Transcript §

• 0:00 [Music]
• 0:01 You must have noticed the trend by now
• 0:02 too. PewDiePie, Lionus, Tech Tips, The
• 0:04 Verge, and Beyond, everyone is talking
• 0:06 about switching to Linux. Their comment
• 0:08 sections seem intrigued for once as
• 0:10 well, and gaming especially seems to be
• 0:12 making a breakthrough on the platform.
• 0:13 The year of the Linux desktop is kind of
• 0:15 a meme that we’ve dismissed for a long
• 0:17 time, but especially for gaming, it
• 0:19 seems like we’re actually at a tipping
• 0:20 point now. So, I got a Steam Deck that
• 0:22 is running Steam OS, which is Linux
• 0:24 based. And I also installed Linux on a
• 0:25 Lenovo Legion Go S and also on a gaming
• 0:28 laptop called the Legion 7 to see what
• 0:30 the excitement was all about. And as you
• 0:32 know me, I care about the business and
• 0:34 the strategic decisions that lead to the
• 0:35 rise of a new technology, at least as
• 0:37 much as I care about the user experience
• 0:39 itself. So, I had to dig into that too,
• 0:41 which for gaming on Linux turned out to
• 0:43 be a real surprise.
• 0:46 [Music]
• 0:49 Disclaimer, one of my viewers actually
• 0:51 lent me his Steam Deck. Thanks, Yan. And
• 0:53 meanwhile, the Legion machines were sent
• 0:55 to me by Lenovo as a loan. And as far as
• 0:57 I know, they’re both going back to the
• 0:58 company once I’m done. My sponsor for
• 1:00 the video is Nebula and no one else. So,
• 1:02 the first instinct I had when I heard
• 1:04 about people talking about the rise of
• 1:05 Linux gaming was to check whether such a
• 1:07 thing was actually happening or if all
• 1:09 of this was just talk. Now, getting hard
• 1:11 numbers about an operating system where
• 1:12 one of the main selling points is that
• 1:14 there’s no tracking can be a little bit
• 1:15 tricky, but we do have a few pointers.
• 1:17 First, IDC estimated that the Steam
• 1:19 Deck, the kind of poster child of Linux
• 1:21 gaming, had sold somewhere in the
• 1:22 neighborhood of 4 million devices in the
• 1:24 beginning of this year, which by now is
• 1:26 probably closer to 5 million. That is
• 1:28 definitely not nothing, but compared to
• 1:30 other game consoles, it’s actually a
• 1:31 very modest figure. Next, we have the
• 1:33 Steam hardware survey, which tells us
• 1:34 all kinds of things about what devices
• 1:36 the Steam store is actively used on. At
• 1:38 the time of writing, Linux made up a bit
• 1:40 over 3% of users on Steam. That puts it
• 1:43 ahead of Mac OS with its 2% share, but
• 1:45 once again far behind Windows. Now,
• 1:48 Valve, the company behind Steam, is also
• 1:49 the company that pushed for technologies
• 1:51 like Proton, which kind of make gaming
• 1:52 on a large scale on Linux possible in
• 1:54 the first place. So, we’re kind of
• 1:55 assuming that most people who are gaming
• 1:57 on Linux are also going to be on Steam,
• 1:59 more or less. Valve says that Steam has
• 2:01 about 30 to 40 million concurrent users,
• 2:03 depending on the time of the day, and
• 2:05 3.2% of that would be about 1.3 million
• 2:08 concurrent Linux users at peak. Now,
• 2:10 most estimates that I’ve seen claim that
• 2:12 Steam in total has about 200 million
• 2:14 users, and that would mean that in total
• 2:16 there’d be around 6 to 7 million people
• 2:18 who use Steam on Linux. Now, is that a
• 2:20 lot? Honestly, not really. But there are
• 2:23 some good news. Gaming on Linux.com put
• 2:25 the Steam figures into a historic
• 2:27 timeline, which allows us to see that
• 2:28 Linux hovered at around 1% for a long
• 2:30 time until the Steam Deck released. And
• 2:32 then with the release of that plus the
• 2:34 OLED tech plus also the end of Windows
• 2:36 10, there’s been a really clear growth
• 2:37 more than tripling the share of Linux in
• 2:39 about 3 years. That’s definitely
• 2:41 something. Then another interesting
• 2:43 thing to look at is the actual
• 2:44 distribution of Linux users on Steam.
