Does this have anything to do with the prevalence of the Steam Deck?
l’m honestly not sure but probably. l’m guessing proton played a part too.
Steam Deck honestly convinced me to move my desktop over to Linux.
I’m still dual-booting, but I only go into Windows if something struggles too much over Proton (looking at you Satisfactory). I’ve been daily driving KDE Neon for about 2 months without issues.
Plasma is a great desktop environment, too. Usually the desktop environments were what chased me away - GNOME was slow sometimes and always felt… off, Cinnamon doesn’t like multiple desktops despite claiming to, with the maintainers refusing to even acknowledge the problems, XFE is… XFE, and historically Plasma was always super crashy and bloated.
Valve’s been funding the KDE guys to make Plasma better and it really shows. Plasma feels like a modern desktop that can compete with Windows directly - and honestly beats Windows with how bad Windows 11 has become. (Last time I was in Windows it took the Windows 11 Start Menu a full 20 seconds to open - but don’t worry, it had time to serve me an ad for Xbox Game Pass.)
Same! Just switched over to this nifty distro called EndeavourOS… Yeah, I use arch btw 😎
Haha! I use Void btw.
Right now I use XFCE and i3wm, but KDE is great and helped make the switch easier.
I’ve seen at least one article of Valve funding some work on kwin for a short time, but nothing of them funding the actual desktop. Do you know of any sources for that?
Yeah, I can’t find the source I originally read it from (I think it was on the KDE subreddit from a KDE dev there), but they gave a talk about it recently. I’ve only skimmed the talk but they do speak pretty heavily about KDE collaborating with Valve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0gEIeFgDX0
Cool, gave it a look. Didn’t know the firewall settings page came about because of collaboration with them. Didn’t see anything about funding, but I hope they are.
You basically described me exactly when I switched. Switched to Endeavour OS Nov2021 and I’ve been so happy with the change. Steam Deck was definitely my inspiration and reason I chose an arch based distro with KDE(I’d also always preferred kde from my previous Linux forays). I game everyday, and at this point I consider myself Linux proficient. I rarely need to look up commands. Other than games I rarely need to use any non native software, but when I do running it through Bottles usually works. Next step is to finally upgrade my aging 1070ti to an AMD card.
Just wait until you hit your head on a cabinet door and wake up with a sudden craving for tiling window managers. Before you know it you’ll have a customized WM config written in Haskell that you’ll forget how to edit after a few months
Boot to tty and use tmux
Everything adds a little. Another thing happening are the newer Windows versions requiring stupidly high minimum requirements, pushing people with older machines into alternatives.
Proton is wine+dxvk packaged by Valve (pkus a few other libs). The work the wine teams did in thr last decades has been heroic.
I wouldn’t be able to live in gnu/linux full time without wine and proton. It just wouldn’t happen since gaming is a huge part of what I do on my computer.
I think it’s a combination of the steam deck, people learning that Linux isn’t really that hard, and Microsoft breaking there reputation by spitting out windows 11 when they promised that windows 10 would be the last, and windows 11 having higher requirements so people with older computers is now looking at alternatives and the people who haven’t switched to 11 being stressed about windows 12 comming, and then therefore searching for alternatives
At this rate, Linux domination will be unavoidable by checks calculations 2993!
And you know what? this might actually be true. Where do we buy shares ?
There’s definitely a long way to go, but as more people start using Linux adoption is likely to accelerate. You’re more likely to switch if you know someone personally who already uses it and can help you get over the initial hurdles, and the more people who use it the more attention it’ll get from hardware and software vendors, making them more likely to support Linux directly instead of so much relying on compatibility layers and reverse-engineered drivers.
2193 factorial, yeah maybe
Growth follows an S shaped curve, so (should) be sooner
That’s true. I wonder what the threshold rate of adoption is for the ‘S’ to start
Still forever hopeful for the day that making PC games native for Linux is a norm.
I agree! And we can run games with anticheating software.
Totally agree. Squad is one of the few few reasons I have a windows install.
I have been playing squad on linux without any issues for a while now, I don’t think I even had to do any tinkering.
Oh man, I haven’t tried in a hot bit. Will have to give it a shot again. Thanks!
Is it possible to cheat those anti cheats with a VM? Been trying to switch to Fedora but still contemplating if proton could run everything I need without too many bugs and issues.
