lemm.ee

-20 points

7 months ago

Ubuntu is installed by default on many computers.

SteamOS is installed on more computers, though.

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gaylord_fartmaster@lemmy.world

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15 points

7 months ago

You don’t honestly believe that, right? Like you’re aware that the Steam hardware survey only includes Steam users that have it installed and choose to participate in the survey? There are way more computers and servers running Ubuntu than there are steam decks.

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-8 points

7 months ago

You don’t honestly believe that, right?

Context is computers dual booting Windows and Ubuntu, so obviously consumer hardware and not servers and also not multiple containers on one device. There are millions of Steam Decks sold already and Steam Deck is consumer hardware which means that there are millions of individual devices running SteamOS.

servers running Ubuntu

Sure there are hardcore users that run dozens of containers simultaneously and Ubuntu is quite a popular choice among those. Completely different topic from the one I’ve replied to, though.

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metaldream@sopuli.xyz

8 points

7 months ago

Steam numbers are completely meaningless. There’s absolutely no way SteamOS outnumbers Ubuntu even if we limit this comparison to desktop installs. Ubuntu’s been around for a very long time and many of its users wouldn’t show up on Steam because they don’t game.

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5 points

7 months ago

If you look at just my household, Ubuntu and its derivatives outnumber SteamOS by a factor of 7:1, not even counting numerous VMs and containers, or 3:1 if you’re just counting desktops, laptops and tablets. But if you look at my steam usage, Ubuntu hasn’t shown up there in over a year.

I probably spend 10x as much time on Ubuntu machines as I spend on my Steam Deck, but the Steam hardware survey would never surface that fact, nor is it intended to.

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-2 points

7 months ago

If you look at just my household

No, I won’t because anecdotal evidence is no statistic.

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4 points

7 months ago

Sure, but it’s often a clearer way to explain why a statistic is misleading.

In this case, my anecdote shows an example of why the steam hardware survey is not, and was never intended to be, an accurate depiction of what distros people are using overall. Instead, it’s a depiction of what distros people are using for Steam, which is the point of the statement above mine.

Using anecdote instead of statistical data is a bad idea. But so is ignoring anecdotes simply because they’re anecdotes, as anecdotes are often one of the best ways to find limitations in statistical data.

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-6 points

7 months ago

Steam numbers are completely meaningless.

No, they are an actual statistic, whereas you deniers just have gut feeling and literally nothing else.

There’s absolutely no way SteamOS outnumbers Ubuntu even if we limit this comparison to desktop installs.

[citation needed]

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6 points

7 months ago

I don’t know if millions is as big a number you think it is

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Aria@lemmygrad.ml

1 point

7 months ago

I don’t know the methodology, but this article from about a year ago estimated 40 million Ubuntu users. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/almost-40-percent-of-ubuntu-users-vulnerable-to-new-privilege-elevation-flaws/
Which compares to what, 2 million Steam Deck sales? 3 million? And how many of them remain active users? Doubt it’s even double digit percent.

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5 points

7 months ago

[Citation Needed]

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-5 points

7 months ago

[Citation Needed]

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5 points

7 months ago

Irrelevant Citation

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-3 points

7 months ago

Provide a better one or keep quiet.

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3 points

7 months ago

As I’ve already explained to you elsewhere, that’s not how this works. You are the one who made the claim. The burden is on you to provide a good backing for said claim. When people asked for that backing, you provided something that does not back up that claim. It’s not on anyone else to provide an alternative claim, as that would be a variation of attempting to shift the burden of proof.

Personally, I’m not sure if good enough data to provide an answer to everyone’s satisfaction exists. But that doesn’t mean we get to shortcut the process by claiming that a data set means something it doesn’t. Some other data that one could theoretically provide that would be of similar quality to what you’ve provided (that is, decent quality data that measures something related but cannot be reasonably extrapolated to verify or falsify your claim) include:

Distro breakdowns from the Snap store (this would overrepresent distros with Snap preinstalled)
Distro breakdowns from Flathub (this would overrepresent distros with Flatpak preinstalled and flathub preconfigured)
Distro breakdowns from web statistics (this would underrepresent privacy-centric distros and hide the distro for people who, for example, use a flatpak of their browser)
Cloud vendor distro breakdowns

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-1 points

7 months ago

As I’ve already explained to you elsewhere, that’s not how this works.

So you say…

You are the one who made the claim. The burden is on you to provide a good backing for said claim.

I have no burden to provide anything but I did anyway out of courtesy, you and your friends just refuse that out of gut feeling.

Personally, I’m not sure if good enough data to provide an answer to everyone’s satisfaction exists.

So there is, according to your own words, absolutely no credible evidence that Ubuntu is popular on desktops at all. So everybody here claiming how popular Ubuntu is, is making claims without backing them up. Funny how your fervor isn’t with them and their “burden to provide a good backing for said claim”. Seems you are not that objective about that matter.

Fact is, Steam is widely used by “regular” people (which this sub-thread is about) and therefore the best statistic there is about distribution usage outside the “techie sphere”.

So you are “not sure if good enough data to provide an answer to everyone’s satisfaction exists” that Ubuntu is popular and the statistic that exists says it isn’t that popular among non-techie users. Good that we have this settled now!

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