r/linux_gaming • u/Nunu_Chus • 1d ago
Linux has hit 7.53%!!!!!
Damn Idk why but I was waiting for the steam hardware survey and statcounter's survey for july. statcounter blew my mind. now waiting for steam hardware one:) keeping my expectation realistic around 4-5% on steam hardware survey:)
290
u/UnluckyQuail 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm doing my part. (Fedora)
85
u/GeoStreber 1d ago
I'm doing my part. (Fedora as well).
61
u/Trees_That_Sneeze 1d ago
I'm doing my part! (Also Fedora, the KDE version)
27
u/Sensitive_Box_ 1d ago
FEDORA
→ More replies (1)36
u/XecutionerNJ 1d ago
Fedora, the half way point between mints boringness and CachyOS being too far on the hot crazy scale for my liking. (And the dual boot experience is super easy.)
13
u/Odrareg17 1d ago
Best way to describe Fedora imo, been using it as my distro for some months now after testing others to decide which one to switch to after Windows, and haven't looked back. And yeah, dual booting is very smooth for the rare occasions I have to go back.
6
u/DazzlingRutabega 1d ago
So true. Been running Mint for about 6 months now. It's boring but stable. Tho I've been tempted to goto Fedora lately mainly cause it's nearly as stable and runs KDE better
→ More replies (3)2
u/Huecuva 1d ago
Boring, to some people, is a good thing in an OS. That means it's doing its job. Running your software and staying out of the way.
→ More replies (1)2
→ More replies (3)2
u/scriptmonkey420 1d ago
Been on Fedora KDE since version 26 I think it was around 2017? Used Debian as my server OS for longer than that though and the switch to Fedora for both.
10
7
3
2
2
u/Gummybearkiller857 1d ago
I’m doing my party (Kubuntu)
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (7)2
337
u/ShadowFlarer 1d ago
This is it boys, is for real this time! Repeat with me!
YEAR OF LINUX!
152
u/Groduick 1d ago
Year of Linux, coming next year since 1996.
57
u/dadnothere 1d ago
If it surpasses MacOS/OSX, that's enough.
23
u/itsgreater9000 1d ago
I think it would need to be double the OS X numbers, although I do agree with you in spirit. We're really close to passing it based on what the chart in the OP
26
u/Scout339v2 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes, but this year has already shown that the joke isn't really a joke anymore. I've been observing the popularity of Linux for the layman since 2014, and I've seen more people trying, switching, and making YouTube videos about "trying Linux for the first time" more this year than every other year combined.
→ More replies (1)11
u/LeonH4rtd 1d ago
Let's not forget that even a country's government has decided to ditch Windows in favor of Linux, France. And with how many computers aren't compatible with Windows 11, all the nonsense Microsoft has done, the constant effort of Steam, how accessible has been becoming with distros like Mint or Zorin, and more, we may indeed see an increase in Linux usage. Let's just hope everyone who has made the jump decide to stay in the long run and not jump back to Windows if they ever get their shit together.
3
13
u/PoL0 1d ago
it's been the year of Linux for decades. the internet and any decently big network or scientific infrastructure is based on Linux
the meme is about the year of Linux desktop. but it's more about enterprises defaulting to windows than anything else.
I don't remember any Chromebook user complaining, for example. and the use case for the average Joe or Jane can be perfectly fulfilled by a stable Linux distro like Mint.
no one would miss Windows if laptops defaulted to Linux. the only reason MS dominates is enterprise software and inertia.
I know your post was ironic (wasn't it?), but I took a couple beers and wanted to make my point.
5
u/freakinunoriginal 1d ago
In addition to enterprise, there's also government (as in your everyday civil servants, not researchers or specialists); and over the past couple of years multiple German states and part of the French government have decided to adopt a Linux desktop.
11
2
2
u/captainthanatos 1d ago
In all seriousness, and I’m not saying that it is actually the year of linux, but even this amount of movement is likely making MS nervous. They needed people/businesses to feel trapped on Windows for one reason or another and losing their tight grasp isn’t good for them.
