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Steam hardware survey does not appear on Linux #2286
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The hardware survey will appear at random to users. Since the hwsurvey page has ~2% of users on Linux, they must be seeing the survey no? |
Two things: |
I have seen the hardware survey come up on my Linux Steam. It does seem it chooses randomly, and does not pull everyone all the time. |
I have installed steam on linux about 20 or so times, just because I am always installing new distros and I have only seen the survey pop up on me one time. So that kinda gives you an idea of how rare it is. |
I have not seen the survey at all on Linux. Is there a reason why it does not just upload the information every time you log in? |
I haven't seen it ever, too, except on Windows, where it pops up every time. This randomness sounds weird to me. |
Another weird thing - I have several scratch-monkey / alternative steam accounts. I did not have the HW survey pop up on the Linux version with any of them. Yet, if I log in on Windows, it always pops up on all of them. |
I had the hwsurvey only once, in December 2012. I never used steam on windows, except one or two times with wine. So I have no idea how often it happens on win. |
In April I used Steam on Linux almost everyday and never got the survey. I ran Steam on Windows about 7 times and I got the survey about 5 times. |
I have never seen it on Linux. I've been asked in Wine but never on Linux (btw. I'm almost non-stop on the native Steam Linux client. Usually once at a month on the Windows client in Wine. it must be a bug). |
I think I’ve only gotten it once while being on Linux and in the years I've been using Steam I think it's asked me a total of 3-4 times. It's far too little to be accurate. |
I can confirm I have never seen the survey on Linux, but when I installed Steam on Windows, it popped up immediately. |
I've received the survey once since december last year. In between that time, I've changed from 12.04 to 12.10 and finally to 13.04. Even installing Steam for Linux on other Ubuntu machines, I don't get the survey. Yet, when opening the Windows version of Steam in Wine, I get it every month without fail thus far. |
I've used the native Linux client since the beta and never once seen the survey on Linux. |
In my 3+ years of using Steam I've only ever had the survey come up once in Windows and so far not at all in Linux. It's supposed to be a random sample across all Steam users. If there is a bug here, I'd be more concerned that it might be certain users being oversampled. |
I never once seen the survey on Linux. |
I've never seen the survey in Linux, ever. I loaded Steam in Wine a single time, and BAM - survey. |
Same problem |
I've seen it only once on Windows, I believe. Never on Linux. |
Another month passed and the linux share is even lower than in May. I didn't get survey once on linux version and when I've started Steam in Wine it popped up immediately. Something is very wrong here. Any comments from Valve? |
OP here, |
I don't think I've ever seen the survey in the years I've been playing games on Steam (I think since 2004). Maybe I'm just unlucky, but it seems like there may be a problem. I've been using it on Linux exclusively since the Linux beta began. |
Same thing for me, my Windows version of steam asked me to complete the survey 3 times in the last week, I finally cave in and did it today, but the previous times I just closed the dialog and hoped it would ask me while I was playing on Linux. And I do spend a lot more time on Linux with my Steam always running (though it is Arch Linux and not Ubuntu). So it really looks to me like the survey has a big flaw or bug because otherwise it sure looks like it's biased toward Windows. Please fix this. |
Never see it on Linux, though it pops on Windows when I occasionally log into it for games not ported yet. |
While running Steam using wine, i saw it very often, but with the native linux client, i have yet to see it. Something is not right. |
To all those who see the survey "lots", "every time", etc on Windows and/or WINE: Did you actually fill out the survey? If so, did it continue to ask you to fill out the survey after that point? I've been using Steam on a regular basis for 3.5 years and have only ever got the survey twice. Once for Windows, and once (a couple of weeks ago) on Linux. The survey is NOT supposed to show up lots and definitely not every single time - it's supposed to be a random sample across all Steam installs and should be EXTREMELY RARE for any Steam user to actually see it when they open their client. Those who haven't seen the survey on Linux or have only seen it once: That's what is supposed to happen, it is not a bug! |
I thought it was supposed to sample every steam user over the course of a year (so 1/12th of the active player base per month)? Or has that changed? |
