Steam gamers already use Windows 10 more then any Linux distribution users combined.

[pbenologa]

Linux is not for your average consumer. Deal with it.

[othertomperson]

That is your subjective opinion. You brought up these advanced functions no average consumer knows about or how to use. My point is that they have no reason to either. If you can use Linux in a satisfactory way, without ever using a TUI like the console, then great. A leap in the right direction, but that is not what you here when people wants to sell you on Linux or explain how to use it.

In a discussion on the use case scenarios of an average consumer, you still haven't argued why you brought up those examples as negative things. There was an actual reason why I asked you to ask your mom about these things, but I'm not sure you got the point.

 

The point was that your criticism of Linux wasn't actually as true for Linux as it is for Windows, yet you spin on a fucking dime when you realise this and suddenly it doesn't matter any more.

 

The average user could use Linux right now and not be any the wiser until they open Steam and find their library's a lot smaller. Except it's free and Microsoft Office (because as if they can tell the difference) is free and already installed and their default browser is Firefox or Chrome.

 

There is basically no reason for the vast majority of people to stick on Windows now, and as I've already said as soon as Steam brings most of its library to Linux I'm jumping ship.

 

Although the difference between the two of us is that I've actually used Linux recently and so, unfortunately, am not talking out of my arse.

[Toddskins]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Linux is absolutely useless as a consumer OS. No amount of SteamOS or whatever is going to change that. Linux is a server OS, that can be used in certain workstations and thin clients. That's it though. Useless.

 

Your numbers however does not add up, as there are more MAC users than Win 10 in those numbers. Beating Windows 8 should not be an issue, as everyone using Windows 8 should have migrated to 8.1 a long time ago.

 

It's only been a week, so I can't really be disappointed, but I can say that that number should rise very fast and very high. There is no reason for it to not surpass both 7 and 8.1 this year. It is that good. Windows 10 has been the smoothest launch/upgrade ever done by Microsoft, and I don't think they get nearly enough credit for that.

'Don't know you from Teresa or Christine, but you sound like an MS fanboy.

[Toddskins]

wow, 44% still use 7

 

that makes me happy

And will still be using it for another 10 years.

[Toddskins]

The sooner XP, Vista, 7, and 8 die out, the better. Forced legacy support back to the Pentium 3 days is killing software development on Windows.

 

Users exist for the sake of developers?  Only in your mind.

 

[Majinferno]

It's useless due to a bad GUI, which is less than intuitive. There is a reason little Apple flew by and grabbed huge market share from Microsoft and Linux did not. Not only the nice looking hardware, but also because the OS is intuitive, easy to use and looks nice. None of that represents Linux. There mere point that you need to bring up a console to do anything useful, makes it useless. Everything you need to do as an end user, can be done via a GUI in Windows, as well as Windows being excellent at solving problems and issues by itself (their network trouble shooter is excellent). And then there's drivers. Windows Vista was the first MS OS, where driver support was really good at launch, and that has reached new standards in W10 (that can use most 8.1 drivers though), making everything automatic (especially now with automated driver updates via Windows Update).

All these things make Windows an excellent consumer OS, OSX being a good second contender. Linux is nowhere to be seen, and there is a reason for that. Utter useless.

.

This is hilarious. You do realize that Linux distro have different desktop environments making UI different depending on choice. Not to mention after installing Linux, that drivers an average consumer would need are right their.

Going off the most popular distro, Ubuntu, the majority of things an average consumer needs are already pre-installed. Want more? Hop into the software center that come complete with a full graphical experience. I could give Linux to my mom and she'd be just fine browsing the internet and doing office work.

It really seems like you've never really used even the most popular of Linux distro.

[handymanshandle]

As a Fedora user, I will never understand you Archers.

Well I mean Arch does allow you to easily put on Cinnamon or Gnome 3 or Unity. But Ubuntu all the way (and Elementary looks nice too, though I guess that's just a heavily modified Ubuntu. And if I recall correctly Ubuntu is a heavily modified Debian)

 

@Notional Which is why Gnome 3 is better than both Windows and OS X, it takes the best of the two and makes something greater. And as far as the whole uniformity thing well then the average consumer is rather silly. I like OS X and Android those two obviously aren't very uniform together. I like that because then I'm getting two different experiences on two devices that do two different things.

