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Steam Survey for July 2025 shows Linux approaching 3% (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by ampersandrew@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world
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This is interesting for a couple of reasons. One is that this is about as much market share as Mac ever had at its peak, and almost twice as much as it has currently. Another is that, if you click the link for the site's Steam Linux Data Tracker, you can see that English-only Linux market share (a crude way of filtering out the ebbs and flows of Chinese players on largely-identical hardware and operating systems) is more than 6%, up from under 2% just 5 years ago. A lot of people are unhappy with Windows in general, and especially 11, and Windows 10 is about to force the issue in just a few months as it loses official support. I have a friend whose computer is still in decent shape for gaming but with TPM settings that don't meet the minimum spec for Windows 11; at some point, he'll lose compatibility and have to throw out an otherwise perfectly functional machine, so it's good that some other OS is shaping up to be a good enough option for many people.

This has been an upward trend since slightly before the release of the Steam Deck, as you can see on the graphs, and I've come across YouTube videos from both James Lee Animations and PewDiePie about how they got to be so sick of Windows (and Adobe) they both switched to Linux with middle fingers raised at their old workflows. Folks like them making videos like that can have real effects on the market. Linux has been my daily driver for gaming for about 8 years now, and it's matured so much in that time that I've hardly booted to my Windows partition for any reason. It's not perfect, but if I'm choosing between the quirks that Linux has by accident and the deficiencies that are in Windows on purpose, I'll take LInux every time, and it seems like more people are coming to that same conclusion.

No doubt the biggest remaining frontier is live service gaming with kernel level anti-cheat, but if Linux becomes a larger user base, as it's doing right now, the developers making those games will have to solve that problem to reach that addressable market, and everybody wins.

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[-] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 4 points 2 months ago

I switched to linux because fuck microsoft. So far it's been fine. A minor issue with crackling in the audio in one game, and I can't figure out how to disable the "drag a window to the edge and it wants to tile it" thing (popos with the default gnome desktop environment). But those are minor things- my windows install I couldn't get the bluetooth to connect to one device, and a bunch of other little annoyances were inescapable.

[-] squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If you have an issue with the way gnome works by default, then you are using it wrong and you should feel ashamed for that.

- the Gnome dev team

[-] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 2 points 2 months ago

For anyone in the future, I figured out how to turn off the edge tiling thing (which is what it's called when a window touches the edge and it wants to resize it)

gsettings set org.gnome.mutter edge-tiling false per https://askubuntu.com/questions/1107089/how-to-disable-auto-resizing-of-windows-when-moved-to-the-top

[-] imecth@fedia.io 3 points 2 months ago

Yeah GNOME exposes a bunch of settings for advanced users and extensions, you can look through them with dconf editor. PopOS isn't the best distribution for GNOME though as it's stuck on GNOME 42 so you're missing out on 3 years of updates.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I have that crackling thing sometimes too, but only on desktop and not on Steam Deck, so the issue lies in something that's different between those two things. On my desktop, my usual use case is to have a bunch of programs open at any given time and put it to sleep at the end of the night rather than close everything and power off. While low spec games like Skullgirls are fine, if I boot up a higher spec game like Kingdom Come: Deliverance II after waking my computer from sleep, I'll get the crackling. If I just rebooted, the crackling is gone. I don't understand the problem, but at least I have a workaround, and it's better than Microsoft determining when I should reboot my computer. It's my computer. I decide that.

[-] ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 months ago

Try searching internet for something like: Linux proton crackling

Are you using gamemode, and have you added your user to the gamemode group? Crackling is likely caused by buffer underrun. Many reasons why that might happen, but one is that if the game isn’t given high enough privileges, the machine can’t fill the buffer quickly enough. Gamemode should solve that. Check your distro’s guide how to set it up. If that doesn’t work, Pipewire/PulseAudio might have been configured to use too short buffer.

[-] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 1 points 2 months ago

I don't think I know what gamemode is. Is it https://github.com/FeralInteractive/gamemode ?

I'll do some searching for crackling next time I'm at the desktop

[-] ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 months ago

That’s the thing. It’s most likely in your distro’s package manager, unless you are using CachyOS, which uses different app for the same thing. Remember to add your user to the gamemode group or it won’t do much for you.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

Are those instructions current? I don't see it on the readme on the git project, and installing it from Kubuntu's package manager didn't create a gamemode group (it also doesn't come with a manual page).

[-] ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You can just create the gamemode group and then add your user to it.

Use gamemoded -t to test that it's configured and working correctly. The configuration file should probably be /etc/gamemode.ini. And gamemoded -s tells if gamemode is currently active. Steam doesn't support gamemode, so you have to add gamemoderun %command% to every game's launch options.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

Would that same command also work through Heroic, or do they handle that kind of thing differently? Sorry, sometimes things are so abstracted from us that we don't have to think about what it's doing under the hood.

[-] ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 months ago

Heroic Launcher should have a setting for gamemode.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Thanks, it's worth a couple of experiments, at least.

[-] simple@piefed.social 2 points 2 months ago

If anticheats would work properly on Linux I would probably ditch Windows forever. Alas.

