fusion too. We just can’t extract more energy than we put into it yet.
Technically they can extract more now, it’s just a really really small amount.
We have made more than we put in to the reaction, but that’s a far cry from making more energy than we put into the reactor, or extracting any of that energy at all.
Oh, that makes sense.
It’s not so much about users switching, it’s more about the ones that will stick with it. And that we can’t know for a few years yet.
How do you know if someone owns a Steam Deck? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
So anyway, a couple years ago I bought a Steam Deck. And since I bought it, virtually all of my gaming is on the Deck. Prior to that, virtually all of my game time was on a Windows PC. So, for me personally, there’s been a big shift towards Linux for gaming.
The other big change that’s coming for a lot of people I know: end of Windows 10 support. Honestly, the majority of people I know who still have a traditional Windows PC are using machines that can’t be upgraded to Windows 11. These computers are perfectly functional and do everything the users need them to do, and they have no inclination to go out and buy a new computer just because. Especially in this economy. Additionally, there are quite a few people with computers that are capable of running Windows 11, but they have no desire to upgrade to a worse experience and an experience that is randomly different in a myriad different ways for no good reason. Both groups are ripe for the picking in terms of a switch to Linux. No, the year of the Linux desktop is not here, but the conditions for such a change are building. And this Steam data may present a picture of the larger trend. Who knows?
They all can upgrade to win 11. Nothing is stopping them. But you have to do a couple of steps.
Either way, Linux is better and Microsoft is playing stupid games.
Unless their hardware doesn’t support it. A lot of people are going to be tossing out perfectly good systems because they don’t have a TPM.
You can bypass that requirement. The hardware is fine you just have to tell windows to ignore it.
2 registry keys if I remember correctly.
Windows also said they don’t support it and may stop it from working at any time. I have already had a problem because Windows System Image tried to restore something as UEFI when I only had BIOS so forcing my BIOS system to something that technically only supports UEFI seems like an awful idea.
Windows says lots of things. It is surprising how conflicting they are internally.
The thing is, there are a lot of ways to install windows 11. You have a lot of versions to choose from and more options than you think.
Anyways, I think it is all beating a dead horse, although you can get around windows requirements the best thing to do is not play the game.
Switch to Linux and be done with the bullshit.
Excellent, I’ve been looking to upgrade my setup
Not in all cases. My desktop PC came with windows professional (10), back in 2021. Upgrading to windows 11 is not included for free (not even to windows 11 “basic”), I need to pay a new license.
You still can upgrade for free and use a registry setting to take off the nag screen.
But I really was commenting on people who think they can’t. You can too by buying windows11.
Well, windows didn’t allow me to do that, so I might have to do a manual process maybe.
Anyway, I am not interested in upgrading, I am just saying that I can’t upgrade (click button, couple of steps), without buying a new copy. We can argue about the semantics of what “upgrading” means, but effectively there are going to be plenty of people in my situations, which is why I brought it up.
The other big change that’s coming for a lot of people I know: end of Windows 10 support. Honestly, the majority of people I know who still have a traditional Windows PC are using machines that can’t be upgraded to Windows 11.
The average person just simply won’t upgrade. These are the people who find regular updates or shutting of their PC already a pain, what makes you think they would switch to a completely different OS?
I ran a dual boot back in college to dabble with Linux a bit but gaming support back then was literally nonexistent. The Deck and Proton really reinvigorated that drive nearly a decade later.
This past winter I started a huge degoogling push and trying to replace big tech platforms in general, and I’d also recently quit the only the game I regularly played that didn’t run on Linux due to anticheat bullshit, so I said fuck it and set up a CachyOS dual boot and I haven’t looked back since.
The dual boot is just there in case I ever need it for some odds or ends, or in case I break Cachy, but so far I’ve booted windows maybe 4 times since January.
This last try at gaming under Linux (about a year ago with a desktop PC and Pop!OS) was a pleasant surprise given that my previous try (same machine, around 5 years before) was an exercise in frustration and I just gave up on it and that partition just stayed there in a dual boot config without being used until I nuked it in this latest try.
