Linux reaches new peak of 2.69% in Steam Hardware & Software Survey: May 2025
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I'm somewhat surprised there isn't a Fedora there, it's a pretty great and up-to-date distro.
I'm also somewhat surprised Flatpak isn't higher!
Fedora or Bazzite (Fedora-based) are my top recommendations for new Linux users. I’m constantly surprised at Mint’s general popularity, especially for gaming. Even openSUSE Tumbleweed is a better option when it comes to gaming.
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No thanks. I'd like to keep full control over my operating system and only accidentally ruin it every few years.
You still have full control. It’s just that you need to use ostree to create layers since the underlying system is immutable. It’s a different way of thinking about Linux, but means you can easily roll-back when you break something.
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Personally I prefer Kubuntu.
I find Mint's or Cinnamon's look and feel a little too outdated. Reminds me too much of Gnome 2.
And Gnome changed their whole desktop paradigm since Gnome 3. I find Gnome 4 more suitable for a tablet. I feel too constrained and limited by it on a desktop PC. It's awesome on my Surface Pro tablet though!
KDE Plasma kept the classic desktop paradigm like Windows, with a fresh modern look and tons of customizations. (Though I try to limit those as much as possible) You can configure it to your liking and add tons of really practical shortcuts. Its applications are also very powerful. Much more so than Gnome's I find, which are more minimalistic.
Kubuntu is the way to go. KDE Plasma is such a great desktop. Just be sure to do the “Minimal” install so you can avoid Snaps like the disease they are.
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I'm somewhat surprised there isn't a Fedora there, it's a pretty great and up-to-date distro.
I'm also somewhat surprised Flatpak isn't higher!
Also surprised about that. I use Nobara and that too is based Off Fedora.
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Man, if only Linux would be adopted by the masses for gaming...
Yeah, it is the most popular consumer OS
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Yeah arch! We are legion!
I take it, you use arch?
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That's not how the data is collected
I stand corrected.
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wrote on last edited by [email protected]
#YEAR OF THE LINUX DESKTOP
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Man, if only Linux would be adopted by the masses for gaming...
Then VR games will work at better than min specs. Trying hard to get off windows, mostly there. Except when streaming VR games, Kubuntu is my daily driver. All my flat games (like 8 of them) work flawlessly now that cloud is syncing. Just need drivers for one device and software for another but may just have to deal with the loss of a left hand kb, and 2 buttons on trackball.
I did get some useful looking apps recommended not long ago, not 1 will compile on my os and I am way to tired at the end of the work day to read read and read some more(I used to do more complex stuff 20 yrs ago but, well, I forgot most of what I knew. Why is "make" looking to github instead of the directory I am in?
Proton is is coming along great, I used to support Cedega to play win games before.
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I finally made the switch recently. Been dual booting for a while. I use arch on my laptop for fun and Linux Mint Debian Edition on my desktop for stability.
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How's Cachy for NVIDIA support?
I just installed cachyOS last weekend after getting an RTX 5070 Ti and chose the open driver during the installation and everything is working perfectly, including resume from sleep
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Huh. The Year of the Linux Handheld.
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Then VR games will work at better than min specs. Trying hard to get off windows, mostly there. Except when streaming VR games, Kubuntu is my daily driver. All my flat games (like 8 of them) work flawlessly now that cloud is syncing. Just need drivers for one device and software for another but may just have to deal with the loss of a left hand kb, and 2 buttons on trackball.
I did get some useful looking apps recommended not long ago, not 1 will compile on my os and I am way to tired at the end of the work day to read read and read some more(I used to do more complex stuff 20 yrs ago but, well, I forgot most of what I knew. Why is "make" looking to github instead of the directory I am in?
Proton is is coming along great, I used to support Cedega to play win games before.
I would be shocked if Linux VR support isn't massively improved prior to Valve releasing the Deckard.
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I would be shocked if Linux VR support isn't massively improved prior to Valve releasing the Deckard.