Did you try with KVM and some tweaks to pretend that it is areal world machine?
That’ll happen when glibc stops breaking everything with each new update. That is, never.
Newer linux games on steam are compiled to run in containers in the same way as a flatpak. They could break it a security patch would break some vague hack in de game, but these should be minimal. These containers are only released ever other year and keep being supported so there isn’t really any serious compatible problem there. The first Linux games on steam like team fortress 2 ran partially on the system libraries and that caused lots of problems, especially when these get older.
With the snipperred Linux desktop, containers are the only viable solution.
The SteamDeck has been a huge gamechanger (pun intended!). All video games work now.
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what is the website again that we can check which games are supported in Linux and which aren’t?
it’s literally the only thing holding me back from switching but I need to triple check to make sure all good… don’t have any extra devices I can duel boot from ATM so it would be a full 100% switch
many thanks!!
I also like areweanticheatyet
ProtonDb and lutris
Thus marking the 30th year of the linux desktop.
I think mostly thanks to Steam Deck. I have one, and it is probably one of the best gaming device I ever bought.
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For everyday browser workflows I’m not sure why anyone would use anything else. Microsoft literally only keeps windows relevant by making sure pptx will never be standards compliant. Other than gaming, that’s literally the only thing forcing me to use windows or macOS these days. Company requirements to have native PowerPoint.
I am a Linux Student User, they gove me a presentation to do, and I simply used the PowerPoint Online Tool.
Of course, it might lack some features, but for an assignment every once and a while, was perfectly fine.
For the rest I always use Libre Office to complete my assignments, and convert the file to PDF afterward.
Only thing preventing me from switching is the fact games with anti-cheat are pretty much fucked on Linux unfortunately
I only play old low CPU/GPU demanding games :-)
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This only counts web users, so probably actually underrepresented deck users (cause who’s browsing the web on their deck)
Also doesn’t count Firefox users
Isn’t that the main browser for like, most Linux users?
For Desktops. Nice. I’d like to see numbers that include servers, steam decks, androids, etc…
I bet Adobe will target linux in the next 30 years.
3% of all computers is pretty damn significant.
You mean desktop computers.
Ah gotcha, but still. Damn.
No, you don’t get it. It’s even more impressive, since other categories are already dominated by Linux. Desktop is the last holdout, and it’s changing
Oh wow! My bad, I’m a Linux novice. I just subbed because I’m interested in getting started.
Of all computers Linux as kernel is probably well above 90%. Here they are talking about desktop OS, that is a small part of all computers
Just a technicality, but Linux makes out 3% of the Desktop OS market share. The percentage is rather different when looking at “all computers”.
Edit: didn’t see the other comments, sorry for spamming.
Oh yeah, Linux is extremely popular as a server OS. I’d be surprised if ≥60% of all computers weren’t running some offshoot of Linux.
If you include embedded it’s 90+
30 years. Wow! I have installed popOS on all my family’s laptop. They only use a browser and word doc. The best part is if by accident they download a malware , it never runs on Linux lol.
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Thats exactly it.
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Give it more time. As Microsoft cuts support for perfectly good working hardware, people will learn about this magical free and open source software operating system of many varieties they can choose from, and with a little nudge and a beginner friendly variant (linux mint, ubuntu), they too will learn to love linux.
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Well up until they try to run Software that isnt supported on Linux. Dont get me wrong, i like Linux (have it on my laptop that i only use occasionally) and i really want to switch completely. But i have some Software that i need and it just doesnt run on Linux or needs huge amounts of workarounds or tweakings that can break any time. So Every time i want to switch i end up on Windows again. And i know, this isnt entirely Linux Fault but the companies who are unwilling to make their Software compatible.
Ya software and hardware support like drivers has historically been pretty bad and I still rely on non Linux computer for a few programs.
More and more I’m just opting for the Foss alternative if available and suitable.
Yes i also tend to prefer foss if available and suitable. The problem is that sometimes there is no adequate alternative. In my case its music production. Sure there are foss alternatives on Linux, but to be honest in a lot of cases they dont even come close to professional proprietary Software. On top of that i spent hundreds of Euro on music hard and Software, that either just runs on Linux with huge amounts of tweakings and drawbacks or just doesnt run at all. And i am not Willing to give up my soft and Hardware Stack that i built up over the last years. I also thought about running all this stuff over Windows in a VM, but then im basically in Windows again and i think this defeats the purpose of Switching to Linux.
