this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] Norgur@kbin.social 128 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Can we talk about the definition of a "surge", please!

[–] joshhsoj1902@lemmy.ca 68 points 9 months ago (5 children)

What percentage increase do you feel is required for surge to be a reasonable definition. A 35% increase feels surge-y me.

[–] soggy_kitty@sopuli.xyz 23 points 9 months ago (3 children)

The council planted a new tree on my road, trees surged in population from 1 to 2 yesterday

[–] hdnsmbt@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago

100% surge is legit

[–] joshhsoj1902@lemmy.ca 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's why we're talking about relative percentages.

In your example we would need to know how many trees existed on your road/city before. If there were less than 3 or 4 trees in your city before this, saying there was a surge is likely fine.

[–] soggy_kitty@sopuli.xyz 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I gave you that information, I said "from 1 to 2" and added context of "a tree" (singular)

My terribly made point is that although technically correct when talking about relative increase it's dumb as fuck to say trees "surged in population" after adding just one more on one street. It's a drop on the ocean.

I feel like the term surge respects the final total relative to what its maximum could be as well as the relative increase. But obviously language is regional and up for interpretation

[–] joshhsoj1902@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 months ago

I'm super confused by your point.

In this case we're looking at Steam.

I have no clue how many people submit to the steam survey, but I'll assume it's representative.

A quick google suggests steam has about 120 million active users.

Linux went from about 1.4% to 1.9%.

Rough math says Linux went from 1.7 million to about 2.3 million.

Or an increase of 600 000.

That a lot, both in relative terms and in real terms.

Here's a counter example for you.

You own stock in banana company. Over one day the price increases 2x. All the news agency's are talking about how banana surged in price today. Will you then suggest that banana didn't surge in price because it only makes up 1% of the overall stock market?

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 2 points 9 months ago

Given the sheer amount of Steam users, it's still not a bad increase.

[–] agame@lemm.ee 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] CheesyFox@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago
[–] Helix@feddit.de 2 points 9 months ago

Small number random samples in big data sets have huge error margins. You need to smooth this over time to see the real trend.

[–] ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

It’s not just a percentage thing. 1 person yesterday to 2 people today is a 100% increase. Not much of a surge, at least in terms of news worthiness. Going from 6% to 10% sounds more news worthy than going from 1% to 2% despite the latter being a much larger percentage increase.

[–] sekhat@lemmy.temporus.me 5 points 9 months ago

Considering the many millions of steam accounts. A 1% increase is nothing to sniff at.

[–] joshhsoj1902@lemmy.ca 3 points 9 months ago

Of course, percentage just help show relativity. It's why people can look at a 0.5% increase and dismiss it as not significant.

Would it help if I translated the percentage for you? Linux surged 600000 to 2.3 million.

[–] porksoda@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

It's not the percentage total but the speed of increase.

[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 21 points 9 months ago

A delicious canned energy drink from the 90s.

[–] soggy_kitty@sopuli.xyz 5 points 9 months ago

Click bait media

[–] SamXavia@kbin.run 58 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I'm guessing this is because of more sales of the Steam Deck, haven't got myself one yet but I'd love to as everyone that has gotten ones has said it's worth the money as well as is a great way to get through your games on the go.

[–] brax@sh.itjust.works 15 points 9 months ago

That, but also the splash buff of Proton making a lot of games work for Linux outside of Steam Decks has probably helped too.

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Add the article says, the surge is entirely thanks to the Deck. There was a 35% surge in overall use but 43% of that use is the Deck so PC/laptop use has actually dropped.

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

I'd say some of that drop was punters like me who were already gaming on Linux and have just moved over to the deck now.

I have a dock for mine and it's really the only thing I use for gaming now as my laptop is very old.

[–] vanderbilt@beehaw.org 4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

It’s been pretty good. So long as you stick to verified and playable games your experience is going to be pretty solid.

[–] niisyth@lemmy.ca 4 points 9 months ago

That and Emudeck.

The most seamless retro gaming setup I've used yet.