Unity with and without tweaks is gorgeous and Gnome 3 with and without tweaks is gorgeous too. 

Though there are 4 major flavors of Linux my favorites being Ubuntu and Fedora (though Fedora is a little less intuitive than Ubuntu but Ubuntu Gnome is another option which still has the Gnome DE but keeping to the ease of use found in Ubuntu) Also computers are going to need some work (just like a car) I mean so Linux isn't too different than other OSes and most distros tend to take care of themselves just as well as OS X or Windows.

Evidence that consumers can use Linux is in Android.

[patrickjp93]

Users exist for the sake of developers?  Only in your mind.

facepalm* No, they exist for the sales team who get to boss around programmers. If you want to hit the widest audience possible, you target the lowest common denominator for an OS. And to reduce distribution costs, you keep the executable size as small as possible, meaning only the most basic variant of the machine instructions (no code multiversioning). In other words, unless you improve the minimum user specs, software will not evolve. It will only improve incrementally at a snail's pace like we've seen in recent years.

[yuh25]

Main reason I removed linux and switched back to Windows is I tried to install my GPU drivers and every time I installed them, it stopped working. I gave up reinstalling it 3 times and it doing the same thing, booting to terminal then nothing. Works very well for hosting a LAMP sever on my Raspi though

[burnttoastnice]

.

This is hilarious. You do realize that Linux distro have different desktop environments making UI different depending on choice. Not to mention after installing Linux, that drivers an average consumer would need are right their.

Going off the most popular distro, Ubuntu, the majority of things an average consumer needs are already pre-installed. Want more? Hop into the software center that come complete with a full graphical experience. I could give Linux to my mom and she'd be just fine browsing the internet and doing office work.

It really seems like you've never really used even the most popular of Linux distro.

 

I was waiting on someone to point this out. Also worth mentioning that Ubuntu has one of the best operating system UIs I've ever seen.

 

Main reason I removed linux and switched back to Windows is I tried to install my GPU drivers and every time I installed them, it stopped working. I gave up reinstalling it 3 times and it doing the same thing, booting to terminal then nothing. Works very well for hosting a LAMP sever on my Raspi though

 

How is Apache performancewise? I went with Lighttpd because I previously used it to host a website from an old android tablet.

_______

 

All these people complaining about linux... Plot twist - Without Linux we probably wouldn't be on this thread right now...

[yuh25]

How is Apache performancewise? I went with Lighttpd because I previously used it to host a website from an old android tablet.

No idea, I've only been using it for developing a uni project, works fine for just one person

[patrick3027]

Windows 8 users are in a hurry to upgrade. Why is this surprising? We all knew windows 8 was shit.

Anyway, the main problem for Linux is that games take about a year to get ported to SteamOS. For example I'm still waiting for project CARS, GRID autosport and Rome total war to get ported.

[cesrai]

Maybe it has to do with the amount of games for Windows?

Or worse performance on Linux.

[Notional]

The point was that your criticism of Linux wasn't actually as true for Linux as it is for Windows, yet you spin on a fucking dime when you realise this and suddenly it doesn't matter any more.

 

The average user could use Linux right now and not be any the wiser until they open Steam and find their library's a lot smaller. Except it's free and Microsoft Office (because as if they can tell the difference) is free and already installed and their default browser of Firefox or Chrome.

 

There is basically no reason for the vast majority of people to stick on Windows now, and as I've already said as soon as Steam brings most of its library to Linux I'm jumping ship.

 

Although the difference between the two of us is that I've actually used Linux recently and so, unfortunately, am not talking out of my arse.

 

Again that is your view on things. I haven't spun on anything, and I stand by what I've said. Could an average consumer use Linux? Sure! Do they want to? Not a snow balls chance in hell. Like I said, Dell and Asus tried with Linux SKU's and they failed miserably. Valve has made a distro  specifically for gamers, and even they don't care (less than 1% is pathetic).