I don't think Linux VR is particularly bad if you're using steamvr things. Unfortunately WMR on the other hand is much worse (they have to write custom drivers for tracking, and especially controllers are not that far along yet)
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I would be shocked if Linux VR support isn't massively improved prior to Valve releasing the Deckard.
So far, with the 2 games I have had a chance to try, other than having to lower the settings to bottom, they load and play if a little stuttery. With how Proton has improved by leaps and bounds I have no reason to believe it won't keep improving at near the same pace. It is just that darn translation layer combined with the very high requirements of VR that needs to be overcome. If enough linux users go on the vr games and lament there is no linux native option we may get movement on that end. The flat games run so smooth right now I forget which OS I am using, compared to 2 years ago. I even have the disadvantage of an Nvidia card, at least the official driver is better meeting our requirements, shoulda gone AMD...
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So far, with the 2 games I have had a chance to try, other than having to lower the settings to bottom, they load and play if a little stuttery. With how Proton has improved by leaps and bounds I have no reason to believe it won't keep improving at near the same pace. It is just that darn translation layer combined with the very high requirements of VR that needs to be overcome. If enough linux users go on the vr games and lament there is no linux native option we may get movement on that end. The flat games run so smooth right now I forget which OS I am using, compared to 2 years ago. I even have the disadvantage of an Nvidia card, at least the official driver is better meeting our requirements, shoulda gone AMD...
I'm using NVIDIA also, the only real problem I had was that HDR was annoying to get work because gamescope doesn't play too well with NVIDIA. Now that I can just use native Wayland HDR I don't have any real problems with my graphics card.
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I don't think Linux VR is particularly bad if you're using steamvr things. Unfortunately WMR on the other hand is much worse (they have to write custom drivers for tracking, and especially controllers are not that far along yet)
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Steam/SteamVR is where all my games are located, I like to have 1 launcher. Tho I cannot interact with the monitors from inside steamvr, yet, if i click on the window it closes unlike in windows where I control OBS and other stuff, also only shows 1 of my 2 monitors. BUT, when I get a chance the creator of Desktop+ that I use on windows suggested a linux app that does most of what his app does so that may give me the pc control I need since I do most everything in vr for streaming.
edit: I think some of my issue may be the poor old Ryzen 7 3800 I am using vs the RTX 4070ti super. The Ryzen 7 is having issues with a few games now, especially the VR mod ones like Satisfactory
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Fedora or Bazzite (Fedora-based) are my top recommendations for new Linux users. I’m constantly surprised at Mint’s general popularity, especially for gaming. Even openSUSE Tumbleweed is a better option when it comes to gaming.
I’m not a new Linux user but am a new Linux gamer. I landed on endeavorOS a few months ago and like it enough I converted my other two desktops over. Whether it’s just dumb luck or not it has been noticeably more snappy on all three of the workstations I put it on than anything else I was using. It’s honestly kind of eerie, after putting my work laptop (windows11) away for the day and jumping on one of my systems they are so responsive now that sometimes it feels like it’s predicting what I want to do before I do it.
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Then arch is not a good choice. If you don’t know how your arch distro works, it will break at some point and you won’t know how to fix it. That’s the issue.
Seems a little extreme. If you’re new to Linux every distro is going to have a learning curve and you’ll start at first boot not understanding it.
If you’re not new to Linux, then it’s just another distro. For me, the only “new” thing was learning pacman’s option flags since I’d only ever used yum/dnf and apt. And of course, finding out the joy that is yay and the AUR.
Not everyone wants to spend a bunch of time tuning the install just so, and just want to be up and running fast with the bare essentials they need. For me, Endeavour is a clean and fast, has rapid kernel updates, and includes most of the things I need right out of the gate.
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wrote on last edited by [email protected]
Phone is Android, PC is now Linux Mint, for gaming I use a Steam deck, and my NAS is now TrueNAS.
