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433 points Sporktacular | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.331s | source
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015a ◴[] No.36995730[source]
> But before you declare this a triumphant moment for desktop Linux, it's important to note that some of these Linux users are not, in fact, using Steam on a desktop. The Linux version "SteamOS Holo" 64-bit is the most popular reported, at just over 42 percent of the Linux slice of pie. That indicates that a huge portion of these Linux users are actually playing on Valve's Steam Deck portable, which runs Linux.

There's such a deep seeded, systemic bias against linux that it actually can never win, to any degree or magnitude, because the moment it starts winning we just move the goal-posts for the flimsiest of reasons to ensure it can't quite claim that victory.

Linux is obviously and clearly the most popular operating system kernel on the planet. Oh, no, that's no good a measure, servers are messy, let's refine it to most popular consumer operating system kernel? Oh... it, could also reasonably claim that title? No no, no Android, that doesn't count. Nope, No Chrome OS either, you can't have that, that's, well, that is linux, but its not. Just nice, pure, desktop linux, yes, perfect, arch linux, kde desktop, that'll never trend up and thus is the perfect new-new definition of desktop linu--wait hold up, I'm getting word this is, not possible, its actually SteamOS? Nope, kill it, that's not desktop linux either, kill it.

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1. kelnos ◴[] No.37003649[source]
I dunno, I don't see this as bias or as anything nefarious. When I read the headline, my first thought was "huh, that seems unlikely; I wonder if they are counting Steam Deck users in that".

Frankly I just don't see it as an interesting metric. "More Steam games are played on Steam Deck (+ desktop Linux) than on macOS." So what? Even though the Steam Deck blurs the lines a bit, I don't consider desktop gaming and console/handheld gaming to be directly comparable. Or at least, I don't consider comparing them in this way to be interesting.

Just as I don't think "Linux is the most used OS kernel on the planet" to be all that interesting. Ok, it's interesting in a certain, narrow way. Obviously its use in mobile/embedded devices and servers dwarfs its use on the desktop. If we want to compare "OS choice on servers" or "OS choice on mobile devices", that's notable.

But when we're talking about gaming, and we want to compare "desktop macOS gamers" to other things, the only other things I think are relevant are "desktop Windows gamers" and "desktop Linux gamers".

If Steam-using desktop Linux gamers were surpassing Steam-using desktop macOS gamers, that would be huge, important news! But a bunch of people buying a Steam Deck and raising the number of people gaming on the Linux kernel is, to me, no more interesting than saying there are a ton of people playing games on the Linux kernel because there are a ton of people who game on Android phones. Whoop-de-do, film at 11.

(Full disclosure: I'm a desktop Linux user, and have been for over 20 years.)