this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2026
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460
Steam On Linux Use Skyrocketed In March - More Than Double The macOS Gaming Marketshare (www.phoronix.com)
submitted 3 months ago by herseycokguzelolacak@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 69 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

I mean yeah? As a PC gamer what are you supposed to use? Fucking... Windows?

I know some people still manage to tolerate paying Microsoft for an operating system that serves popup ads, popunder ads, inline ads, bundles spyware, bundles adware, bundles malware, and literally spies on you. They either manage to filter all that out or tolerate having to spend time turning it off or mitigating it every two weeks/months when an update introduces more of it.

They angrily cope. They say things like "what is so hard about just clicking Close / Ignore on a few buttons!?" when this is pointed out. But they grow fewer and fewer.

Macs are mostly valid but expensive. If work doesn't pay for one, or you have another big hobby that makes Mac a necessity, buying one for gaming is a bit silly.

[–] Zagorath@quokk.au 11 points 3 months ago (4 children)

paying Microsoft for an operating system

To be fair, I haven't paid Microsoft for my OS...ever. And it's not even piracy.

I got a licence for free through my university when I was in uni. And Microsoft seemed happy to let me keep using it and even upgrading it. I started on Windows 8, upgraded for free to Windows 10. If my PC didn't have a processor that seemingly arbitrarily they decided can't run Windows 11, I could be on that today.

[–] klay1@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

you did pay with your usage data.

[–] Railcar8095@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Same. Got XP and Vista from the university, license for Vista allowed to update to 7, 10 (never used 8)... Now I use LTSC + massgrave activation, but technically I have a 10 license.

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[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 61 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Linux passing 5% is a major milestone, good to see Linux thrive. 👍 😎

Part of the jump at least appears to be explained by Valve correcting again the Steam China numbers

I wonder why there needs to be special correction for China, but I'm guessing it's about some sort of bots probably farm bots.
If anyone knows more please share your knowledge.

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

A bit of a guess, but it might be related to software cafés. They are a lot more common in the east.

Since multiple people can log into the same computer, it might over count them. They are also likely exclusively windows machines.

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[–] httperror418@lemmy.world 34 points 3 months ago

I did my part 👌

[–] Lanske@lemmy.world 25 points 3 months ago

I'm in there!

[–] IratePirate@feddit.org 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yup, sorry guys, that was me.

[–] PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Holy shit, you're the John Linux?

[–] IratePirate@feddit.org 9 points 3 months ago

That very same, yup. You might know my song:

"Imagine all the people /
Living life in shells."

[–] warbosstodd@piefed.social 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I have a Legion Go and I wiped Windows 11 off the damned thing so fast and installed Bazzite.

You have to wonder what these numbers will look like in about 6 months after the Neo’s well received release.

[–] sen@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I feel like I'm part of the minority when I say I'm highly excited for things like M5, APUs, smaller power efficient machines that barely draw power while doing boring work tasks yet can handle proper gaming loads (waiting for the last part still).

As soon as one of these checks all my boxes I'm selling my massive PC for it.

[–] warbosstodd@piefed.social 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh I’m right there with you. My machines are a Legion Go, an M2 Mac mini and a MacBook Pro m1. What CPUs are starting to do with such a minute amount of power is amazing.

[–] sen@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Right? Now just let me push 1440p x2 and play games on high/ultra from the size of half a shoebox please.

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[–] melfie@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yep, I’d really like to stick to SoCs in the future as well. I’m holding off on hardware purchases until 2027 when AMD’s RDNA 5 will be available. Apple Silicon is amazing, but I’d like a less expensive alternative that has broader Linux distro support. RDNA 5 will bring true RTX cores, which is critical for my Blender rendering workloads, and is the main reason why I couldn’t justify AMD GPUs in the past for anything other than a dedicated gaming machine (e.g., Steam Deck).

[–] PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Good luck getting any new PC in 2027 for a decent price LMAO

[–] IratePirate@feddit.org 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh, don't worry. The bubble is going to pop aaaaany minute now.

[–] PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

It’s not popping until Trump is out of office and that’s not until at least 2028.

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[–] knobbysideup@sh.itjust.works 15 points 3 months ago

I'm doing my part

[–] realitista@lemmus.org 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

Beating Mac in gaming is like beating Glass Joe in Punch Out!!

[–] addie@feddit.uk 15 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Ah, but no-one would question Mac support when you're developing new software. If you can support Mac, which is certified UNIX, then the jump to supporting Linux isn't all that much extra, and we can prove there's a growing install base.

Started the ball rolling, and it just keeps going faster.

[–] realitista@lemmus.org 5 points 3 months ago

Oh definitely. Linux should definitely be targeted before macs because people who are on it I'm sure play more games. But again not a high bar as a lot of games never get Mac versions either.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Games rely on more than just the OS API and even variation between Linux flavours or installed libraries on the same flavours can make compatibility difficult. My success rate at running games with a Linux native version is maybe 50% before I fall back to proton and the windows version. The consistency helps, though kudos to the developers who put in the effort to get their games working on Linux in general rather than just their particular systems.

