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Here's a bit of positivity for you today! According to the statistics gathered by the netmarketshare website, in July the percentage of people using Linux on the desktop hit an all time high.

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In June of 2016, Linux market share on the desktop according to their statistics hit over 2% for the first time. People were sceptical, but it seems it has mostly stayed above that 2% mark. In May of this year it did dip down to 1.99%, but as of July it recorded the highest yet at 2.53%.

Going by their statistics, Linux's share of the desktop market has nearly doubled since early 2013. I hope this upwards trend continues over the next few years. Going by their statistics, if it does continue as it is, we may hit ~3% (and hopefully stay above it) by the end of 2018.

Small victories eh?

We still have a long road ahead, but I've personally never been more happy with how Linux has progressed as an operating system and as a gaming platform. Our drivers perform well, we have a lot of great games and a lot of people invested in seeing us here at GOL continue too.

Sure we don't get the latest "AAA" rehash sequel number 4, and there are a number of titles I would personally like to see ported to Linux, but we do have an expanding list of high quality titles. Admittedly we get a lot of trash too, but thankfully there's a lot of great indie developers out there supporting Linux and some bigger developers too (hello Feral, Aspyr, VP etc). Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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Purple Library Guy Aug 3, 2017
Quoting: De1m0sTo become a real alternative to windows, there must change a lot of things in linux.
I'm linux-user since 2 years, and i'm still wondering some times, how software is released. Often, you can't simpy download anything and install; no, you should compile that dumb shit before you can install and use it. This is something, you can't sell to any "normal"-pc-user, and this is something, that let other people say, linux is for freaks only.

Just to amplify a bit on what others are saying, every Linux distribution with pretensions to user friendliness has a little graphical application called "Software manager" or something which will install anything in the distribution's repository. And if yours has no such pretensions, you can generally install "Synaptic" which does more or less the same thing. So you don't even need to learn to use the package management (like apt or rpm or whatever), you just browse around the categories or type the name of something you want, then click on a button saying "install" and the thingie installs. Windows is way harder. Don't really know the Mac situation.
stretch611 Aug 3, 2017
Quoting: BlackBloodRumNot bad.. bu when you click "source of the data"

You get to this website.. https://www.truestats.com/?source=nmsHome - it reminds me why I do so much to block advertising / tracking in my browser!

I generally do not use an ad-blocker, only a script blocker. So the old fairly non-invasive ads can get through (which sadly is very few)

However, unless you change your browser user agent string, people can tell your OS without javascript. Your user agent string is sent with every page request and includes your current browser, OS, and versions.

My UA string is: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/56.0.2950.0 Iron Safari/537.36

I use the Iron browser(based off of chrome/chromnium and data isn't sent back to google.) Most of the other browser type strings are there for compatibility reasons. Of course linux is the "(X11; Linux x86_64)".

...and now updating Iron after I realized I had an older version when I pasted the string.


Last edited by stretch611 on 3 August 2017 at 6:24 pm UTC
De1m0s Aug 3, 2017
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: De1m0sTo become a real alternative to windows, there must change a lot of things in linux.
I'm linux-user since 2 years, and i'm still wondering some times, how software is released. Often, you can't simpy download anything and install; no, you should compile that dumb shit before you can install and use it. This is something, you can't sell to any "normal"-pc-user, and this is something, that let other people say, linux is for freaks only.

Just to amplify a bit on what others are saying, every Linux distribution with pretensions to user friendliness has a little graphical application called "Software manager" or something which will install anything in the distribution's repository. And if yours has no such pretensions, you can generally install "Synaptic" which does more or less the same thing. So you don't even need to learn to use the package management (like apt or rpm or whatever), you just browse around the categories or type the name of something you want, then click on a button saying "install" and the thingie installs. Windows is way harder. Don't really know the Mac situation.

It's not that easy. Many things aren't available over the software manager.
I'm a "new" linux user; used windows since Win95. I really like linux.

The story so far (my linux-problems at the moment):
i like playing games, like all of us. We weren't here if we don't.
But, my xbox360 controller does not work with newest games. This circumstance is known well, but hard to explain to all the "normal"-pc-users. They want to plug in that thing, and play.
So, after lots of fails, i decided to try the "koku-xinput". But this is only available as source code you have to compile. So, i downloaded and tried to compile. Nothing, cmake is not installed. So i installed cmake. Second try: error-message, some kind of SDL2 library missing. Opened the software-manager, type in "SDL2", an get about 20 results. ?? Which one do i need?? Get the first one. Press "install", and got a message, that a lot of libs will be removed, if i install that library. This was the part, where i gave up.

And this is the part, where i can understand, that for this time now, linux is not for the common people.
tuubi Aug 3, 2017
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Quoting: De1m0sAnd this is the part, where i can understand, that for this time now, Linux is not for the common people.
Please read what you just wrote and report back when you understand how ridiculous your example is. :D

In case you need help with that, the "koku-xinput" you mentioned is an external patch for Wine, which means your problem is with a Windows game on Linux. Now please go judge Windows by the same rules. Try to run a Linux game on Windows and tell us how well that goes for you. Getting controllers to work might very well be the least of your problems.


