I still can't quite believe it but the Linux user share on Steam has not only remained above 1% for three months, it's actually risen again. We continue to track it each month on our dedicated page but I think it deserves a mention again.
This has been relatively big news for a few months now as we covered when it initially hit 1% again, and last month where it actually stuck. As of September 2021, Linux has managed to hit 1.05% on the Steam Hardware Survey.
Want to see what systems our readers are running? Check out our statistics page.
Going by the last time Valve told us what their monthly active user count was, we can guesstimate that there's around 1,264,200 monthly active users for Linux on Steam.
According to the Valve survey when filtered to just Linux, here's what people are using:
- Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS 64 bit 15.38% +15.38%
- "Manjaro Linux" 64 bit 13.15% +0.43%
- "Arch Linux" 64 bit 11.49% +0.35%
- Pop!_OS 21.04 64 bit 7.57% +0.21%
- Ubuntu 21.04 64 bit 6.42% -0.18%
- Linux Mint 20.2 64 bit 6.01% +0.51%
- Other 39.99% +4.67%
Still not really clear why we are seeing this surge in users. It's quite likely it's as a result of the Steam Deck, which has given Steam Play Proton and Linux more advertising direct from Valve and the wider media. We've seen a lot more posts about people trying out Linux across various social networks, Reddit and more. Regardless of the reason though, it is of course a really great thing to see more people trying out Linux for gaming, work and more. Hopefully this will continue!
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: g000h- People are curious about Linux. In what ways is it different to Windows. Maybe I'd prefer it. Maybe trying it out will be fun.
Also there's tradition that if Microsoft messes up, people get curious about Linux. I think going as far back as Windows Vista. If there's mess on Linux side, there's also possibility to switch distros instead of just going back to Windows.
3 Likes, Who?
Not related to gaming, but at work, in a public school, they changed about 1/3 of Windows to Linux because of Win11 "killing" some of the machines.
So instead of having 1/3 less computers, they tried Linux (Mint), and they are finding they like it...
So instead of having 1/3 less computers, they tried Linux (Mint), and they are finding they like it...
15 Likes, Who?
Quoting: AnzaQuoting: g000h- People are curious about Linux. In what ways is it different to Windows. Maybe I'd prefer it. Maybe trying it out will be fun.
Also there's tradition that if Microsoft messes up, people get curious about Linux. I think going as far back as Windows Vista. If there's mess on Linux side, there's also possibility to switch distros instead of just going back to Windows.
I recall a lot of talk about people moving from Windows 7 (which by Windows standards was rather good) now that it's lost support from Microsoft early last year. I imagine by now people are starting to notice the effects of no longer having updates and are interested in something that's *not* the newer versions of Windows.
2 Likes, Who?
Would be interested in the "Other", since what we see is all Ubuntu or Ubuntu based or Arch or Arch based.
Would like to know how others, as Solus, Fedora, Suse are doing. There are not so many big players, but personally with Fedoras switch to Wayland that would be interesting.
Would like to know how others, as Solus, Fedora, Suse are doing. There are not so many big players, but personally with Fedoras switch to Wayland that would be interesting.
2 Likes, Who?
For me I switched due to my PC (i7-6700k and a 3090FE) not being Windows 11 compatible. I was so annoyed at Microsoft with their idiotic requirements that it was really the straw that broke the camels back and I see/saw it as nothing more than a scam to get people buying new hardware, in not so great times to do so either.
Enough is enough.
I currently still have Windows 10 installed on the main HD but I'm not bothered with it.
I run Garuda Linux as my main distro now because it just works well with the 3090 whereas near all other arch distros fail to either boot up live images or fail after install showing black screens or not recognising the nvidia 3090 correctly.
Also running ZorinOS16 on another drive (fantastic Ubuntu based distro) and I've a third smaller ssd which I use then for trying other Linux distros out on.
Garuda Linux though is tops for me, everything just works really well and is the most stable arch based distros I've ever used.
Love your site btw, enjoy reading it every day.
Enough is enough.
I currently still have Windows 10 installed on the main HD but I'm not bothered with it.
I run Garuda Linux as my main distro now because it just works well with the 3090 whereas near all other arch distros fail to either boot up live images or fail after install showing black screens or not recognising the nvidia 3090 correctly.
Also running ZorinOS16 on another drive (fantastic Ubuntu based distro) and I've a third smaller ssd which I use then for trying other Linux distros out on.
Garuda Linux though is tops for me, everything just works really well and is the most stable arch based distros I've ever used.
Love your site btw, enjoy reading it every day.
9 Likes, Who?
I'm on Pop!_OS for most stable OS now. Don't have any Win and i don't care about them.
I have try almost all distros in distrowatch top 100, and at least i stay with POP, because is super stable with any updates.
It's not the fastest, but super stable.
I have one small SSD to try all new distros.
I found that, if you have too many boot options(when you press: (F1, F2, F11, F12, ESC) when boot PC, you will get system crash.
When i got like 20+ boot options left from all distro i try, i need to clean all unused UEFI boot records.
Then all are ok with boot options.
From my experience i can say that:
Arch-based, and Viod Linux distros are the fastest with booting and updating/installing packages.
Deepin are good looking, but slow with booting and updating.
Ubuntu 20.04+ breaks often after updates. You will get black screen after booting or cicling log-in. So i need fix it often, sometime i cannot. So i move to POP and don't see any break in any way.
POP are Ubuntu based, but they have many packages that replaces Ubuntu's packages for good.
Last edited by deathxxx on 3 October 2021 at 9:06 am UTC
I have try almost all distros in distrowatch top 100, and at least i stay with POP, because is super stable with any updates.
It's not the fastest, but super stable.
I have one small SSD to try all new distros.
I found that, if you have too many boot options(when you press: (F1, F2, F11, F12, ESC) when boot PC, you will get system crash.
When i got like 20+ boot options left from all distro i try, i need to clean all unused UEFI boot records.
Then all are ok with boot options.
From my experience i can say that:
Arch-based, and Viod Linux distros are the fastest with booting and updating/installing packages.
Deepin are good looking, but slow with booting and updating.
Ubuntu 20.04+ breaks often after updates. You will get black screen after booting or cicling log-in. So i need fix it often, sometime i cannot. So i move to POP and don't see any break in any way.
POP are Ubuntu based, but they have many packages that replaces Ubuntu's packages for good.
Last edited by deathxxx on 3 October 2021 at 9:06 am UTC
0 Likes
Quoting: AnzaQuoting: g000h- People are curious about Linux. In what ways is it different to Windows. Maybe I'd prefer it. Maybe trying it out will be fun.
Also there's tradition that if Microsoft messes up, people get curious about Linux. I think going as far back as Windows Vista. If there's mess on Linux side, there's also possibility to switch distros instead of just going back to Windows.
I know I got frustrated with windows background tasks when I was around 14 and found out about Linux but didn't have a disk to burn. Just before I started my first year of uni my internet stopped working. I looked online untill I found this comment on a how to fix internet on windows video saying it was an update to edge. I reverted to the previous windows update and then paused OS updates. It worked temporally which I assume was because the broken code was part of update and thus removed. However because it was part of Microsoft edge and that's an app the broken code came in via an app update. Thus when I rebooted the internet stopped working. Do I used USB tethering to burn a flash drive and here I am. To think if windows had some sort of accessable package manager like macOS android, probably IOS this wouldn't have been an issue
4 Likes, Who?
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