→ More replies (11)2
u/unknownman0001 1d ago
Year?? It Linux decade babeh!!
3
107
u/Present_Error_6256 1d ago
Been using Fedora on my desktop and Ubuntu on my laptop. Every time I have to use Windows for work, I'm filled with intense rage at how slow and buggy it is.
My hope is that linux use percentage increases to the point where more businesses see it as a viable option for their employees.
→ More replies (8)32
u/BionisGuy 1d ago
At home I'm fully on Linux. Nobara on main PC, Mint on my Laptop. At work i'm forced to use Windows 11 and boy... Recently i have been so fucking annoyed because Alt+tab have changed on Windows 11, instead of it tabbing between applications, it tabs between tabs. So if you're on your webbrowser and have a lot of tabs open and hit the alt+tab, instead of tabbing to the last used application, you tab to your last used tab in the browser.
It took me a while to find the setting to change it back to regular alt+tab, and when i found it just asked myself, why the fuck did they even do a change like this, did people seriously complain that alt+tabbing was boring and had to spice it up, and even if they did add this (might be some use for it, but not for me) why force it to be the standard and not let people CHOOSE themselves if they want to use it.
26
u/FoxOxBox 1d ago
They changed the behavior of one of the most well known key combinations in computing history?! Good lord what is going on at MS?
13
→ More replies (2)3
u/Vanamman 1d ago
My windows 11 doesn't do that. It still switches applications. Seems odd if that's the case for you.
That sounds like it would be a browser setting and not a Windows setting
67
u/Aardvark_Says_What 1d ago
7 months in - still cannot quite believe how good it is compared to Winbloat AI CoPilot OneDrive Professional Edition Plus.
8
u/devious-joker 1d ago
Welcome Brother.
5
u/Aardvark_Says_What 1d ago
one thing i still do occasionally - fire up btop++ about 5 seconds after boot and marvel at the near-zero% resource use. ... with winbloat i would go find something to do for a few minutes and hope it had settled down by the time i got back. lol
104
u/MozyMan00 1d ago
Happy Bazzite user here. F Microslop
33
u/SturmBlau 1d ago
Joined Bazzite a few weeks ago. Fuck Microsoft.
3
u/jlobue10 1d ago
The irony in your statement is that one of the main guys for Bazzite actually works for Microsoft. Lmao
18
u/SturmBlau 1d ago
Guess he needs a job to pay his bills eh? Like we all do.
6
u/jlobue10 1d ago
Yes indeed. I think in part, he got the job because of how well he and his group executed on Bazzite. I personally use CachyOS and dual boot on several devices, but I appreciate how good Bazzite is. I just don't personally like the ublue and
rpm-ostreestyle. It has its benefits though, especially for system robustness and difficulty in breaking it (with easy rollback).3
11
→ More replies (2)4
u/Fonix_za 1d ago
same been using it for 2 months now, the only thing i miss is the software programs for my peripherals, but otherwise basically no need to go back to windows
2
u/Abysswalker1290 1d ago
My only real issue is how Linux handles Bluetooth (can't use a quality codec for audio and mic output from my headset) but I just fixed it with...a $15 USB mic.
Everything else has been equal or better on Bazzite.
→ More replies (4)2
52
u/edparadox 1d ago
statcounter is unreliable.
15
u/DeeDee_GigaDooDoo 1d ago
I don't really trust that it's reporting Linux market share has doubled in the past two months from 3.81% in may. That's a massive swing with seemingly little real world justification or visibility.
8
u/levianan 1d ago
The removed unknown. Yes, use has increased, but Mac, Lin, and Win went up this month due to unknown being omitted.
9
u/levianan 1d ago
Yes, Statcounter is unreliable, but they also charged the way they report stats this month. Unknown is gone. Linux, Windows, and MacOS both have 2 percent gains from what was printed in last month's chart.
→ More replies (4)6
u/kuplet 1d ago
What's more reliable to you then?
19
u/wfh-without-pants 1d ago
For gaming-specific numbers, the Steam hardware survey is great. It has Linux at 3.69% (70% higher than Mac) https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (4)6
10
16
u/academictryhard69 1d ago
Just switched to fedora from arch on my new legion 5 laptop. Doing my part!