 

Just because some distros or should I say GUI managers aren't completely useless, does not mean that Linux suddenly becomes a viable OS for most people. There are other factors that plays in here. Or let me put it in another way. If you take a Windows user, and give them the choice between switching to OSX or Linux, with their choice of GUI manager, which one do you think people would choose? And when You've answered OSX (because let's face it, it's so given it's almost rhetorical), why do you think that is?

 

'Don't know you from Teresa or Christine, but you sound like an MS fanboy.

 

Because I criticize Linus as a consumer OS, I'm a fanboy? Projecting are we?

 

@Notional Which is why Gnome 3 is better than both Windows and OS X, it takes the best of the two and makes something greater. And as far as the whole uniformity thing well then the average consumer is rather silly. I like OS X and Android those two obviously aren't very uniform together. I like that because then I'm getting two different experiences on two devices that do two different things.

Unity with and without tweaks is gorgeous and Gnome 3 with and without tweaks is gorgeous too. 

Though there are 4 major flavors of Linux my favorites being Ubuntu and Fedora (though Fedora is a little less intuitive than Ubuntu but Ubuntu Gnome is another option which still has the Gnome DE but keeping to the ease of use found in Ubuntu) Also computers are going to need some work (just like a car) I mean so Linux isn't too different than other OSes and most distros tend to take care of themselves just as well as OS X or Windows.

Evidence that consumers can use Linux is in Android.

 

People who buy Apple, tend to invest in the entire eco system for the added benefits and uniformity though. This is the exact proprietary vendor lock in issue, I criticize NVidia for all the time. But Apple is much much worse. Yet people do it out of ease. The more that can be fully automated in maintenance, the better (for the consumer). Same thing with Windows 10, with the pretty much mandatory Windows Update settings. Bad for super users? Probably, but not for the average consumer.

You mention 4 major distros, but keep in mind, that people identify GUI's, not OS' as such. For most people such choices simply aren't tangible.

 

I'll give you that Gnome 3 GUI looks pretty nice, and that is definitely the way Linux needs to move, if they want to be a viable consumer OS. But right now OSX is king, with Windows making large leaps with Windows 8 and 10. Linux still comes off as the black sheep. Windows 10 upgrade was outright "plug and play". That is damn impressive to say the least.

 

All these people complaining about linux... Plot twist - Without Linux we probably wouldn't be on this thread right now...

 

Of course not, without Linux the entire internet would implode and nothing PC related would exist /s. But seriously though, no one has criticized Linux as a server OS.

[Notional]

I hardly see why this is anything to shout about. The vast majority of these Windows 10 users were already on Windows 7 or 8.1 before they received their free update. Linux and OS X haven't lost users, Windows users just moved to the newer version.

 

Adoption rates of Windows 10 are actually very interesting. The faster we can get a more uniform Windows platform, the better. I do believe most games (that would have been DX11) will be DX 12 next year, as in mandatory. That would benefit PC gaming quite a bit.

 

 

Windows 8 users are in a hurry to upgrade. Why is this surprising? We all knew windows 8 was shit.

Anyway, the main problem for Linux is that games take about a year to get ported to SteamOS. For example I'm still waiting for project CARS, GRID autosport and Rome total war to get ported.

 

Windows 8 users should have updated to 8.1 a long time ago. Only some GUI issues were bad in Windows 8. The OS itself has always been miles ahead of 7.

 

You're going to wait a long time, if these games are Direct X based.

[DarkSmith2]

Windows 10 is skynet.

[handymanshandle]

 

People who buy Apple, tend to invest in the entire eco system for the added benefits and uniformity though. This is the exact proprietary vendor lock in issue, I criticize NVidia for all the time. But Apple is much much worse. Yet people do it out of ease. The more that can be fully automated in maintenance, the better (for the consumer). Same thing with Windows 10, with the pretty much mandatory Windows Update settings. Bad for super users? Probably, but not for the average consumer.

You mention 4 major distros, but keep in mind, that people identify GUI's, not OS' as such. For most people such choices simply aren't tangible.