Same. I know ableton or some native instrument software and unfortunately I’m not even gonna try and make them work with wine because I think it just wouldn’t fully work and glitch.
It is frustrating because I think the new standalone version of push is running some Linux variant?
I dont know about push but machine plus Uses a Linux Variant. But i guess they just use the same for push, because why wouldnt they. And yes this is extra frustrating because aparently they can make their stuff run on linux
My hope is that as the Linux numbers creep up the companies support of Linux will also go up. Not sure where that breakpoint may be though.
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I use arch btw.
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
Thank you Richard, we’re aware.
I had no fucking idea, on the other hand.
I’ve seen this kind of post rehashed many times in this exact kind of thread 😂
Do desktops really matter in 2023? What fraction of computers are desktops now? Most computers are phones and servers last time I checked. As we all know Linux dominates there.
I have one phone… I’ve got three desktops at home, one laptops plus two steamdecks, two servers and one ipad we never use.
At work we have 15 desktops plus 2 servers and 4 laptops.
I dont know how people live with just a phone as a “computer”. I couldnt even live with just a laptop… Like what are you people doing just browsing tiktok and youtube?
Yel that’s exactly what they do. I’ve asked around, and at a guess, half the people I know only have a phone. Whole families just using a phone each to look at YouTube and tiktok, do banking talk to friends on WhatsApp, Snapchat, Facebook. They watch tv, play sport, go out socialising, shopping, etc. They honestly have no use for a PC at all
A huge percentage of people don’t use a computer at work either.
Its easy to get lost in tech, but in reality the vast majority of people in this world just have no use for desktops or laptops.
I don’t imagine a lot of people bar PC gamers do much more than watch media or consume social media on their devices, so a phone fits the bill.
So they want a TV not a Computer.
My zoomer coworker said he doesn’t need a tv and I was like wtf.
Where does he plug his tablet in when he wants to watch illegally streamed content?
I just watch it on my desktop or laptop tbh
People these days seldom know how to pirate content :(
Why
Yes, but one that fits in my pocket. I wanna watch on my way to work
Yup let me just take my 50inch TV to the gym, on the train, to work for my lunch breaks etc…
Portable TV’s have been around since they were black and white.
Yes they’re phones now?
But I can’t mod games on consoles that you plug into the TV. Also my specs are better. :C
I have a desktop and 4 laptops, zero tablets, and one phone. Of course they all boot linux by default. But I know I’m an outlier. I hang out with average families. They have maybe one desktop, two to three laptops (of which about half are school chromebooks), a Playstation/Switch/XBox, and one phone per person. Plus the computers they use most are not in their house they are servers in data centers. The machines they possess are really just interfaces to the computers they actually rely on.
Well, technically Instagram as well.
Anyway, I can’t stand writing a long email on my phone, I don’t what kind of “computer tasks” people are carrying out on them
From what I’ve understood, it’s mostly emails.
Lots of short and sloppy half-assed emails with the most shitty formatting they could manage. That’s how many people computer.
That and TikTok.
If you work in ML or scientific computing then it has been the year of the Linux desktop for about a decade now.
Very true. A lot of the SciComp and ML folks I know use a McBook Air as the keyboard/mouse for their real machine which sits under their desk and eats 1200W while it works.
Yup. This has been my life for a while now. MacOS is an expensive, but competent ssh client. And my personal daily driver is Ubuntu. I went through an arch and Gentoo phase, but Ubuntu is fine tbh.
There’s a good deal more laptops than desktops. They’re included. And since a good amount of the traffic is from no doubt steam deck, I guess that covers mobile as well (not really, but still, better than nothing)
Don’t forget Android
Does anyone think this number can be more than what’s being reported? If I am not wrong, some Linux users are very privacy concerned and probably might not like to scream to the world that they are using Linux, it can’t be 1% or anything like that, but I reckon it’s greater than 0.1% of desktop users
Meanwhile, the servers, containers, and phones are all running some flavor of *nix. But yeah, nice to have a little toehold in desktop-land, I guess.