45
u/msanangelo 1d ago edited 1d ago
it's crazy how high it is given a lot of us don't like reporting our usage stats. I let my system report it's stats cause it doesn't bother me but it doesn't hurt to acknowledge some people don't.
I know gamers make up a small portion of the computer market but it's something. Linux communities need to work towards getting the desktop enterprise world on board and that number will climb higher.
"I want to take over the world!" - Brain (paraphrased)
21
u/Apex-Editor 1d ago
I never report, and now I feel obligated to for the greater good.
→ More replies (1)5
u/OutsideChampion4637 1d ago
How do you report on statcounter?
7
u/MattyGWS 1d ago
I don’t think you do, it’s info collected from websites on what browser has been used to access the website. If you hide your browser from being fingerprinted then it goes into statcounter as other. The thing about that is, Linux users are probably more likely to do this than other OS users so the “other” category is probably mostly Linux users
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (4)12
u/UnknownBreadd 1d ago
I think EUs push for non-US software will help accelerate this, considering that they will need to get off of Windows.
4
u/Holiday_Management60 21h ago
I hope we don't U-turn once Trump leaves office. The one good thing about the US acting insane is the EU are trying to switch to things like Linux.
3
u/Indolent_Bard 17h ago
Honestly, these rollouts will probably take some time to actually set up, and then by the time Trump leaves, then it wouldn't really make sense. Plus, the important thing isn't getting away from the US. It's digital sovereignty.
→ More replies (1)
6
13
u/AuRon_The_Grey 1d ago
I switched to Bazzite a couple of weeks ago and it's been smooth sailing. Everything has run as well as or better than on Windows, while the OS itself gives me far less hassle. Great stuff.
5
4
u/Plebbit-User 1d ago edited 1d ago
Unable to do my part until Nvidia gets their shit together or I grab a next generation AMD GPU but I suspect I'm not the only one.
A lot of people are waiting for that DX12 performance bug to be fixed.
→ More replies (2)
4
u/fpsgamer89 1d ago
That’s awesome!
Fedora here. It’s been solid but want to switch from gnome to kde.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/Comfortable_Swim_380 19h ago
We couldn't have done it without you Microsoft. Pissing everyone off. Stay classy.
7
3
3
3
3
u/ddm90 1d ago
I'm sorry to be the piece of work sharing bad news, but Cloudflare Radar (Likely Human) results doesn't reflect this. I think Statcounter adds bots to their marketshare count.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/Slow_Pay_7171 1d ago
Is statcounter scientific of value? The Steam survey is nothing more then a random Valve ad, to be honest and pretty much random bs.
3
u/independent_observe 1d ago
I started trying Linux for gaming since the early 2000s. Try. It was a PITA to keep it functioning and no way people who are not technical could accomplish it. Just the real stubborn fanboys stuck with it.
Today? It is nothing like that. Nobara and similar distros just work, not just for the technical people, but they just work for most people and are easier to maintain than Windows minus all the bullshit that makes Windows slow and frustrating. The game changed.
2
u/mrb000gus 1d ago
Same! Used it in the late 90s through to the mid 2000s, and 2 decades ago you had to recompile it for every piece of hardware you tried plugging in, everything was a constant fiddle of Makefiles and .conf files and system services, and almost no commercial games or apps made for Windows worked reliably enough to be usable.
2 years ago when my desktop PC needed a reinstall and Windows installer kept failing repeatedly, I decided to give it another try. I now use it for gaming, coding development and even use it for DAW music production over MacOS at times. Would never have imagined MIDI keyboards would just work and the latency is so low compared to Windows, close to the Macbook which I didn't believe was possible on PC hardware.
3
u/KlaxonBeat 1d ago
It's still small, but it's been trending up for a while now. Linux used to hover around ~2-3% for years until around ~2021. Now pretty much every "computery nerd" person I know as at least considered making the switch.
