this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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Linux Gaming
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It's nice to see Linux is doing well on Steam. It's great that Steam Deck/OS is so successful. 👍
Also kudos to Arch, I must admit I'm surprised to see Arch as the most popular among other distros.
Steam Deck runs on Arch so it's no surprise it's up so high.
Edit: it doesn't count as Arch. The Steam Survey results page has a bug where it doesn't show SteamOS as top listing for Linux OS when combined Windows, Mac and Linux view is selected.
That's interesting. When you look at the steam survey results under OS Version, with Windows Mac and Linux combined it shows under Linux that Arch is in first followed by Ubuntu 22, but when you switch the view to Linux only, the OS Version shows SteamOS Holo in first, followed by Arch, then Flatpack runtime and Ubuntu. So yes you're right.
This shows why I thought SteamOS counted as Arch. My bad.
Oops. Thanks autocorrect
What's interesting is Arch surpassed Ubuntu prior to the Steam Deck release. They were neck and neck for a bit after that, then the Steam Deck helped it push past.
https://boilingsteam.com/distros-used-for-gaming-ubuntu-recovers-a-little-pop-os-sinks-further-down/
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of how many people ended up installing other gaming distros after purchasing a Deck.
A lot of Linux enthusiasts use Arch, but it's far from the most popular among regular Linux users. So we're seeing early adopters since Arch users are probably more likely to tinker to get things working than Ubuntu users.
So if we start seeing Ubuntu take over Arch, that means we're seeing Linux gaming reach the mainstream.
I would also like to see a survey about Linux adoption after using the Deck.
I only briefly dabbled with Arch >10 years ago. But it has always been evident that it is an incredibly powerful distro. The fact that its wiki is so extensive is a testament to how much people are using it. The problem it has always had is that most companies tend to support other ones (Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat/Fedora, Alpine), so it never really had any corporate love. With Valve's backing, we can see just how widespread Arch could be if it had more money behind it.
Not that this is necessarily a good thing of course. Look at how money has corrupted Ubuntu and Red Hat. All I want to point out is that it can do anything that the most well-supported distros try to do. And the fact that it has done so without any corporate support is a true testament to how powerful it is.