A moment I’ve no doubt many Linux fans have been waiting to see. The Linux user share on Steam has smashed through the 2% barrier.
Not actually for the first time though, it did initially rise up above 2% in March 2013, shortly after the original Steam for Linux release when it left Beta. Part of the reason it had higher numbers at the start, was that Valve added a special Tux item into Team Fortress 2 only on Linux but it quickly dropped in the following months.
Only dimly related, but since I’m in this 2%, I can’t help reflecting that in the 11 months since joining Lemmy, I have:
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Canceled all of my streaming subscriptions
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Built a massive Plex Server
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Rekindled my love of Unix building said server
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Began pirating movies, TV, music, and software like a fucking syphilitic pegleg
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Began experiencing Star Trek TNG for the first time, pirated, on my Plex Server, running Linux
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Bought a steam deck and began experimenting with Arch
Don’t ever let anyone tell you your feed doesn’t influence you, no matter how media literate you are.
You forgot mentioning the chokers and thigh highs you have bought since then.
Fuuuuuuuck, you made have the same realization.
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Ditched W10 for Mint
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Bought a NAS and set up all .arrs and cancelled all my subscriptions (- Spotify)
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Home media server with Jellyfin
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Shared said server with friends and family via Tailscale
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Set up my very first server on a low end device running headless Debian, all from scratch with docker and Portainer. Currently running a Valheim server
All this with 0 previous Linux experience. Reddit beeing cunts made me learn a lot of cool new things these part 12 months!
I’m on a similar journey and have started self-hosting as many services as I can. I’ve got Jellyfin (open source Plex alternative), a WebDAV server to replace google drive, a Valheim server, and a git server to host the code. I’m doing this with kubernetes on an old mini PC I picked up for 50 bucks on eBay. I plan to put more mini PCs in my friends’ and family’s homes to build a cloud for us with backups of everything stored in multiple locations. It’d be cool to pass it down to the next generation and have our family memories preserved in a medium we own completely.
big Deck energy
I still haven’t tried docking my deck, I’ve stuck mostly to vanilla. I mostly just plug my deck in and go to town, unplugging and re-plugging as needed to change positions. I mostly use my deck in bed, but docking might get me to be a bit more adventurous.
I’ll have to try docking, I hear it’s a pretty good experience.
It’s nice to see Linux is doing well on Steam. It’s great that Steam Deck/OS is so successful. 👍
Also kudos to Arch, I must admit I’m surprised to see Arch as the most popular among other distros.
Steam Deck runs on Arch so it’s no surprise it’s up so high.
Edit: it doesn’t count as Arch. The Steam Survey results page has a bug where it doesn’t show SteamOS as top listing for Linux OS when combined Windows, Mac and Linux view is selected.
It doesn’t, the os is immutable and just based on Arch. Arch is counted separately in the Stream hardware survey too.
That’s interesting. When you look at the steam survey results under OS Version, with Windows Mac and Linux combined it shows under Linux that Arch is in first followed by Ubuntu 22, but when you switch the view to Linux only, the OS Version shows SteamOS Holo in first, followed by Arch, then Flatpack runtime and Ubuntu. So yes you’re right. This shows why I thought SteamOS counted as Arch. My bad.
What’s interesting is Arch surpassed Ubuntu prior to the Steam Deck release. They were neck and neck for a bit after that, then the Steam Deck helped it push past.
https://boilingsteam.com/distros-used-for-gaming-ubuntu-recovers-a-little-pop-os-sinks-further-down/
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of how many people ended up installing other gaming distros after purchasing a Deck.
A lot of Linux enthusiasts use Arch, but it’s far from the most popular among regular Linux users. So we’re seeing early adopters since Arch users are probably more likely to tinker to get things working than Ubuntu users.
So if we start seeing Ubuntu take over Arch, that means we’re seeing Linux gaming reach the mainstream.
I would also like to see a survey about Linux adoption after using the Deck.
I only briefly dabbled with Arch >10 years ago. But it has always been evident that it is an incredibly powerful distro. The fact that its wiki is so extensive is a testament to how much people are using it. The problem it has always had is that most companies tend to support other ones (Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat/Fedora, Alpine), so it never really had any corporate love. With Valve’s backing, we can see just how widespread Arch could be if it had more money behind it.
Not that this is necessarily a good thing of course. Look at how money has corrupted Ubuntu and Red Hat. All I want to point out is that it can do anything that the most well-supported distros try to do. And the fact that it has done so without any corporate support is a true testament to how powerful it is.
Wow ok, let’s just act like it wasn’t because I just installed Linux on my new gaming PC 🙄
I moved my Desktop to Linux when the Steam Deck was announced. Before that I had no idea that Linux was able to play almost any game using Proton.
So I think the Steam Deck has also boosted Desktop numbers.