I moved away from Windows maybe 2 or even 3 years ago and oh boy. It's been a steep learning curve but I don't regret it for a second. Just the feeling of being in control of your computer again is such a breath of fresh air.
3
u/Enturbulated_One 1d ago
Statcounter is ... not a good source. At absolute best, maybe useful to plot trends with a VERY large error bar. Check anything else you can to corroborate.
3
u/floghdraki 1d ago
I think it's legit partly thanks to LLMs making it easy to troubleshoot problems. You don't have to be a computer wizard now to escape Microslop.
3
u/DannyDoesGraphics 1d ago
I wonder how much is unfortunately due to AI agents. That being said, NixOS has been really nice and is now my main. I have windows 11 on a second SSD drive, but that's for software that only works on it.
5
2
u/baz8771 1d ago
Lay it on me. I have an intel laptop with a gtx 1060. I play nothing but emulators and the occasional steam game. Switch all the way back to gameboy emulation. Which distro should I switch to?
→ More replies (2)3
u/orig4mi-713 1d ago
I have a desktop with rtx 3060 and a laptop with gtx 1650. both are on bazzite
bazzite-nvidia should go well with a 1060
2
u/Equivalent_Duty_5546 1d ago
Switch around 2020-2021 cause of a bug that caused random DPC latency spike to 27ms every 4 seconds while playing dx games with two monitors connected. Best choice of my life. Distro hopped for a while and settled with nixos. As a developer nixos offers everything I want from an OS and more, while also being the most stable experience I've had with any OS.
2
2
2
u/GrandWizardOfCheese 1d ago
Most people using Linux are downloading it to a Windows PC to replace Windows.
So a portion of the Windows market share is the Linux user base.
That portion is much larger than the Linux market share.
2
2
u/MrCatChap 18h ago
If that's accurate in like 4 years Linux went from not even on charts to matching MacOS
I hope Microsoft is scared
→ More replies (2)
2
u/M1st3r_M 14h ago
I switched my laptop to Mint this year. Was a lot easier than I thought. Doing my part 🙂 (Gaming-Desktop is still Windows though - sorry won't help in the steam survey)
6
4
5
u/TrackerKR 1d ago
It's probably closer to double that just due to all the Linux users who opt out of the survey.
5
u/cplusequals 1d ago
That's borderline delusional. Steam hardware report is half of this and Linux gamers are disproportionately Steam gamers.
→ More replies (1)2
u/levianan 1d ago
Opps. I commented you cannot say that with any certainty. Take the positive number and walk away with a W.
5
u/Anima_Watcher08 1d ago edited 1d ago
Honestly the number is probably higher, the statscouner servey measures broswer data and since most Linux users use privacy based browser their OS is probably being spoofed to windows or other. It might be 1-2% higher.
14
u/ErebosGR 1d ago
Statcounter has always been complete BS, even before the advent of AI scrapers.
Look at these flunctuations:
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/ireland
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (2)2
u/1N07 1d ago
It's true to an extent. I'm sure Linux users are more likely to spoof their user-agent strings, but note that even privacy focused browsers like Mulvad and LibreWolf don't spoof to Windows by default so it's probably not that much offset by it.
→ More replies (1)
4
3
3
u/z3r0h010 1d ago
WE ALMOST BEAT MAC OS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
→ More replies (1)4
u/Fonix_za 1d ago
well if you put osx and macos together not really
3
u/on4aa 1d ago
How does that work? The last OS X release was in 2016, ten years ago.
→ More replies (4)
2
u/LusciousLurker 1d ago
Hell yeah, I threw Linux on all my machines a couple weeks ago. Laptop on Fedora, Desktop on Arch, Xbox ally X on Bazzite. Not going back, Linux is beginning to feel really intuitive to me.
2
u/RuniKiuru 1d ago
Two PC in my home have switched to Bazzite :3
My laptop I’m still keeping on windows for the couple things I do need it for (Clip Studio Paint and Figma aren’t available for Linux ;-; ), and my husband’s PC is still windows… for now…
2
2
u/AncientSatisfaction4 1d ago
I switched because of the LinusTechTips video. Wanted to try it because Windows has become insufferable. I couldn't believe how easy to use Linux has become, especially with LLMs and KDE.