This time it went so well that I’m now full time gaming in Linux and even though Windows is available as dual boot, I haven’t booted it in many months. Granted, I don’t do online multiplayer so don’t suffer from Wine not being compatible with the Windows rootkits used for cheat protection in some of those games.
And this high success rate is not even exclusively with Steam and Proton - I get about the same rate of success for games from GOG with Wine under Lutris.
The ease of gaming in Linux seems to have advanced massively in the last few years.
Won’t miss those years tweaking Windows to uninstall or disable bloatware and malware. I don’t mind if more or less people migrate to Linux, I’m just grateful to those who are making and improving such amazingly good distros. 💪💛
Instead you’ll spend your time littering your own computer with bloatware!
This is good. This data will eventually help influence game developers to support Linux. It won’t happen over night, but we this trend continues, it’ll eventually start getting some attention.
11% month on month expansion is fucking crazy. You can see from the data it’s mostly Windows 10 users deciding to upgrade to Linux…and even OSX.
Would love more support for MacOS but I’m also fine turning my windows 10 rig into a Linux machine. Need recommendations on a gaming distro! AMD TR 1950 w/GTX 1080TI
A lot of people will say Bazzite and they’re probably right, but I installed PopOS last year and I have had zero problems with any configuration or gaming. Also on an Nvidia GPU / AMD CPU.
I did the same with AMD+ NVidia gpu combo but it is not without problems. Do you play through Steam/proton db or are you using something else like Lutris?
Historically I’ve used lutris but more recently I’ve been observing more broken scripts than not. But Lutris is extremely handy for mapping to a pile of game data that I might grab from Itch for example. I also havent been gaming as much lately so maybe I’m just hitting some weird games and that’s all.
I’ve heard good things about Heroic Launcher which apparently is actually sponsored by GOG, but I’ve yet to try it on my Linux machine
Gonna check out Heroic. Thanks for the tip
I use steam, I do check protonDB but I’ve never had to tinker with much.
Bazzite is the go-to gaming distro. It’s basically Steam OS.
I’m personally a fan of Mint (old, stable) or Fedora Plasma (cutting edge), as both feel very familiar coming from Windows. I went with Mint personally.
Bazzite is Fedora and you can get it in KDE Plasma or Gnome flavors.
I’m in those stats when I switched to Mint!
How is your idle VRAM (video RAM) holding? For some reason i have 1GB usage in Mint with Cinnamon without anything running, while on windows i have 400MB (although i have optimised them a lot).
400MB??? What do you have running? I never use more than 100 unless I open a game or something.
Well, screen is running at 4k, so i think its normal.
I’m not sure. I’m a photographer and comic. I switched to mint cause it’s easy, I’m not much of a computer person.
Did you find mint easy? I am a bit of a computer person, and I’ve been struggling a bit with it
Effortless. My only issue with it was installing Plank Reloaded.
I’ve been struggling quite a bit switching file managers. Nothing is fully satisfactory
Why do you care?
If I had to guess, VRAM is probably holding stuff as a cache.
VRAM doesn’t use a lot of power and as long as you aren’t seeing out of memory issues, it doesn’t really matter.
I’m gaming with an NVIDIA GPU, so my VRAM is kind of limited. I’m at my limits in games because the company cheaped out on VRAM in their GPUs after the 10 series.
This is my use case as well. Not that macOS gaming is terrible, it’s just not as good as a dedicated Linux system because of the easier proton translation on Linux than the tinkering required on macOS.
11% of 2% is nice but not “fucking crazy”
Steam has over 132 million monthly active users
That month on month Linux expansion is ~422,000 computers. That is a shitload of people switching in just a single month.
OSes are sticky as hell. People don’t like switching. As Linux attracts these people away from Microsoft, MS is not going to get them back. And importantly, the adoption rate is high enough that many 3rd party companies are taking notice and releasing for both.
MS is not going to get them back
Until they want to play a multiplayer game with their friends, that doesn’t work because of Anti-Cheat. Or maybe Linux is a bit more involved than they initially realized.
Most of those that switched probably won’t go back, but I think with Linux it’s going to be more than someone might think (however it’ll still grow, especially over the coming months with Windows 10 support ending).