As far as Wine's xinput support is concerned, it is under development but still unfinished. If compiling Wine with external patches seems hard -- and that's perfectly understandable -- you'll just have to do like the rest of those normal users you mentioned and wait for that support to be finished and released into builds you can simply install using your package manager.
Purple Library Guy Aug 3, 2017
Quoting: De1m0s
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: De1m0sTo become a real alternative to windows, there must change a lot of things in linux.
I'm linux-user since 2 years, and i'm still wondering some times, how software is released. Often, you can't simpy download anything and install; no, you should compile that dumb shit before you can install and use it. This is something, you can't sell to any "normal"-pc-user, and this is something, that let other people say, linux is for freaks only.

Just to amplify a bit on what others are saying, every Linux distribution with pretensions to user friendliness has a little graphical application called "Software manager" or something which will install anything in the distribution's repository. And if yours has no such pretensions, you can generally install "Synaptic" which does more or less the same thing. So you don't even need to learn to use the package management (like apt or rpm or whatever), you just browse around the categories or type the name of something you want, then click on a button saying "install" and the thingie installs. Windows is way harder. Don't really know the Mac situation.

It's not that easy. Many things aren't available over the software manager.
I'm a "new" linux user; used windows since Win95. I really like linux.

The story so far (my linux-problems at the moment):
i like playing games, like all of us. We weren't here if we don't.
But, my xbox360 controller does not work with newest games. This circumstance is known well, but hard to explain to all the "normal"-pc-users. They want to plug in that thing, and play.
So, after lots of fails, i decided to try the "koku-xinput". But this is only available as source code you have to compile. So, i downloaded and tried to compile. Nothing, cmake is not installed. So i installed cmake. Second try: error-message, some kind of SDL2 library missing. Opened the software-manager, type in "SDL2", an get about 20 results. ?? Which one do i need?? Get the first one. Press "install", and got a message, that a lot of libs will be removed, if i install that library. This was the part, where i gave up.

And this is the part, where i can understand, that for this time now, linux is not for the common people.
Ah, well, fair enough. I don't experience this sort of thing since the games I play are basically all keyboard-mouse. I don't actually own a controller. Sooo, basically, it's been a long time since I needed to install anything except via the software manager or Steam. And let me tell you, that's such a luxury; I remember dual booting early Mandrake linux alongside Windows 98 and not being able to tell which was more aggravating, the linux for install-and-dependency hell or the Windows for just turning weird and crapping out and needing to be reinstalled and suchlike BS.
But if I did have to go through what you're dealing with, I would surely be annoyed.
(Edited to add: Wait, Tuubi says this is a Wine thing? I retract my position. Yeah, of course lots of stuff doesn't work on Wine. It's, like, not Linux software--it still amazes me that anything works on Wine. Pleurez moi une riviere. I have a couple things (gifts and stuff) that don't work on Wine. I'm waiting for the day when, one day, they do work on Wine, at which point I will play them. The availability of in-progress stuff that clever power-users can get to work is a feature; if Wine was closed source software, which is what a Windows equivalent would be, you'd just be waiting until it was released like everyone else)


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 3 August 2017 at 7:38 pm UTC
De1m0s Aug 3, 2017
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: De1m0sAnd this is the part, where i can understand, that for this time now, Linux is not for the common people.
Please read what you just wrote and report back when you understand how ridiculous your example is. :D

In case you need help with that, the "koku-xinput" you mentioned is an external patch for Wine, which means your problem is with a Windows game on Linux. Now please go judge Windows by the same rules. Try to run a Linux game on Windows and tell us how well that goes for you. Getting controllers to work might very well be the least of your problems.


As far as Wine's xinput support is concerned, it is under development but still unfinished. If compiling Wine with external patches seems hard -- and that's perfectly understandable -- you'll just have to do like the rest of those normal users you mentioned and wait for that support to be finished and released into builds you can simply install using your package manager.

I know all that. But this is just one example. And i do live with it. But no matter why things don't run as they should; you can't sell that to the common user.

Don't missunderstand me. I'm using linux only! I love it, but sometimes i hate it too.
tuubi Aug 3, 2017
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Quoting: De1m0sI know all that. But this is just one example. And i do live with it. But no matter why things don't run as they should; you can't sell that to the common user.
Therein lies the rub: There's no reason why Windows games should run perfectly on Linux. That's just unreasonable to expect and says nothing about how hard or easy Linux is for the common user. I do get that you're frustrated, but your blame is misplaced.
Kuduzkehpan Aug 3, 2017
we need two things to beat windows mac and any other os.
1st Chinese government to forbidden non-deepin linux OSes.
2nd developers to start develop games for Deepin Linux.
m0nt3 Aug 4, 2017
Seems to be more in line with the sales figures the developers gave you and not so much with the steam survey...
Asu Aug 4, 2017
Quoting: GrimfistI already converted 2 off my friends, the rest is hesitant, but I am more resiliant :D

Also very important if you convert someone, please support them. At least for a while. Install Firefox for them. Install thunderbird, set their email account if they use non-webmail. Install steam and setup at least DOTA2 and TF2.

Also put them on the latest LTS and set it to autoupdate. By the time next LTS comes they will either love linux (hopefully lol) or will go back to the darkside lol...
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