 

I'll give you that Gnome 3 GUI looks pretty nice, and that is definitely the way Linux needs to move, if they want to be a viable consumer OS. But right now OSX is king, with Windows making large leaps with Windows 8 and 10. Linux still comes off as the black sheep. Windows 10 upgrade was outright "plug and play". That is damn impressive to say the least.

 

Android is a Linux distro and obviously that's a consumer OS (Sure a Mobile OS though it could be used as a desktop OS if you so desired since it is Linux.)

Informed unbiased consumers make for a better marketplace, blindly favoring the works of Microsoft or Apple gravely effect a lot of things (though actually Linux not being as popular can be a good thing, as then viruses are less likely to be directed towards the Linux users (I just want AAA games and Adobe CC to be brought over to Linux so that I'm not forced to tolerate Windows)

 

If people who used Windows really wanted uniformity then don't you think we'd have more Windows Phone users?

 

Though if that is the case then the average consumer must be unimaginative or would rather that diversity takes the backseat. Though I guess integration is nice it's just a shame that no one has realized that it shouldn't be limited to one OS. 

[Notional]

Android is a Linux distro and obviously that's a consumer OS (Sure a Mobile OS though it could be used as a desktop OS if you so desired since it is Linux.)

Informed unbiased consumers make for a better marketplace, blindly favoring the works of Microsoft or Apple gravely effect a lot of things (though actually Linux not being as popular can be a good thing, as then viruses are less likely to be directed towards the Linux users (I just want AAA games and Adobe CC to be brought over to Linux so that I'm not forced to tolerate Windows)

 

If people who used Windows really wanted uniformity then don't you think we'd have more Windows Phone users?

 

Though if that is the case then the average consumer must be unimaginative or would rather that diversity takes the backseat. Though I guess integration is nice it's just a shame that no one has realized that it shouldn't be limited to one OS. 

 

No one buys Android because it's Linux or in any way associated with Linux. They buy it because it's google and they can get their vendor/model of choice. It is however ironic you should mention Android, as it is the most fragmented non updated crap platform on the market: http://opensignal.com/reports/2014/android-fragmentation/ also making it much more non secure.

 

The problem with Windows phone is the very limited selection of vendors/models and also selection of apps, so a kind of chicken and egg thing, which is also the reason you won't see Adobe or AAA games on the platform anytime soon. The success of Windows 10 might increase the market adoption of Phone 10 and thus change that, but who knows. People buy phones primarily for the design/hardware anyways.

 

Apple's massive success, especially in the phone world has proven that people don't care all that much about diversity/choice, when it comes to the average consumer and IT. That has actually made IT much more adopted than otherwise, which should be seen as a good thing.

[handymanshandle]

No one buys Android because it's Linux or in any way associated with Linux. They buy it because it's google and they can get their vendor/model of choice. It is however ironic you should mention Android, as it is the most fragmented non updated crap platform on the market: http://opensignal.com/reports/2014/android-fragmentation/ also making it much more non secure.

 

The problem with Windows phone is the very limited selection of vendors/models and also selection of apps, so a kind of chicken and egg thing, which is also the reason you won't see Adobe or AAA games on the platform anytime soon. The success of Windows 10 might increase the market adoption of Phone 10 and thus change that, but who knows. People buy phones primarily for the design/hardware anyways.

 

...That people don't care all that much about diversity/choice, when it comes to the average consumer and IT. That has actually made IT much more adopted than otherwise, which should be seen as a good thing.

Afaic Motorola, LG, Sony all do a decent job at keeping Android close to vanilla. (Motorola doing the best with Sony reigning in at second best and LG is guilty of doing to most to the UI of Android of the group) (Samsung is getting better). Though I know that's not why people buy Android is the fact it's Linux it's that it just happens to be built off of Linux so therefore it is technically a Linux consumer OS (even though the consumer may not directly know that Android happens to be running off of Linux)

 

That statement makes me sort of cringe.

 

But it doesn't be this waaaayyyyyyyyyyyy...