Until they want to play a multiplayer game with their friends, that doesn’t work because of Anti-Cheat
It’s my understanding that anti-cheat CAN work in Linux and does with some games. The point is still valid of course. If a specific game someone wants to play doesn’t work, that’s going to be a frustrating experience. But still I foresee the percentage of Linux gamers will continue to grow. And gaming companies increasingly making sure to use anti-cheat software that does work with Linux, as that market share is becoming too large to ignore.
Almost all multiplayer games work fine. It’s 9noy the garbage that companies like EA put out that choose not to. Just think of it like being a console exclusive, and you don’t own that console. Ignore it. Their games aren’t worth playing anyway. It’s the same garbage as the last 10+ years.
OSes are sticky as hell. People don’t like switching.
Every time they buy a new device they have to switch back to linux, because that device with very few exceptions ships with MS.
Interesting, my devices always come without OS. And on preconfigured Windows for family first thing I do is wipe it to get rid of all the bloatware it comes with.
I see your point, but installing your usual linux distro on a new device is quite easier than switching to linux for the first time, which is what people don’t wanna do.
I’ve seen it first hand recently with a friend who sought advice regarding a low budget laptop purchase for school work and multimedia use. While he was open minded about what hardware to choose, there was no convincing him to ditch Windows. I told him he’d be better off using a lightweight linux distro on such modest hardware, but he insisted on Windows 11 based on questionable arguments (“I need office”), even knowing it’d be slow, bloated, full of ads and AI features no one care for. Old habits do die hard.
What do you mean OSes are sticky as hell? I’m currently on Arch, but only because of the AUR. I’m thinking of switching to gentoo because people keep putting malicious packages on the AUR so I might as well do gentoo
What do you mean OSes are sticky as hell?
What are your feelings on switching to a different OS, such as MacOS?
I’m currently on Arch … I’m thinking of switching to gentoo
These are both the same OS: Linux. And one of the nice things is Linux lets you switch around so much at-will as you are thinking of doing.
I can’t see OS X becoming a daily driver for me, but I don’t mind using it on occasion (it has bash!). Just have to turn off gestures
422k out of 132 million
This is WHY percentages are a thing. Because, on the surface, yeah, that is a very large number. When you look at it relative to the denominator? It is 0.3%. What is the percentage of people who bought Clair Obsura or even just some good old fashioned feet porn?
Bragging about what is basically a rounding error relative to Windows is the same “it has been the summer of Linux for the past 20 years” that mostly just leads people to write off Linux in general.
Also, what “many 3rd party companies” are you talking about? Mostly what I have noticed is an increase in “We tested on the Steam Deck” or “we won’t block Proton”. Whereas EA are still actively blocking Proton in the BF6 beta?
422k out of 132 million
It’s all relative. When you bring the time aspect into this, it is a sharp increase compared to previous time periods.
And it’s subjectively a small number of computers and a large number of computers at the same time, depending on perspective.
There’s no point in arguing over these stats.
what “many 3rd party companies” are you talking about?
When I switched to Mint about 6 months ago, most of my programs existed on both. And my games just worked. That wasn’t the case just a few years ago.
Whereas EA are still actively blocking Proton in the BF6 beta?
I can’t imagine wanting to give EA root access to your entire system, full access to everything you do on your computer…just to play a game. I’m honestly surprised Microsoft still allows such on their platform, it’s a massive vulnerability to users, as CrowdStrike demonstrated.
most of my programs existed on both
Good on you. Plenty of people have many problems because a lot of industry standard tools (e.g. fusion 360 for CAD) don’t exist on Linux and actively break under Wine/Proton
And my games just worked
And great (and same). But most of that is just not actively breaking Proton. Which is the Wine team plus Valve.
As for BF6: the point is that one of THE biggest third party publishers out there has spent the past year or so actively blocking Proton in almost all of their games. And for their new flagship title that they want to be the biggest game ever (ha!), they are already actively blocking Proton again.
Which goes against the “many 3rd party companies are taking notice and releasing for both”. Which was already not even a thing since the vast majority of those aren’t doing linux binaries (tried that 10 and 20 and 30 years ago…) and are just not actively breaking Proton.
