Arch takes the majority because SteamOS is based on it. Unfortunately, I don't think there's anything in the data that would allow discerning between those two.
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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From the comments on the video the uploader said that they use ProtonDB which separates steam deck from normal Arch
I think SteamOS doesn't report itself as Arch, but as SteamOS/Holo.
I'm not sure if that's the case, since looking at the stats you'd expect SteamOS/Holo to beat a couple of these listings if it was truly being counted separately to Arch
ProtonDB reports PC and Steam Deck separately. So unless the video creator took the PC stats and then added in Steam Deck and just counted SteamOS as Arch themselves, it's probably just omitted entirely.
Also actually watching the video: Arch was already riding along at 20-21% before 2022. And in some cases dipped down to 19% mid 2022... So after the Steam Deck launched, the Arch numbers went DOWN. So yet another sign that Arch isn't Arch + SteamOS: this is purely desktop usage.
Manjaro sucks anyway. C'mon, broken certificates 5 fucking times?
I liked Manjaro, but when stuff broke it broke in weird fuckin' ways. My last attempt with it ended when I tried to do some gamedev in Godot and Manjaro started registering my laptop's mousepad input as a joystick 😭
I take broken website certificates over broken bootloaders.
And ManjarNO has both
It never broke on me for much longer than I was running EOS, which did exactly that.
You could've used systemd-boot.
I used what the installer defaulted to during the installation at the time.
"I fogor 💀"
People actually use Arch, and it's that popular? TIL.
It could be mostly steamdeck users, but for me arch is the only distro that works well. You know what you install which makes troubleshooting easy, and it's documented very well.
It's only that high because SteamOS is built on it.
I don't mind but for a desktop I definitely prefer Nobara, I've had no issues installing it getting games running on multiple devices with it.
Such wide swings, especially for Flatpak, make it clear the sampling is low and data is inaccurate and spotty. I wouldn’t base much on this.
Arch linux is there because of the steam deck
Nope, according to the OP the reports are based on Desktop usage on ProtonDB.
I've personally switched over to Arch because steamos is arch based. I know it will probably be just as smooth for other distros but I've wanted to switch to arch before the steam deck anyways. I'm happy with everybody just embracing linux and the distros they feel comfortable in.
Oh ok thanks for clarifying
Well at least Nobara is on the chart.
I wouldn't say goodbye manjaro there are still plenty of users using it. But I'm happy that my distro of choice so far (endeavourOS) is also on the chart I feel like it's a solid choice :)
I installed EndeavousOS on Feb 18, 2023, and it has given me the best gaming experience with the fewest of issues. Previously, I've tried Manjaro, PopOS and Tumbleweed and was met with issues early on that made running the latest AMD hardware troublesome in each, but I experienced none of that with EndeavourOS.
I'm currently on Nobara after EndeavourOS nuked itself and having the pleasure of experiencing their toxic community. I'm even considering going back to Manjaro at this point because that was still the most stable Linux experience I had. Maybe their website cert handling sucks but at least my system was running stable, for much longer at that.
I used to run Manjaro, too and I was happy with it until it broke one day after an update. Arch had launched the archinstall script by then so I tried it and honestly, it makes the installation too easy for Manjaro to make sense anymore.
Pleasantly surprised that Arch tops the chart. Then again, and I might be wrong about this, but to me a clear bias in the ProtonDB data is that those who submit reports to ProtonDB are usually users who are likely used to submitting bug reports and stuff, so obviously not your average "freshly migrated from Windows" gamer.
I think it's also an issue of selection between the bases.
Yes, arch is on top, but Ubuntu, mint, pop (maybe more?) Are all "Ubuntu", so their representation is divided.
Completely agree I was surprised to see Arch on top still! Plus I'm very new at all this...
And Manjaro is Arch.
Oh! That makes it close again!
Maybe I need to look into arch/Manjaro, unless it's not new-friendly.
Arch is very powerful and flexible, but definitely not newbie friendly. I only made the jump after 7 years of using Ubuntu and Debian, and I still had a learning curve.
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The steam deck being based on arch probably influences it a lot too. You can see the same trend on the steam hardware survey results.
edit : My bad actually, the video creator mentions in the comments that this is data without the steam deck section of the site.
I'd probably use arch if there was an easy general immutable/atomic version of it. I just don't trust bleeding edge rolling enough to not have that kind of a safegaurd.
I use arch with btrfs and a pacman hook, that creates a snapshot before and after every update.
You can also configure grub to create new entries for those snapshots and boot directly from them.
For me this is safeguard enough.
Until grub gets nuked.
People are starting to use different bootloaders now so I guess that infamous grub issue ended up being a good push for diversity in bootloader.
Grub has many features & addons that many others are still lacking though. But maybe we'll see some improvements in that area now as well. Still sucks for an end user.
It's a pain. Stuff does break for no reason. I'm a slave to it's enhanced hardware compatibility and higher success rate at running proton games that are borderline. You just can't beat the wiki and the community support. It's too good to not have. But you still run into issues it's just that I'd be no better off on a different distro.
Maybe BlendOS?
I put Garuda on my wife's gaming PC, she absolutely loves it & it does everything it should, no problems whatsoever. And it's based on arch, so if there is something, I know how to fix it. Awesome beginner gaming distro imo, recommend!
I 2nd Garuda. I absolutely love it.
Me gaming on gentoo
Ubuntu has 13% marketshare dam thats mighty impressive I'm surprised I fought ubuntu would be way lower
minty fresh baby
My opinion on Manjaro seems unpopular, but I still like it. I daily-drive Manjaro happily.
It's Arch that just works out of the box.
But most importantly, I already have it set up, and I am lazy. If it's not broken (too much), don't fix it.
My sister spent hours trying to play dvds on her new windows laptop ; I found her getting pissed off , turning to percussive maintenance, and starting to fill out a warranty claim on the dvd player . . .
It took about 15 minutes to download , flash (figure out how to change the sodding boot order) and run Manjaro installer/live usb stick to demonstrate how real computers can just do things like play dvds.
Manjaro is great for cases like that, since it works, is easy, and will have pretty well up to date kernel.
I mean don't get me wrong, installing arch from scratch is a good fun and educational process and very nostalgic for the 1990s . . . but i'm not doing all that on my sister's laptop just to demonstrate how shit windows is.
and i'm very grateful for valve doing it all for steamdeck.
id really like to try out nobara some day
That's what I plan on putting on the framework 16" when I get it
I use gentoo on my gaming computer.