[jaggysnake57]

lol people defending linux.......its a free OS and it still has a shite market share.....kinda says it all really

[Notional]

Afaic Motorola, LG, Sony all do a decent job at keeping Android close to vanilla. (Motorola doing the best with Sony reigning in at second best and LG is guilty of doing to most to the UI of Android of the group) (Samsung is getting better). Though I know that's not why people buy Android is the fact it's Linux it's that it just happens to be built off of Linux so therefore it is technically a Linux consumer OS (even though the consumer may not directly know that Android happens to be running off of Linux)

 

That statement makes me sort of cringe.

 

But it doesn't be this waaaayyyyyyyyyyyy...

 

Indeed, especially Samsung has gone the very little junk route, which is very nice. But Google still doesn't take any responsibility in updating anything, which means you never get security hole updates or anything. You only get new versions of Android, that might never reach the majority of the phones. That is not a Linux problem of course, but Google being a bunch of wankers.

 

Well you can't ignore that Apple made IT sexy and adopted to an extent we didn't see before. Smartphones as we know them are only the result of the IPhone. Heck android phones was supposed to have keyboards and no touch functionality. Think old school Nokia communicators and Blackberry phones. Uniformity, less choice and ease of use has moved the industry farther and faster than we would otherwise have seen.

[handymanshandle]

Indeed, especially Samsung has gone the very little junk route, which is very nice. But Google still doesn't take any responsibility in updating anything, which means you never get security hole updates or anything. You only get new versions of Android, that might never reach the majority of the phones. That is not a Linux problem of course, but Google being a bunch of wankers.

 

Well you can't ignore that Apple made IT sexy and adopted to an extent we didn't see before. Smartphones as we know them are only the result of the IPhone. Heck android phones was supposed to have keyboards and no touch functionality. Think old school Nokia communicators and Blackberry phones. Uniformity, less choice and ease of use has moved the industry farther and faster than we would otherwise have seen.

 I know but force yourself to be tied down, that was then. This is 2015 (hell we're about four months from 2016) where things have changed since the first iPhone came out. Yes it did make smartphones what they are today and yes there has been some benefit from it. Also you can blame the manufacturers and carriers for slower Android security fixes.

[Notional]

 I know but force yourself to be tied down, that was then. This is 2015 (hell we're about four months from 2016) where things have changed since the first iPhone came out. Yes it did make smartphones what they are today and yes there has been some benefit from it. Also you can blame the manufacturers and carriers for slower Android security fixes.

 

I agree, I don't like vendor lock in anymore than other power users, but to be fair, for most users it really is a benefit. Sure it will have consequences on pricing and competition in the long run, but based on a use case scenario, it's good for most people.

 

I don't buy that one bit. It's Google's OS, they are wholly responsible. No one would ever give Microsoft a free pass if Windows on Lenovo or Asus computers were not given automatic security updates. It's a bullshit market strategy by Google, and the result is the worst fragmentation we know in any IT platform (ironically Linux excluded). My old HTC is stuck on ICS and will never be officially updated. That is a catastrophe, as every security bug discovered since, will never be patched.

[handymanshandle]

I don't buy that one bit. It's Google's OS, they are wholly responsible. No one would ever give Microsoft a free pass if Windows on Lenovo or Asus computers were not given automatic security updates. It's a bullshit market strategy by Google, and the result is the worst fragmentation we know in any IT platform (ironically Linux excluded). My old HTC is stuck on ICS and will never be officially updated. That is a catastrophe, as every security bug discovered since, will never be patched.

 

I mean I guess because Google just makes the updates and it's up to the Manufacturer and maybe even the Carrier as to when and even if a device will get a patch.

[Notional]

I mean I guess because Google just makes the updates and it's up to the Manufacturer and maybe even the Carrier as to when and even if a device will get a patch.

 

But they don't make updates, they only make new Android versions/iterations. As an end user, I cannot manually download a security fix. I'd have to root my entire device. That is pretty damn shitty, and the fragmentation just illustrates how bad it's working out. But I digress.

 

On topic: When do you guys think 10 will be the most used OS in the steam survey?