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Steam's September Hardware Survey, Linux Holds Steady

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Here is the latest instalment of Steam's Hardware Survey, as usual we do our monthly thing and compare it and talk about it and make sure you know not to use it as a hard figure.

Linux results for September 2013
Ubuntu 13.04 64 bit 0.45% +0.05%
Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS 64 bit 0.18% +0.18%
Ubuntu 13.04 0.12% 0.00%
Linux Mint 15 Olivia 64 bit 0.11% +0.03%
Linux 64 bit 0.10% 0.00%
Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS 0.07% +0.07%

Total: 1.03%
Last Month: 0.93%

My thoughts on it
Looks like we are holding steady, a tiny increase of 0.1%. With the announcement of SteamOS I hope this begind to slowly rise as peoples interest in Linux comes out thanks to it.

Things to note
The Other category may contain a few of the smaller Linux distro's like Fedora, Gentoo and Arch for example.

Other 0.72% +0.05%

Especially when before the main stats did contain quite a few more Linux distro's it's safe to assume some of the % is Linux as well.

There is this long bug report on Valve's github where a fair few users are stating they have never even seen the survey under Linux. I am one of them, yet I am logged in everyday.

Just be aware these results will probably not be that accurate as we don't know how they do their percentage results, they could be rounding up, rounding down or truncating the percentages. So a 0.5% could actually be nearly 0.6% as it could be 0.59% but they could do no rounding and simply truncate it.

Also it won't be every Steam user (it's a survey not a full statistic) so it can be as simple as not actually showing the survey to many Linux people. Let's face it we know they don't survey 100% of their user base, only a small fraction of it, so bear that in mind as well. Personally I am still yet to see it under Linux so it's not counting me that's for sure and I am logged in every day!

Also to note is that Linux is apparently only sitting at around 1.28% of the worldwide desktop share anyway according to Net Applications. Their reporting should also be taken lightly too since it's all using web-based counters.

Lastly Linux users typically shy away from any form of DRM, so you can bet there is a large bunch of Linux users who just simply refuse to use Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial, Steam
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About the author -
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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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17 comments
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richie442 Oct 2, 2013
Another month and again.. no survey for me :/
Levi Oct 2, 2013
I'm almost never logged on and have gotten this survey pretty much every 2-4 months like clockwork. Around the same time I would have gotten it if I was on that other software.

Maybe there's some account biased at work there?
Liam Dawe Oct 2, 2013
I am unsure, but I never get it unless I boot into windows to test something gol related in IE and it pops up but never on Linux have I gotten it :(
Penguin42 Oct 2, 2013
Same problem here. It pops up regular on Windows, but never on Linux :( So I don't really give much about this hardware survey.
Sabun Oct 2, 2013
Never pops up on Ubuntu for me either. Did once before, then it's only on Windows every month. I really wonder how many Linux users it's actually surveying in reality...
Teodosio Oct 2, 2013
Thanks for keeping us updated! This website is just great. :D
Liam Dawe Oct 2, 2013
Quoting: Quote from TeodosioThanks for keeping us updated! This website is just great. :D
You are welcome.
Lord Avallon Oct 2, 2013
Same here, no sign of this survey for me yet!
scaine Oct 2, 2013
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Finally got the survey in September. And since I haven't used Windows once since the first week in August, I know it definitely counted against the linux total. Still, there are reports of windows users getting prompted regularly, and this is my first survey since Dec 2012! Admittedly, I hardly ever got prompted on Windows either...
Jon Oct 2, 2013
I got my first survey yesterday. I'm logged in every day.
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