The gpu library is a big one. There's OpenGL, DirectX, and Vulkan (which is the successor to OpenGL) that I know of. Linux and windows support all three, in some form or manner, but afaik mac only supports OpenGL, which really holds back game development, especially with DX being the most popularly targeted one.

Though my info might be a bit dated because I dgaf about macs generally, just wanted to point out that the shared roots between mac and Linux don't necessarily mean targeting one would make targeting the other easier in a meaningful way.

Maybe one day they'll sell a dongle to play games (which is really just a live boot linux install).

[–] Zagorath@quokk.au 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A decade ago things were looking really positive for the future of Mac gaming. It felt like more and more games were coming out supporting it. I'm not sure if their transition away from Intel has hindered it, or if it's something else, but it definitely seems to have stalled.

Plus, the move to Apple Silicon has killed the back-up option of Bootcamp. Or I assume it has, I've not been a Mac user since before the transition, when my ageing MBP died and I just found I didn't need any laptop to replace it.

[–] realitista@lemmus.org 5 points 3 months ago (7 children)

It's simple, Apple has never cared about gaming except for that 1 year you are talking about. They've done fuck all to get developers to target mac and it shows.

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[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I have every OS and tons of computers. I used my m4 MacBook Air when I went to the hospital because the battery life is eternal and the speakers are uncomfortably good for something so small. I did play some games on it, and they ran incredibly for such a crazy small machine.

Alas.. the library that worked… SO SMALL! So many games are Windows/Linux only. I’d love to see that change, but luckily for me, that’s the only time I ever cared to try games on my MacBook.

[–] realitista@lemmus.org 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I've owned a lot of macs over the last 30 years, but I don't think Ive tried more than once to game on them.

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[–] uenticx@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

There's only three players. It's more like the second Piston Honda.

[–] tehn00bi@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago

I’m glad back a few years ago I planned my PC for Linux. AMD everything. It’s been a mostly smooth operation.

[–] rabber@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Gaming on Mac is infuriating. I brought my MacBook air to my parents last time thinking I could use it to play left 4 dead with mom. Which used to run at 120 fps. Now it doesn't run at all. Lol

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The games that WORK run incredibly on my M4 MacBook Air… the 15-20% of my Steam collection. D: ah well, that’s not what it’s for anyway.

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[–] MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I am doing my part!

(arch btw :P)

[–] herseycokguzelolacak@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

show fastfetch or get out da here! 😂

[–] MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

as you wish :P

[–] herseycokguzelolacak@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago

beautiful 😍

[–] FireWire400@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm typing this on a M1 Pro McBook right now and let me tell you, from all of my Steam games maybe 10% are compatible with macOS/Apple Silicon. I tried Crossover and it kinda sucks.

It's a shame really when you consider that Apple once had a better gaming scene than Windows/MS DOS, but it clearly hadn't been a focus for Apple for a long time until maybe 2 or so years ago.

But yeah, gaming on Linux is awesome and is gonna get even better with stuff like Wine 11 eventually coming to Proton.

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I tried Crossover and it kinda sucks.

WDYM? It's Wine like Wine. With a GUI similar to PlayOnLinux and such.

I suspect Steam lacking Proton is the main reason you don't like it. That's easy to get used to, yes.

That might be, eh, sort of a business agreement between Valve and Codeweavers, the latter play a significant role in upstream Wine's development after all. And Crossover is their paid product.

[–] FireWire400@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I don't like it because it takes forever to set everything up and in the end you still get errors, or at least I did.

Wine kinda sucks for that exact reason, IMO, if you get it right it works really well but until then it's a troubleshooting nightmare. Maybe Proton made me a bit too lazy.

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[–] aliser@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Linux gaming is pretty good, glad to see it rise. software like Heroic launcher exists and allows to launch non steam games as well as other launchers. it's pretty good. even pirated windows games work just fine

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

Apple doesn't support Vulcan (or the support is outdated, idk exactly), and expects devs to use Metal instead. Which they don't. So outside of small indie games, people gaming on Mac likely boot Windows anyway, or at least that's how it was ten years ago — the situation might've changed with the M* processors, in that I'm not sure Windows runs on them.

[–] MurrayL@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

No, there’s no way to easily install Windows on Apple Silicon like back in the days of Bootcamp on Intel. If there’s no native macOS version of a game, you have to use translation layers like you would on Linux - either Wine or Apple’s own Game Porting Toolkit.

There’s also no support for 32-bit apps any more, so many older games with native macOS releases don’t work anymore either.

That said, when I looked through my Steam & GOG libraries on Mac I was surprised at how many games do apparently run natively. Far more than I expected. But it’s just a curiosity really - if I want to play a game I’ll use my PC.

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

how many games do apparently run natively

From what I understand, indie devs mostly just check a box in their engine's build script to compile the game for MacOS. It's rather the big boys who always have trouble porting their games anywhere due to bespoke engines, anticheat or whatnot. And also sim racing devs for some reason, those never support anything but Windows — even though Feral has ported F1 games to Mac and they worked fine.

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[–] lostbit@feddit.nl 2 points 3 months ago

this, if apple wants to be serious they have to support vulkan.

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