• 2:46 You can see that Steam OS, which is of
• 2:48 course running on the Steam Deck, is
• 2:50 leading the chart for now with about
• 2:51 26%. Now, I would have expected this
• 2:54 number to be even higher because I kind
• 2:55 of expected the Steam Deck to just be
• 2:57 the majority of Linux gaming, but
• 2:59 they’re clearly not the only one. In the
• 3:01 list, we can also see other dros that
• 3:02 people use. And I want to point out
• 3:04 Basite at around 5 to 6%. Basite is a
• 3:07 very easy to pick up DRO that is
• 3:08 designed for this kind of new group of
• 3:10 wannabe Linux gaming converts like me,
• 3:12 as this is also what I installed on my
• 3:14 Legion 7i review unit. And unlike most,
• 3:16 Basite actually shares their own usage
• 3:18 numbers. And here too, we can see a very
• 3:20 clear trend. They claim that they have
• 3:22 more than tripled the number of weekly
• 3:24 active users from around 13,000 to
• 3:26 46,000 in just the last 8 months. Now
• 3:29 again, these are systems that are
• 3:30 actually actively using Basite, not just
• 3:33 downloads or whatever. And while 46,000
• 3:35 pales in comparison to most things in
• 3:37 the Windows world, the trend is again
• 3:39 pretty clear. Also, Basite explicitly
• 3:41 claims that the majority of their
• 3:42 downloads are coming from Windows,
• 3:43 meaning these are actually people who
• 3:45 are actively being converted rather than
• 3:47 people who are just dro hopping on
• 3:48 Linux. So overall, then having looked at
• 3:50 all these numbers, I can give you three
• 3:52 pretty clear conclusions. First, Linux
• 3:54 gaming is still very much a niche thing.
• 3:56 there probably no more than a few
• 3:58 million people doing it actively, which
• 3:59 is less than even consoles that are
• 4:00 considered to be flops. Number two, that
• 4:03 niche though is now definitely growing
• 4:05 and growth is seemingly accelerating.
• 4:07 And number three, while the growth was,
• 4:08 I think, primarily driven by the Steam
• 4:10 Deck at first, it now seems to
• 4:12 increasingly be driven by people
• 4:13 actually installing Linux on their PCs,
• 4:15 probably in part as a reaction to
• 4:17 Windows 10 being phased out. I think
• 4:19 there’s a genuinely good chance that
• 4:20 what we’re looking at is kind of the
• 4:21 beginning of the hockey stick moment.
• 4:23 And so I wanted to first tell you what
• 4:25 my experience with Linux gaming has been
• 4:27 like and then to talk about how the
• 4:28 business models of Valve and Microsoft
• 4:30 have been shaping this. So I’m not
• 4:32 traditionally a laptop reviewer and the
• 4:33 benchmarking is a whole art form to
• 4:35 itself. So I’ll just leave the exact
• 4:37 numbers to the pros. That said, my
• 4:38 overall experience as a sort of normie
• 4:40 PC gamer making the Switch for the first
• 4:42 time in a kind of serious way I think is
• 4:44 exactly right for this video. So, let’s
• 4:46 start with the Steam Deck that is
• 4:47 obviously running Steam OS, which is a
• 4:49 specialized version of Arch Linux that
• 4:51 has been configured so that it boots
• 4:52 into this full screen console-like Steam
• 4:54 environment. And both the performance
• 4:55 and the UI have been heavily optimized
• 4:57 for the form factor. Now, in the
• 4:59 background, you still have a full Linux
• 5:00 desktop that you can switch to if you
• 5:02 want to. And this includes also the
• 5:03 ability to install regular desktop apps
• 5:05 like a full web browser, but also other
• 5:07 game libraries for PCs. I installed
• 5:09 something called the heroic launcher
• 5:11 which let me successfully install my
• 5:12 games from GOG including Cyberpunk and
• 5:14 also my two Heroes of Ma Magic games.
• 5:17 Nice. Almost all of the games that
• 5:18 you’ll encounter on Linux are actually
• 5:20 Windows versions that run through some
• 5:22 version of Proton, a compatibility layer
• 5:24 that is developed primarily by Evolve
• 5:25 that lets you run the Windows games on
• 5:27 Linux instead. And this works remarkably
• 5:29 well for the most part. You kind of
• 5:30 don’t even notice that it’s happening.
