Linux Hits 1% in Steam Marketshare: Could Windows 11 Be Linux's Best Chance?

This writeup is a combination of this article and this article I published on Publish0x with edits.

Introduction: The Impossible Has Happened!

Well, it has finally happened. Linux has reached 1% marketshare on Steam! In the July 2021 hardware survey, Linux marketshare rose by 0.11 percentage points to go from 0.89% to 1.00%. On top of that, statcounter shows Linux hitting an all-time high of 2.68% in general OS marketshare.

Is it time to pop the champagne and party? Is the "Year of the Linux Desktop" finally upon us? I can say for sure that it's usually best to practice cautious optimism. While Linux has finally reached what seemed to be a mythical milestone, it took 3 years after the launch of Proton to accomplish that. Not only that, as demonstrated by the above graph, the marketshare tends to fluctuate up and down, meaning there's a good chance it can fall back below 1% by the August 2021 hardware survey. That said, while Linux marketshare tends to fluctuate to a larger degree than Windows and MacOS, the trendline suggests that it will gain more marketshare in the long run.

But Why Now?

Though what was responsible for the significant rise? A lot of people would likely point towards Valve's Steam Deck announcement (my thoughts on the hardware here), but I don't think you can isolate it to just one reason. Yes, the Deck has garnered a lot of enthusiasm from gamers. Within the first 90 minutes, preorders exceeded 110,000 units and I explained how that can drastically boost the concurrent Linux user count. Valve seems to have learned from its past mistakes and it appears likely that the Deck will not be a repeat of the failed Steam Machines.

But even so, the Steam Deck preorders will not contribute to the Linux marketshare until December 2021 at the earliest. As a result, something else must be going on. Some speculate it is due to Windows 11 requiring a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 chip to install the OS, and the fact that you're required to have an internet connection and a Microsoft account for first time setup. So if you're using hardware that is 5+ years old, you're out of luck. And if you value privacy... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Timestamped to 8:09.

It's not just Linus Tech Tips that is not all too happy with TPM 2.0 and required Microsoft account. Among Gamers Nexus's audience, enthusiasm for Windows 11 is rather tepid. A week before this article, the channel posted a poll asking its audience about its plans regarding Windows 11. The majority of the respondents responded with "I'll wait and see what happens" at 56% with another 16% stating that they would stay on Windows 10 or older.

On top of that, many users underneath the poll either state they already have a Linux distro installed or are planning to install Linux in the future.

On July 22, 2021, Linus Tech Tips uploaded a tutorial on how to install Pop!_OS instead of Windows 11 and set up the desktop to play games, including Windows-only games. While the video didn't garner as many videos as the channel's other similarly aged videos, it still raked in a respectable 1 million views and 84K likes, so there was bound to be a handful of audience who decided to try Pop!_OS out.

Not to mention, Microsoft has been sort of advertising the Linux desktop, too, albeit inadvertently.

Microsoft Shoots Itself in the Foot

Historically, Microsoft always seem to release a "good" Windows every other release. Windows 98 was good, but Millennium was a complete shitshow. I remember frequently needing to hit the restart button because the computer would keep crashing.

Windows XP was my favorite Windows operating system of the bunch. It was stable and the UI was simple, but intuitive. My fondness of XP is the main reason why I went with Linux Mint as my distro as the layout is extremely similar. Unfortunately, Microsoft followed up with Vista. While not as atrocious as ME, in my opinion, Vista was resource hungry and ran slower than XP.

This wallpaper brings back some good memories.

Microsoft recovered with a solid Windows 7 release. However, it followed up with Windows 8 that introduced a lot of features people didn't really ask for like Metro. This was also when Microsoft launched the Windows Store as an attempt to centralize Windows software downloads to its own client.

That last part is the main reason why Gabe Newell and Valve began to branch out their services to Linux. They were concerned about Microsoft establishing a walled garden where it can flex its monopoly muscles and dictate the rules for software developers. In 2013, Valve released the Linux Steam client and two years later, the company launched the Steam Machines, though they flopped.

The idea of not needing Windows to play PC games sounded nice, but not many developers were willing to port to Linux.

I am actually very hesitant to consider Windows 10 a "good" Windows. While 10 is definitely better than 8, there are several things about 10 I do not like. For one thing, it comes with a lot of software that I don't need like the Xbox app, 3D Viewer, or Groove Music. I don't like how Cortana constantly runs, though you can disable it with a debloat script. Lastly, the automatic updates and telemetry concern me from a privacy and ownership standpoint.

Microsoft looks to be doubling down on the intrusiveness with the upcoming Windows 11, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Apparently, the alpha images of Windows 11 do not enforce the TPM 2.0 restriction, so you can run the alpha versions on older hardware. However, on a July 21 livestream, Microsoft Program Manager Aria Carley stated that the final version will enforce the limitation. Her reasoning for the restriction was "to keep devices more productive, have a better experience, and most importantly have better security than before so they can stay protected in this new workforce".

The video is unlisted. I won't be surprised if it eventually goes private.

