Linux reaches new peak of 2.69% in Steam Hardware & Software Survey: May 2025
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I've been using it for a while now, and it's genuinely so good. Before this I was using EndeavourOS which was also a great distro, but I realized that I was basically putting in work to do things CachyOS does out of the box, so I switched and it's been great.
What kind of out of the box things?
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I feel like Ubuntu has the greatest exposure among non-Linux folks. It's the only OS any place I've ever worked used on WSL back when I was still on windows. Probably a lot of corporate nerds want to stick to what's comfortable?
I have no idea if that's the reason, but Ubuntu and Mint are the only two distros I've tried for basically that reason. Heard good things about PopOS. Might try it some time if I wind up with an extra computer.
Regular Ubuntu I get; it's specifically the separation in the list between core and the standard 24.04 distro that I don't get. I can't imagine that droves of nerds are installing straight Ubuntu Core unprompted. I'd absolutely buy though that some distro or some handheld is based on one.
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I've not heard of CachyOS, but to capture 2.54% of the steam linux market feels significant. It jumped right past other established Arch-based distros like Endeavor and Manjaro.
I started using linux full time about a year ago. I started with Arch, but moved to Cachy really quickly when I discovered it. All of the advantages of Arch, but repos optimised for modern hardware, and a whole heap of useful pre-configured tools, like Wine/Proton, fish, snapper etc. Arch is a bare bones, pick and configure your own setup rolling release distro. Cachy is a pre-optimised, rolling release distro with lots of useful stuff right out of the box.
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What kind of out of the box things?
Well, I started using their repos for their x86-64-v3 optimized packages and builds of popular packages from the AUR. Later I started using their kernel because it pulls in upcoming features and is compiled with optimizations like ThinLTO and AutoFDO and has a more advanced scheduler. I also like how Cachyos comes with things like zram pre-enabled and scripts for things like zink and NGX. It's basically just a ton of small things like that, some that I don't even know about yet, that makes CachyOS really nice and easy to use.
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I think PopOS was made especially for the System76 hardware, no? While it can still work on other hardware, System76 hardware is the one it was meant for.
Honestly, Ubuntu is great. It's not bleeding edge where you can encounter yet unfixed bugs or other problems, and it's not old enough that you can run into problems where the software is so old it doesn't support the latest gaming stuff. It has great support from the community, it's widespread, and comes with tons of quality of life things like tools to install 3rd party drivers, like graphical drivers for NVidia. Why change?
I worked with a guy who ran PopOS and loved it. He said the UI was really good. I've seen it get some love in social places. Figured I'd give it a shot some time.
I'm pretty happy with Mint. It's comfortable and the conventions feel more familiar than even my work MacBook—like I don't even know what the desktop is for except my screenshots show up there for some reason. I don't think corporate would let me run Linux, but if they would I'd be happy with Mint or Ubuntu. They probably don't want to support a million flavors of Linux desktop.
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Where are all the Ubuntu Core 22 installs coming from? Is there some large device or distro that uses it?
what if it's dedicated game servers?
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Where are all the Ubuntu Core 22 installs coming from? Is there some large device or distro that uses it?
AFAIK, this corresponds to the snap package of Steam.
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It has a dedicated steam deck ISO, is the most well put together preset up arch distro there is for gamers. Period, there are no real good faith arguments here. It's like if someone took an endevour install and spent over 50 hours doing nothing but making every possiable part of it as easy as possible for gamers to just play games.
Its what Bazzite is functionally a knock off of. Anyone whos using Bazzite is litterally using an objectively worse option then cachy is their first and only goal is gaming. Which is bazzites entire gimmick basically.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I agreed with everything in your first paragraph but your second one just seems like needless 'holier than though' drivel. Bazzite has it's own unique pros, and both are great options for gamers.* However, when it comes to having a OEM-like experience on a Legion Go under Linux, Bazzite, Nobara or Chimera are a better fit. That's my usecase and why I chose Bazzite, I wanted a Steam Deck experience with a better screen and more powerful chip. It was also well before SteamOS had any support for other devices.
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bazzite bitches
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I worked with a guy who ran PopOS and loved it. He said the UI was really good. I've seen it get some love in social places. Figured I'd give it a shot some time.
I'm pretty happy with Mint. It's comfortable and the conventions feel more familiar than even my work MacBook—like I don't even know what the desktop is for except my screenshots show up there for some reason. I don't think corporate would let me run Linux, but if they would I'd be happy with Mint or Ubuntu. They probably don't want to support a million flavors of Linux desktop.
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.
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Tumbleweed users RISE UP!
I'm on Slowroll though.
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I've not heard of CachyOS, but to capture 2.54% of the steam linux market feels significant. It jumped right past other established Arch-based distros like Endeavor and Manjaro.
they offer some optimisations to the kernel and the packages that are supposed to yield a tiny bit better performance.
an incredibly small thing that rubs me the wrong way more than it probably should about their setup is that they set Plasma animation speeds to much higher values than the stock Plasma desktop uses. sure, it could be just a part of their customisation tweaks the same way using
fishas the default shell is, but it feels like a cheap trick to reel in the "I installed it on my desktop and it's soooo much snappier" review kind of people. like, if your work is as good as you claim, you shouldn't need to artificially make the improvements seem bigger than they really are. -
I'm one of those I got a steam hardware survey for the first time in a long time.... Been on mint for awhile now
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they offer some optimisations to the kernel and the packages that are supposed to yield a tiny bit better performance.
an incredibly small thing that rubs me the wrong way more than it probably should about their setup is that they set Plasma animation speeds to much higher values than the stock Plasma desktop uses. sure, it could be just a part of their customisation tweaks the same way using
fishas the default shell is, but it feels like a cheap trick to reel in the "I installed it on my desktop and it's soooo much snappier" review kind of people. like, if your work is as good as you claim, you shouldn't need to artificially make the improvements seem bigger than they really are.I'm not familiar with it, but I think that that could be a reasonable UI tweak. I disable virtually all animation in software where possible because I want it to be as responsive as possible and don't care about the animation. Simply reducing the time in animation is a middle ground---one still gets animations, but cuts out some of the time.
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I've not heard of CachyOS, but to capture 2.54% of the steam linux market feels significant. It jumped right past other established Arch-based distros like Endeavor and Manjaro.
I use the cachyos kernel on an otherwise plain arch setup. I don't game much, but I tried it out and just stuck with it.
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More people should use EndeavourOS. It's fantastic for gaming.
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Nice, I'm part of that .05% Debian 12 crowd.
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wrote on last edited by [email protected]
I'd guess that desktop Linux users are statistically using their PC in summer more than the normal PC user (using windows).
What? I can definitely say that that's true for literally all of my friends and especially me.
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where is fedora?
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Not sure wtf those 97% are thinking