[–] averyminya@beehaw.org 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

TBH I've yet to come across any game I haven't been able to play (aside from the obvious VR/occasional anti-cheat), most unsupported games just haven't been tested for most cases

Edit: out of curiosity I actually went through my library to see just how many unsupported games I could download and try (again, not the VR ones lol).

I ended up getting caught up playing Revita all day and it says unsupported but it definitely works! For anyone else interested in that game, it is having some development quirks but there's a public beta branch of it that seems to be the "definitive" version of the game.

Uploaded a control scheme template for the beta since there wasn't one I liked :D

Then I tried an old DOS game Litil Divil which also worked just fine. I'd have tried some others but like I said, addicting game be addicting

[–] vanderbilt@beehaw.org 2 points 9 months ago

Same, I’m not a big multiplayer person so most of the time it works out. My latest has been Lethal Company, my first new multiplayer game this year 😂. Been a blast.

[–] GammaGames@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How many are there? I always see more games getting added

[–] nous@programming.dev 4 points 9 months ago

6 of the top 10 are verified or playable or 43% of the top 1000 games. But verified and playable is only a subset of the games that work, quite a few unsupported games do as well. If you go by medals the 7 of the top 10 are silver ranked or better (minor issues but generally playable) and 88% of the top 1000. So there are a lot of games that are playable that are still listed as unsupported on the deck.

You can see the numbers for various different things at https://www.protondb.com/ as well as different reports for all the games (including some tips on how to get things to work or work better).

[–] itsPina@hexbear.net 28 points 9 months ago (4 children)

id like to think this is because I alone decided to install opensuse (its been an awful experience)

[–] Secret300@sh.itjust.works 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Do you mean Linux in general or just Open suse? Never used it other than booting it up and trying out the live environment

[–] 0x4E4F@infosec.pub 5 points 9 months ago

Feel the pain 😂.

[–] Onlytanner@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If you're referring to openSUSE rather than Linux in general, I have had the opposite experience. I had been on Manjaro for the past couple of years and decided to switch to openSUSE Tumbleweed on a whim and everything for the most part has just worked out of the box with minimal troubleshooting (or just a lot less than I remember when I was originally configuring my Manjaro install). What all have you had problems with?

[–] itsPina@hexbear.net 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Heres my biggest complaints so far:

it takes like 45 seconds for my OS to wake from sleep

sometimes my login screen is on my left monitor, sometimes on my right, sometimes on both!

It took me 3 hours to get wallpaper engine running

My package manager keeps telling me I am missing dependencies that I have verified exist.

video games dont perform as well on Linux as they do on windows (even baby games like Risk of Rain Returns which should run on pretty much anything perfectly)

half the time I reboot my computer I get some weird nvidia error, other times I dont at all. Generally when I reboot my computer it just stalls for like 45 seconds before actually rebooting.

it was very unclear what I needed to install to get the latest nvidia drivers installed. Got it working after a few hours of trial and error.

theres some more complaints but those are the ones off the top of my head.

oh also applying themes seems very broken. Every time I apply a theme it grabs icons from a completely different theme. For instance I applied a theme called dracula, didnt like it so I switched back to the opensuse default theme, after a while I found a different theme and applied it but suddenly all of my icons were dracula theme again... also its very hit or miss whether all of the theme actually applies.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Opensuse is a challenge after living in Debian world for a while.

Pop-os is where I eventually ended up. Ubuntu with built in i3 style tiling and none of the snap garbage.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] balancedchaos@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's an excellent distro. My first, after a poor Ubuntu experience years prior. I'll always have good things to say.

[–] AtmaJnana@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

LMDE is Mint without the Ubuntu. Don't mind me, just spreading the good word.

[–] balancedchaos@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Oh yeah, LMDE is definitely the future of Mint. Good point.

[–] static@midwest.social 14 points 9 months ago

I just removed Windows from my desktop and went straight Linux after seeing how well things ran on my Deck.

[–] affiliate@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

bill’s days are numbered

[–] CeeBee@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

I mean, he's not exactly a spring chicken anymore.