• 5:32 Combined with the fact that many games
• 5:33 like Cyberpunk have a specific
• 5:35 performance preset that kind of just
• 5:36 says Steam Deck, even if I download them
• 5:38 from another game store like GOG, and I
• 5:40 often get an experience that just works
• 5:42 really well out of the box. The Steam
• 5:44 Deck is also famous for letting you
• 5:45 reliably put it to sleep and to wake it
• 5:47 up with a press of a button, even
• 5:48 midame. And so overall, what you’re left
• 5:50 with is a pretty magical feeling little
• 5:52 machine indeed. People who use the Steam
• 5:54 Deck often really seem to like the Steam
• 5:56 Deck, and I can certainly see why. It’s
• 5:57 a machine unlike any other. But that
• 5:59 said, not everything is optimal on it
• 6:01 either. To start with, I’ve encountered
• 6:03 random bugs here, including my
• 6:04 controller being mapped badly or not
• 6:06 working in a game, or a game launching,
• 6:08 for example, with some of its UI being
• 6:10 offscreen. Usually, you can fix things
• 6:11 by tweaking your settings, and there’s a
• 6:13 site called Proton DB where other gamers
• 6:15 share what tweaks that they’ve applied
• 6:17 to make things work. But there’s a good
• 6:18 chance that you have to juggle multiple
• 6:20 versions of Proton, handle some short
• 6:21 scripts, delete and move around some
• 6:23 DLS, etc. In other words, you have to be
• 6:25 willing to tinker. And of course, the
• 6:27 biggest catch is that some games, and
• 6:29 especially those that lean into heavy
• 6:30 online multiplayer game modes, often
• 6:32 won’t work at all. Primarily because
• 6:34 they rely on kernel level anti-che
• 6:36 software, which Linux just doesn’t
• 6:37 support. Now, this is basically spy
• 6:39 software that is installed along your
• 6:41 game with kernel level access to your
• 6:42 machine. And depending on who you ask,
• 6:44 it is either designed to detect
• 6:46 suspicious behavior and bot software
• 6:47 that’s installed on your Windows PC, or
• 6:49 it’s just a gigantic data harvesting
• 6:51 conspiracy that evil corporations use to
• 6:53 do their evil corporate stuff. You can
• 6:55 guess where on that spectrum most Linux
• 6:57 users typically fall. I think the answer
• 6:59 is probably somewhere in the middle. But
• 7:00 either way, the game makers don’t seem
• 7:02 interested in giving up on it for now.
• 7:03 And so games like Fortnite, Battlefield,
• 7:05 or League of Legends just refuse to play
• 7:07 on Linux with no known path for a
• 7:09 solution. I personally don’t play any
• 7:11 multiplayer games, so for me, this is a
• 7:12 complete non-issue, but it might be a
• 7:13 complete deal breakaker for some. Now,
• 7:15 the Legion Go has official builds for
• 7:17 both Steam OS and also Windows, plus
• 7:19 even Bezite, so you get a lot of
• 7:21 flexibility here. I much prefer the
• 7:23 hardware here over the Steam Deck, by
• 7:24 the way, and especially the screen. And
• 7:26 I tried both Windows and Linux on it,
• 7:27 and I think the trade-offs are pretty
• 7:29 clear. On the plus side for Windows,
• 7:30 it’s of course really nice that
• 7:31 everything just works, not some of your
• 7:33 games some of the time, but all of them.
• 7:35 Plus, you also have a Windows PC if you
• 7:37 want that, too. As a casual gamer, I
• 7:39 thought that the Lenovo Windows
• 7:40 utilities that try to turn your machine
• 7:42 into more of a gaming console experience
• 7:43 worked mostly fine for now, too. While
• 7:45 the more sophisticated Xbox full screen
• 7:47 experience that launched on the Xbox ROG
• 7:49 Alli is coming to this device soon, too.
• 7:52 This will disable most of the Windows
• 7:53 desktop in the background to free up
• 7:55 resources, and it should offer a much
• 7:56 more console-like gaming experience. As
• 7:59 somebody who grew up with Windows, I
• 8:00 honestly didn’t find managing Windows
• 8:02 significantly more annoying than having
• 8:03 to tinker with things and settings and
• 8:05 everything on Linux. But this is a
• 8:06 statement that I think might get me
• 8:08 crucified by people who really love
• 8:09 their Steam Decks. So, just pretend that
• 8:11 I didn’t say that and let’s move on. I
• 8:12 think the real problem for Windows from
• 8:14 a purely usability perspective is that
• 8:16 first, unlike with a Steam OS, sleep is
• 8:18 just completely unreliable here with the
• 8:20 machine often just randomly waking
• 8:22 itself up. And second, the fact that
• 8:23 Windows is clearly not optimized for
• 8:25 this low power form factor. While
• 8:27 Windows supposedly runs games better on
• 8:29 desktops, I got more consistent
• 8:30 performance from Cyberpunk on a 15watt
• 8:33 Steam Deck running through Proton than I
• 8:35 got from the same game running natively
• 8:37 on Windows at 33 watts. Yikes. Now, to
• 8:40 be fair, in many games that I actually
• 8:41 want to play on this form factor, the
• 8:43 difference is kind of irrelevant. Like
• 8:44 Hades, for example, plays beautifully in
• 8:46 both, but yeah, Steam OS overall feels
• 8:48 significantly more optimized. And to
• 8:50 round things up, I also installed Bezite
• 8:52 on the Legion 7i that Lenovo sent me.