The reception was predictably negative. As Windows Central pointed out, one of the top comments said "A lot of [Aria Carley's] answers come off as super tone deaf. It's looking like Windows 11 will be another Windows 8" with other comments hypothesizing that the TPM 2.0 restriction is a "thinly veiled ploy to warrant fresh license purchases alongside new machines since free upgrades to existing computers won't earn Microsoft revenue".

Speaking about comments, the channel disabled comments as well as live chat replay. Bizarrely, it did not disable the likes/dislikes functionality. As for now, the dislikes overwhelming outnumber the likes by over a 100 to 1 ratio.

Linux May Be Better for Older Hardware Anyways

With Microsoft adamant on Windows 11's TPM 2.0 restriction, if your system is too old to upgrade from 10 to 11, you're out of luck... or are you? If your old hardware has Vulkan support, then Linux may actually be a viable option. The reason? AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution.

I've already written about it before, but to recap, FidelityFX Super Resolution algorithmically upscales a lower resolution image to your monitor's resolution. The benefit of FSR is that by rendering at a lower resolution, you get higher framerates while algorithm helps maintain most of the image quality. Overall, the end result is significantly better than point or bilinear upscaling.

When FSR launched on June 21, I concluded that the image quality looks really good at the Ultra Quality preset with the Quality preset also not looking too shabby. As long as you're not, for instance, upscaling to 1080p on Performance mode, then the overall experience should be a net positive.

But what does this have to do with Windows 11's TPM 2.0 and installing Linux on your old hardware instead? Well, thanks to AMD's GPUOpen mission, FSR is open-source and the code is publicly available. A person by the name of Georg 'DadSchoorse' Lehmann found a way to implement FSR on nearly all Vulkan games (including those that run on DXVK or VKD3D) under the Linux environment. He managed to replace Proton's full-screen hack's (fshack) traditional linear/nearest filter with FSR. GloriousEggroll has demonstrated that using FSR on Linux indeed works with games such as Forza Horizon 4 and Warframe.

There is one caveat, however. Normally, FSR is supposed to work in the middle of the graphics pipeline. After anti-aliasing and tone mapping, FSR kicks in to upscale the image before the post-processing filters and UI elements come in. This is why even when you use the lower quality settings of FSR, the UI elements don't look all pixelated and blurry. In contrast, the fshack solution implements FSR at the end of the pipeline, meaning the post-processing effects and UI are also upscaled.

How FSR works normally.

However, it's not the end of the world as demonstrated by GloriousEggroll's Forza Horizon 4 video and the fshack FSR solution can prolong the life of older hardware that are not compatible with Windows 11. On top of that, the fshack FSR method is not exclusive to Valve's Proton. Lutris has launched the beta of version 0.5.9 and among the new features include a "FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) option for compatible Wine versions". That means if you own software from other storefronts like GOG or Humble, then you can use FSR on those games, too.

Closing Thoughts

Was Linux's rise to 1% Steam marketshare a blip or a sign of greater things to come? Based on what I have found from my quasi-investigation, I think there are plenty of signs that suggest that there is legitimate momentum behind the Linux desktop. Enthusiasm surrounding Windows 11, at least among the PC enthusiast crowd, is pretty low. On top of that, the fshack FSR solution is already available on Linux, enabling users of older, incompatible (with W11) hardware to eke out some more performance and years.

That said, there are still a bunch of obstacles Linux needs to overcome to gain broader appeal. Not every one plays video games or game on the PC. There a lot of people who use popular non-gaming software like like Adobe Photoshop and Premiere for work. However, those software are Windows-only. Yes, there are alternatives such as GIMP and Krita, but they work very differently. As a result, you can't just go up to longtime Photoshop users and tell them to learn how to use a different image editing software. It's time consuming and will disrupt their workflow. It's just not going to fly.

On top of that, very rarely do prebuilt PCs come with Linux preinstalled. Even though creating a USB image and installing your favorite Linux distro is pretty easy, it's still a major turn off for a lot of casual users. As soon as you tell them to go to the BIOS and change the boot priorities, you will pretty much lose them immediately.

I have already iterated before and will continue to reiterate that Linux will likely never surpass Windows. However, it doesn't necessarily need to do that. It just needs to gain a large enough marketshare for developers to take notice. Early signs suggest the Steam Deck is preordering very well. Even just a million Steam Deck users will substantially grow the Linux userbase. In addition, Valve has stated that there are many improvements to Proton that have yet to go public, and the company is working with BattlEye and Easy Anti-Cheat to bring compatibility. In the past, I mentioned how multiplayer games have been one of Linux gaming's biggest Achilles heels. If Valve stays true to its word, then the number of compatible games will skyrocket.

And hopefully, the major growth in the Linux userbase will turn heads of software companies that have traditionally only developed for Windows. It may lead to a positive feedback loop that will bring more recognition and interest to Linux.

This the best opportunity the Linux desktop has had since arguably Windows Vista. Hopefully, this time, the opportunity is taken advantage of fully.