Do you not understand that “many” has a different meaning than “all”? Being able to point to one company that is actively blocking Proton doesn’t prove a single thing.
Said company being one of the biggest in gaming. Hoyoverse also tend to be varying levels of sketchy towards Proton (I think the current “meta” is to run the android version of Genshin Impact in an emulator?)
Also, you still haven’t really identified what major 3rd parties are considering Linux a first class citizen versus just not actively blocking Proton and MAYBE testing against one specific SKU (Steam Deck).
You can use Fusion 360 in Linux with Wine. But instead of even trying that, I used my switch to Linux as the catalyst to switch to FreeCAD. Using FOSS just feels so much nicer.
People buying Steam decks are likely the majority of those numbers. They probably ALSO have a Windows machine
People buying Steam decks are likely the majority of those numbers.
The Steam Deck shows up as Arch Linux in the steam numbers; Arch is only 10.7% of the Linux user-base on Steam. And this is on top of the fact desktop Arch Linux is a thing as well sharing space in that line-item.
The Steam Deck (and Microsoft tomfoolery) certainly was the catalyst for the current wave of adoption, but it is barely a notable percentage of Linux installs on Steam.
but it is barely a notable percentage of Linux installs on Steam.
0.3% of 130 million is still a fuckton of people. If even PewDiePie is going to Linux, that means desktop Linux has hit a point it certainly hasn’t ever before
At that rate we reach 100% Linux users in 34 months. (50% in 27)
I’d call that quite significant.
… what rate are you talking about?
I am going to assume the other person’s numbers were right but it honestly doesn’t matter
422k people per month? That is 0.3% per month.
2.89 + (0.3*34) = 13.09. 13% after almost 3 years. Which… that honestly still seems high but I could almost see it if SteamOS gets enough coverage by the various influencers and runs on every handheld form factor gaming PC that isn’t MS or Sony branded. And if the next attempt at Steam Machines actually gains traction and they take over a chunk of the console space ahead of the PS6.Or are you talking about compound interest? Which… I think even Activision and EA would call you crazy for assuming. Also I am not sure if the math actually holds for that either but I can never remember the simple math to represent that.
Also it is completely unrelated but I’ll just add: I personally don’t consider SteamOS gaining a significant market share to be “linux” any more than I do Android or consider Mac to be “BSD”. Yes, they have common ancestry (and varying levels of shared kernel and libraries) but it rapidly starts creating walled garden issues as developers prioritize one distro over the other to an obscene degree. And… I think we can all agree after the past few weeks that GabeN can indeed do wrong when it is in his/Valve’s financial interest to do so.
It’s Linux because for devs it’s a Linux platform.
And yeah 11% growth month to month compounds quickly. It won’t hold forever but all things like that are sigmoidal Wich does start as an exponential growth.
Sure, but even using that absurd growth rate continuously it would still take an ADDITIONAL 18 months from what you originally said to hit 50%
log_1.11 (50/2.89) = 27.32
log_1.11 (100/2.89) = 33.96
I wonder how dual boots show up in these stats
They don’t. The survey pops up on one device only. Statistically speaking though, it’s more likely to show up on the OS you spend most of your time using, so it doesn’t make that much of a difference.
This is usually true, in my experience, but I experienced an anomaly a couple of weeks ago when the survey popped up on my desktop twice (Arch and Win11) and my laptop twice (CachyOS and Win11) in the same day. I was very surprised.
Common Windows L
Okay, I finally installed a new SSD yesterday so I could dual boot and put CachyOS on it. Played a few games and it worked surprisingly well.
But it did take quite a bit more doing than installing Windows. The USB drive wouldn’t boot when made with Rufus and I don’t quite get how to manage the games installed in Proton (like where is their virtual C: drive?).
I plan on migrating more of my stuff onto Linux in the coming days and will see if it can’t replace Windows eventually for me.
Just tried gaming on Linux because I forgot my Ally and was stuck on my laptop. Sorry, guys, it still sucks. It’s getting better, though. Perhaps in another 10 years.
Microsoft Recall and Steam Deck and Proton are why.