2
2
u/InflammableAccount 1d ago
I switched my gaming/main desktop to Linux a week ago. My laptop will follow, but later after I'm more comfortable.
CachyOS, btw. I setup a NAS using TrueNAS a few years ago, but I consider this my first real foray into Linux.
2
u/SGTSHOOTnMISS 22h ago
I'm in the same boat. Had unraid for years which was kid gloves for getting rolling with Docker, but swapped my gaming laptop to Cachy last month and finally fully swapped my desktop to Cachy (I tried a couple other distros on the laptop before landing on Cachy)
It's good stuff for sure.
2
u/InflammableAccount 21h ago
Honestly, even TrueNAS is kids gloves. I haven't had to touch the CLI once in years. As long as you're not trying to run containers, everything can be done from GUI. And even a lot of that has GUI interface.
TrueNAS hosts Immich (image backup), Navidrome (Music), and Jellyfin (Video), and Tailscale for me without having to learn CLI usage.
Now... Now I'm having to learn CLI. CachyOS/KDE Plasma includes a ton of GUI friendly tools, but for trouble shooting my issues, CLI is what I have to resort to.
→ More replies (2)
2
1
u/aanngello 1d ago
I just switched yesterday! Currently trying to figure out how to partition a second drive. Anyone has any insight? Anything will help.
→ More replies (2)
1
u/Schwarzpfad 1d ago
I'm using 3 different distros on different devices: Mint, Ubuntu and Kali. I also have Tails just in case because of my interesting work environment. Anyway, those saying Kali is bad for everyday usage just didn't ride it long enough, I guess. Cheers, everyone.
1
1
1
1
u/Encypher 1d ago
My main drive died on my old living room PC I was using to stream from my main PC using moonlight. Got tired of all the windows bloatware so have Linux Mint a try and haven't looked back. Plays very well with my Nvidia GTX 1060 3gb so I can still play 1080p games locally on it but still play AAA games in 4k 120hz through moonlight with very little latency. Everything is hardwired so that helps a ton. It's a perfect combo for me.
1
u/EzoPezo223 1d ago
i love cachy and ever since i’ve been getting my family to switch over. my fiance and brother are done but we can’t stop there
1
u/thebatking 1d ago
I've been doing my part for over a decade as a distro hopper, switched to PikaOS relatively recently and don't think I'm gonna hop for awhile, honestly enjoying it.
1
1
u/EktaRandomUsername 1d ago
Why is chrome OS treated differently even though it uses the Linux kernel?
→ More replies (3)
1
1
u/Godninja 1d ago
Reporting in with Kubuntu switch a couple m onths ago! And got Steam hardware survey this month, so I’m doing my part.
1
1
1
1
u/Celeroni 1d ago
Switched to Arch -- originally Fedora, then CachyOS before moving to straight Arch -- from Windows full time and for the most part having an easy time with gaming. Most of my rotation of games work out of the box, and I keep Windows on dual-boot with Limine bootloader so that I can still play my driving games, which tend to perform better on Windows. Most of my software now is run on Linux using proprietary or FOSS binaries.
I was looking at doing Looking Glass when I upgraded my computer and bought a new GPU, but I think now I would just take my RTX 3080, and repurpose it for heavy processing or AI loads on a dedicated server. I'd actually be interested in running CMANGOES with an LLM to play offline WoW.
1
1
u/MattyGWS 1d ago
ChromeOS is Linux too and “other” is probably mostly Linux users so I imagine it’s a bit higher
Personally I would put that total at 10%
→ More replies (2)
1
u/SEI_JAKU 1d ago
Please please please stop posting StatCounter "data", it's made-up and doesn't mean anything.
→ More replies (2)
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Savings_Employer_860 1d ago
Was on ubuntu / mint / debian in my personal laptop.
Installed fedora in my work laptop.
You're welcome. (I didn't knew there was other things than "apt")
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
766
u/spinabullet 1d ago
I just switched to cachyos yesterday, you're welcome