Only a Valve developer can answer that question for sure - as far as I am aware there is currently NO official word on this. It is listed as one of the "gathered/assumed fact" in some random thread (search steam survey FAQ), however that section starts with this disclaimer:
Personally but I'd be surprised if that was ever the case - The first time I ever saw the survey in Windows was earlier this year, over 3 years after joining Steam. Also, I would seriously question whether the survey selects users at random - I suspect it selects Steam installs at random. |
There was a bug in Steam a long time ago which make steam not to prompt the users on after a certain condition was triggered. IIRC it was something Win7 related, but I am not sure. Because of that bug, many users never got the survey prompt or got it only once. When it was fixed, users got the prompt en masse, and many - for the first time. (I got the survey prompt for the first time after that bug was fixed.) |
I'm not a fanatic gamer, but I've steam on my Linux systems for many years, and I confirm that I've never seen the hardware survey. So I think closing this issue is does not reflect the suggestion that this issue is fixed. |
I have Steam for Linux launched daily from the time of the first beta versions. And I can confirm I have never seen this survay as well, while with Steam under Wine it showed immediately after installation and few times later. |
"The hardware survey is working as intended on Linux". I've been thinking about it, and maybe Valve Software are right - this is not a bug. The Hardware Survey is clearly intended to only show on Linux-based operating systems rarely... So this is obviously not a bug - it's a design flaw, very likely an intentional one too, given the attitude of Valve Software and its developers towards this design flaw. |
This is not a bug , it is a feature.
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It's not a "feature" if it is deliberately taking something away from its users... It would need to add value to be considered a "feature". Clearly this does not add value to users of Linux-based operating systems... Therefore, it is obviously a design flaw. |
I think people wrongly assume that without the survey they're not being counted. Why do you think so? Steam definitely knows which platform it's running on, the survey only covers things that can't be detected automatically like if you have a mic or a Steam Link. If Valve is not interested in these things on each PC you can never see a survey. Most likely they sample some machines and extrapolate the results. And since it's a random process, surely there would be people who never got a survey. Clearing the registry file makes it appear instantly or so I read. But that's not the point, you've already been counted as a Linux user, no matter the survey. |
You're wrong. If it already counts each system without survey , why OS usage statics , gpu statics , installed ram etc. listed on Steam Hardware Survey page? Why they even call it as " Survey " then? Because if Valve would do that ( collecting data without survey ), that would be data collection without consent. |
I don't doubt that Valve Software secretly collects data regarding the machines on which it runs... But officially, the Hardware Survey is the only way such statistics are collected and thus it is the only source from which platform statistics are sourced (at least publicly). Furthermore, because the data is readily available to developers, inaccurate statistics mislead developers by leading them to believe that there are less Linux gamers than there realistically are. |
I dunno, historical reasons maybe? I don't think anyone would design a system that allows to skew representations because some users don't want to participate. And the survey also doesn't pop up on Windows each month, AFAIK, so it surely extrapolates data. Then if even one user doesn't want to participate the whole OS share would fluctuate for quite a bit, and considering the Windows majority being overall less tech savvy or caring about their share, I think they skip the survey much more often than we, Linux users, do. But their share isn't going anywhere lower. |
Waay back when I used to use Microsoft Windows-based operating systems, I would see the survey once a month and whilst I haven't used a Windows-based operating system in many years now, there are countless users which claim this is still the case... |
Well, still it doesn't prove that without the survey your system is not counted. Anyway, Valve knows better. If the survey wouldn't report the real numbers they would surely fix it. It's not in their best interests to underrepresent Linux. |
When i was a Windows only guy , 3 years ago i was prompting with survey at least every 3 months. I'm on only Linux for three years and only time i saw a survey was 1.5 years ago. Do the math. When i was still on Windows , i would see survey at least 12 times ; let's say 10 for the sake of it. While on Linux i saw only once. I also did an experiment with Windows 10 and Wine lately and immediately prompted for survey. So yes , Steam Survey is not working on Linux. Just like it did with different locales , password and username storage issues etc. Sure , they're saying Windows first as much of users are on there. But lately i'm seeing much more " We gave you Steam , so be happy with it peasants. This is not a bug and we don't care. " |