[-] exu@feditown.com 6 points 2 months ago

EasyAntiCheat and BattleEye work on Linux thanks to Valve's efforts. Unfortunately many devs explicitly deny Linux or only allow the Steam Deck.

https://areweanticheatyet.com/

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

There's definitely some selection bias for me that made it easy to not even be interested in buying the types of games that won't work on Linux, and that made my switch easier. I hope the solution that we eventually arrive at isn't, "Here's a custom kernel compatible with our anti-cheat," but instead, "Here's a way to play our game without kernel level anti-cheat."

[-] somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 months ago

Just avoid the games that use them. Games and the software they install should NEVER EVER run kernel-level. Also the games that use those ac's are bad anyways.

If you must play those games, passthrough your GPU and hide the fact that the VM is a VM.

[-] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Just avoid the games that use them.

Agreed. I have no desire to give EA root access to my system, full access to everything I do on it ... just to play a game.

I'm amazed Microsoft even allows such on their platform, given how large of a vulnerability it creates; as CrowdStrike demonstrated.

[-] chortle_tortle@mander.xyz 1 points 2 months ago

passthrough your GPU and hide the fact that the VM is a VM.

Careful with that, I've heard of folks getting banned because it can still look fishy.

[-] TheFANUM@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I think Windows is kicking anti cheat out of their kernel (thanks, crowd strike) so it may become a non issue.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 months ago

The avalanche will only grow

[-] goeticThunder@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

The moment Marvel Rivals is functional on Linux, is the moment I leave Windows forever.

…cue someone telling me it’s already been done

[-] tc4m@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Seems like you are in luck https://www.protondb.com/app/2767030

[-] Nico_198X@europe.pub 1 points 2 months ago

i've played on Linux without issue

[-] innermachine@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

I'm still a windows guy unfortunately, but I'm getting very excited about the adoption of Linux lately. I think steam OS has been huge for Linux adoption, as many gamers are probably willing to make the switch but only if they can keep gaming without having to use wine or something. I personally run windows only because I have no time in my life to play with computer stuff and just want it to work for me in the hour or two I get in a week max to game, and it seems like we're just about there. I think my next build will be Linux based at this rate! When I had more time to faff about with crap (a couple years ago) I ran Linux a lot but it just required too much intervention to make things work and nowadays I'm far to busy to spend my precious time ironing out headaches.

[-] Apocalypteroid@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I was you until about 3 months ago when I discovered Microsoft sells cloud services to the IDF. Political motivations aside, I would encourage you to try out a KDE plasma linux distro. It's laid out pretty much exactly the same as windows 10 and bazzite worked for me out of the box even with a relatively rare gaming laptop build.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 0 points 2 months ago

I don't think it's particularly controversial these days to say that Linux gaming is way ahead of Mac gaming, so I'm not sure that part is suprising, beyond the notion that in other metrics the OS split for those is more like 15% to 5%.

I mean, the Mac side was celebrating this month that Cyberpunk finally runs natively on it, and it is borderline unplayable on most of the hardware out there, gets comparable to what? A 5060? on the very top end.

I read in that two missed opportunities: One, Mac gaming should get so much better. Two, somebody on the Linux side should really start taking non-gaming compatibility seriously.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

The Mac thing is two-fold. Apple moved to new architecture before it was primed and ready for gaming, and Valve has been slow to adapt Steam to it. Apple's solution, which will not work, because Valve tried the same thing a decade ago, is to juice the market by funding ports. Apple's putting far more money into it, because it's such small potatoes on their balance sheet, but the result will be much the same. This isn't a situation where getting a few heavy hitters will solve their library problem and get everyone else to fall in line. The problem is Apple and its platform are hostile to getting this sort of game on it.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 0 points 2 months ago

It's genuinely more complicated than that, honestly. Apple did a great job of pretending these ARM devices were on par with desktop PC hardware when they... kind of aren't, in absolute terms. I wonder how much of an incentive they have to keep doing this if the result is their top of the line five grand devices start to look like mid-range PCs and the bullshit way their naming conventions are designed starts getting exposed by widespread FPS counts on tentpole game releases. I genuinely don't think Apple wants to have that conversation.

So if anything it seems weird to me that they are focusing on this. Honestly, getting triple-A releases ported to phones and tablets seems like a much safer bet. I guess it's just hard to leave the laptop and desktop users entirely out of the loop for no good reason, but they have a lot of experience doing just that, so who knows.

It seems pretty obvious that unifying the software is the next step for them after unifying a lot of the hardware. what that means for gaming on their devices is anybody's guess.

And of course I don't particularly care because... I mean, macs.

[-] Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 months ago

The latest Windows update that rolled out a few days ago literally bricked my Surface.

I had the same CPU & RAM load running before and after the update. After, even Task Manager wasn't responding!

Next paycheck, I think I'm buying a Framework

[-] Bazoogle@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Why not just use linux on your current device

[-] Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 months ago

I can't replace the battery easily, or any component in a Surface. Microsoft products get the worst repair score from iFixit. I've been wanting a Framework as my daily driver for a while now so I can make repairs as I need them over time (or even make upgrades in the case of the 17" product).

I don't think I'll get rid of the laptop tho. Can probably add Linux to it and use it as a server. Right now though, I don't have the time for that. I want something out of the box that will work play-and-play

[-] okamiueru@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

Have you considered booting up a live USB to try it out?

[-] Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 months ago

Any guides for how to do that?

[-] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
[-] Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 months ago

Appreciate the links, and the one specifically for Surfaces!

this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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