• 8:54 And this personally appealed to me even
• 8:56 more than the handhelds. Turns out I’m
• 8:58 kind of just a keyboard and mouse kind
• 8:59 of guy. I thought I’d really enjoy
• 9:01 sitting on a couch and playing a game
• 9:03 for once, but alas, no. Anyway, the best
• 9:05 thing about Bazite is that everything
• 9:06 about it is just so easy. You just go to
• 9:09 the website, you select your hardware,
• 9:10 and you get the right version straight
• 9:12 away. You then flash it from a USB
• 9:13 drive, and everything kind of just
• 9:15 works. Lenovo randomly sent me a machine
• 9:17 with an Intel CPU and also an Nvidia
• 9:19 GPU, which is like the worst case
• 9:20 scenario for Linux, as AMD typically has
• 9:23 much better drivers, but I got zero
• 9:24 issues so far, and everything from
• 9:26 Bluetooth to Wi-Fi to the webcam and
• 9:28 more kind of just work. Also, Bezite is
• 9:30 what’s called an immutable DRO, which
• 9:31 kind of prevents you from messing your
• 9:33 system up too badly. It already comes
• 9:35 with Steam OS and Proton pre-installed,
• 9:37 and everything else is easily
• 9:38 downloadable via Bazar, Heroic for
• 9:40 playing Epic games, GOG and Amazon,
• 9:42 Amazon for everything else, and so on.
• 9:44 And all of the setup is just as easy as
• 9:45 it is on the Steam Deck. Again, I’m not
• 9:47 a benchmarker, but other channels are
• 9:48 saying that on more powerful systems
• 9:50 like this one, and especially on ones
• 9:51 with Nvidia cards, the performance crown
• 9:53 actually flips back to Windows again,
• 9:55 and sometimes significantly so. Though,
• 9:57 I guess if Linux gaming continues to
• 9:59 grow, then driver support will follow
• 10:00 and the performance should eventually
• 10:02 catch up. Of course, it depends on what
• 10:04 exact game that you’re trying to play,
• 10:05 but everything that I tried worked
• 10:06 pretty well. And I guess it just means
• 10:08 that modern gaming hardware is so
• 10:09 overpowered that it just plays
• 10:10 everything that I want. Anyway, I
• 10:12 actually used this laptop with Bazite
• 10:14 daily for about 2 weeks browsing and
• 10:16 writing scripts and all, and it was a
• 10:17 blast. This is a ridiculously nice
• 10:19 laptop in terms of hardware, which I was
• 10:21 happy to see working well with Linux.
• 10:22 And the only reason why I can’t quite
• 10:24 switch yet is that video and image
• 10:25 editing, which is what I do for a
• 10:27 living, is still a little bit hit and
• 10:28 miss compared to Windows. But if you
• 10:30 mostly play games and if the ones that
• 10:32 you play are actually supported by
• 10:33 Linux, then my overall takeaway is that
• 10:35 Linux is now a totally legit platform
• 10:37 for anything from handhelds to laptops,
• 10:39 desktops, and more. Which got me
• 10:41 thinking, how the hell did that happen?
• 10:42 Why did Linux kind of languish for
• 10:44 decades and then suddenly work out now?
• 10:46 Well, I think it can best be explained
• 10:48 by business models and a very specific
• 10:50 analogy. Think about Android, which
• 10:52 actually consists of two distinct parts.
• 10:54 First is what’s called AOSP or the
• 10:56 Android open-source project. This is
• 10:58 strictly speaking the operating system
• 11:00 itself. It includes the kernel, the
• 11:02 drivers, much of the user interface,
• 11:03 etc. Meanwhile, the second part is what
• 11:05 I’ll call the Google services layer.
• 11:07 This includes the Google Play Store, the
• 11:09 pre-installed Google apps, payment
• 11:10 services, and just as importantly, a ton
• 11:13 of different background services from
• 11:14 Google that hook into almost all modern
• 11:16 apps powering push notifications,
• 11:18 location services, APIs to let your bank
• 11:20 check if your phone hasn’t been tampered
• 11:21 with, etc. When most people think of
• 11:23 Android, they tend to think of the first
• 11:25 part. After all, that’s the actual
• 11:26 operating system. But I think the real
• 11:28 power lies with the second part. This is
• 11:30 why Google can afford to make AOSP
• 11:32 mostly open- source and free. And yet,
• 11:34 nobody has successfully built a
• 11:36 competitor to them outside of China.