*Second paragraph : Change when with if. |
I was able to force it to appear by typing the following command in the terminal:
This is basically the same done here but for Linux. It stays in the "Sending gathered data..." phase for a very long time, and I'm not sure it ever finishes sending. This issue was noted in #5550 |
This did not work for me, and all I saw was "Sending gathered data..." and it froze there. |
In their defense, this seems to be freezing in windows as well. |
Today, for the first time ever, the survey appeared on my Fedora Linux system. |
It didn't for me |
I just got it yesterday for the first time in a long time. |
I got the survey today. Last recorded SurveyDate was 2019-02-04, almost one year ago. |
Mine says "2019-03-01", but no survey appeared in this date. |
It has already been established that this works as intended; not everyone is supposed to get the survey. It seems kind of like a lottery, and I'm not sure how useful it is all in all (here's a nice, if a bit dated article about the survey in general: https://cheesetalks.net/steamsurvey.php). I feel like I've been invited to participate somewhat often actually, both via the native Linux client and Windows client running via Wine (unfortunately I've not kept count nor recorded the dates). I would like having that luck in a real lottery. :] Rather than commenting to this already closed issue, starting a new one (as a feature request, requesting for some sort of changes) might be a better idea, although I suspect there might already be a few of those around (taking into consideration venues outside of the Linux issue tracker as well). |
I have been using the Linux steam client exclusively on Linux since it came out, I have never been offered a steam survey! |
So how many Linux gamers are there, really?? :( |
I haven't gotten the survey in a while.
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Something is kind of fake about my last survey entry:
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Just tried to force up a survey, it did not appear!
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I've been using the Linux client since the beta in 2011 and it feels like I get it about every 2-3 years on average, but the data I have suggests that it's closer to once a year. Personally, I think the survey shouldn't be randomized as they say it is because that opens up the question of whether it's truly random, as we see here, and it's not a true representation of the entire userbase but an approximation based on a fraction of users. That isn't great when the historical data is compared, as it is directly on the results page, and some people and publications speculate about what caused even the smallest of changes. I would suggest by default it should prompt users every month that they are logged into the client and allow them to opt into automatic collection our opt out entirely. Let's take the June results to show how small changes in a large dataset can mean large changes in small data points.
% change of OS = % change of all / (% of all - % change of all) OSX dropping by a full quarter in one month certainly looks suspicious. It would help to have the raw numbers along with each percentage. While it may appear that users switched from OSX and Linux to Windows, it's very possible that the user counts moved opposite of the percentage share because the total user count changed. Anyway, I digress. To help determine the truth of this survey frequency issue, I think we need a more scientific analysis of data from installations across all platforms. We aren't going to get anyone without the issue showing up here and even if Windows users got the survey just as infrequently, they don't have the same reason to be concerned about it that we do. Windows is so far ahead that they don't care about the market share, while we're afraid of anything that might make Linux appear even slightly less popular than it is. That said, either get more data from your friends and family or give up on this issue. Here's what I found from all my copies of config.vdf and from others I've asked. I'll edit as I receive more data.
* Some survey dates may have been missed, in which case the days since actual previous survey may be lower. |
Last time I got a Steam Hardware Survey prompt on Steam for Linux was on December.
After that, it never prompted me again.
Meanwhile, if I start Steam Windows client (either on Wine or real Windows, doesn't matter) I do get the a survey prompt all the time. (I cancel it, so it asks me each time)
I would like to submit my stats for the survey as a Linux user, so it would be great if it started working on Linux for me again.
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