• 11:38 Amazon came closest with Fire OS, which
• 11:40 was just AOSP with Amazon services on
• 11:42 top. But that has hardly been a
• 11:43 resounding success. Google makes all of
• 11:46 its money through the Google services
• 11:47 layer. It owns the customer and the
• 11:49 payment relationships between all of its
• 11:50 users and its developers. And the
• 11:52 network effect of the ecosystem that
• 11:54 it’s built is basically unbeatable. If
• 11:56 tomorrow Google announced that they
• 11:57 swapped out the underlying operating
• 11:59 system to something like Fuchsia like
• 12:00 they were planning to, or if Samsung
• 12:02 could swap it out for Tyizson and
• 12:03 somehow still keep the Google services
• 12:05 and the accompanying app ecosystem
• 12:07 intact, people would just accept that.
• 12:09 You and I might notice because, you
• 12:11 know, we’re nerds, but most people
• 12:12 probably wouldn’t even really notice.
• 12:14 Like, they mostly just care about their
• 12:15 apps and their services. And of course,
• 12:17 those are intentionally tied to the
• 12:18 Google empire, not the Android
• 12:20 open-source empire. For PC gaming,
• 12:23 Windows has long been the core operating
• 12:24 system, but Steam was slowly becoming
• 12:27 the services layer that is tying it all
• 12:29 together. Yes, there are competing game
• 12:31 stores and launchers and all, but
• 12:32 realistically, Steam is the center of
• 12:34 the PC gaming universe. Exact numbers
• 12:37 are hard to come by, but in a recent
• 12:38 survey, 88% of gaming studios said that
• 12:41 Steam accounted for at least 75% of
• 12:44 their revenue. In other words, almost
• 12:46 everyone buys almost all of their games
• 12:48 from Steam. Steam’s game library,
• 12:50 payment processing, review system,
• 12:52 updates, and cloud syncing for safe
• 12:54 files and so on are to PC gaming,
• 12:56 basically what Google services are to
• 12:57 Android. This is where the real power
• 13:00 resides. So, a while ago, Valve must
• 13:02 have realized that they hold all the
• 13:04 cards. They already own all the customer
• 13:06 relationships. Why would they be playing
• 13:07 on somebody else’s operating system? As
• 13:09 we’ve seen, the operating system on a
• 13:11 technical layer can more or less be
• 13:12 emulated if you write good enough
• 13:14 compatibility software. that is. And
• 13:16 because Steam is also obscenely
• 13:17 profitable, taking not only 10 to 30% of
• 13:20 every game purchase, but also in-game
• 13:22 purchases of what often amount to be
• 13:23 in-game casinos, they had all the money
• 13:26 in the world to finance this emulation.
• 13:28 And not only that, but Valve is also
• 13:29 structured in a way to make very
• 13:31 long-term bats actually possible. The
• 13:33 majority shareholder of the company is
• 13:35 Gabe Newell, their CEO, and the rest of
• 13:37 the shares are mostly distributed among
• 13:38 employees. These people are not only
• 13:41 obviously PC gamers themselves, they can
• 13:43 also afford to make long-term decisions.
• 13:45 There no quarterly reports to make
• 13:47 random stock market analysts happy. Gabe
• 13:49 first went on stage in 2013 declaring
• 13:51 that he thought Linux gaming was the
• 13:53 future and then he spent the last 12 to
• 13:55 13 years trying to make it work.
• 13:57 Financing the development of Proton and
• 13:59 supporting underlying technologies like
• 14:00 Open CL and Vulcan for over a decade
• 14:03 didn’t pay off immediately, but they are
• 14:05 slowly starting to bear fruit. And
• 14:07 meanwhile, I think the Steam Deck
• 14:08 follows this path, too. A public tech
• 14:10 giant like Google or Microsoft would
• 14:11 likely see the launch of a brand new
• 14:13 console with barely a million units in
• 14:15 sales a year a flop, especially if they
• 14:17 had spent more than a decade building up
• 14:19 to it. The product would join their
• 14:21 graveyard real quick. But Valve can
• 14:23 actually afford to play a long game. And
• 14:25 this way, they can see that eventually
• 14:27 they might get a big payoff. As for the
• 14:29 future, I have three big predictions.
• 14:31 One is for hardware, the second is for
• 14:33 how Microsoft will fight back, and the
• 14:34 third is for sales. But that’s a bit
• 14:36 beyond the scope of this video. So if
• 14:38 you want to hear those, I made a whole
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My Thoughts/Notes: