Linux overtakes macOS users on Steam thanks to Steam Deck

The year of the Linux handheld.

A pretty massive increase and the biggest in a single month for years. So why? Well, considering Valve just recently had a huge sale on the Steam Deck, it's probably not all that surprising. A lot of people over the last month will have been playing with their Steam Deck that ships with SteamOS Linux.

But Liam can that really be the reason, I might be wrong but I thought you wouldn't get surveyed on the Deck for the initial few months or so?
Also I got a Deck as well and I wasnt (at least actively) surveyed 🤔

Well anyway nice news though I expect a drop next month as well, it will be interesting to see if it swings back to "normal" or if it can at least keep parts of that share.

The Steam Deck does get the survey, it didn't initially at the start but that was solved a long time ago. As for you not getting it: it's random, it's a survey, not everyone gets it - that's how surveys work.

Some buzzkills on Reddit have mentioned that the reason is Mac gamers using Apple Game Porting Toolkit which uses the Windows version of the Steam client.

Somehow I don't think so, since even years back Steam was detecting Wine environment...

Some buzzkills on Reddit have mentioned that the reason is Mac gamers using Apple Game Porting Toolkit which uses the Windows version of the Steam client.

Somehow I don't think so, since even years back Steam was detecting Wine environment...

Even if it's true, it would have resulted in a decline of MacOS - which we don't see.


Last edited by Eike on 2 August 2023 at 5:01 pm UTC

the reason is Mac gamers using Apple Game Porting Toolkit

This would result in an increase in "Other" which clearly hasn't happened.

Finally I can start using "You have a Mac build but not a Linux build even though it has a larger market share" as an argument to convince devs to support Linux

I don't think this will work, most Mac ports were made when Mac had a higher share. (%5?) These days Mac users are ignored just like us by large publishers.


Last edited by mr-victory on 2 August 2023 at 5:32 pm UTC

I wonder how many "Linux Deck" users would use Linux outside of the Deck.

I wonder how many "Linux Deck" users would use Linux outside of the Deck.

Probably not as many at the start, but when I've looked at the Steam Deck reddit, there were many people that said that they were scared at first and then it was easier than they expected. That is exactly what we need. There is a lot of false knowledge and fear spread around by MS and lets call them influencers.

I wonder how many "Linux Deck" users would use Linux outside of the Deck.

"Would use" and "are currently using" are different things. There have been plenty of "I had no idea Linux was this good" anecdotes from people using the Deck. Conversion for desktop users has definitely happened, and hopefully it will continue to happen. Certainly there's much more sentiment of "Windows isn't actually that great for gaming" post-Deck and - crucially - post other handhelds that come with Windows.

I wonder how many "Linux Deck" users would use Linux outside of the Deck.

Probably not as many at the start, but when I've looked at the Steam Deck reddit, there were many people that said that they were scared at first and then it was easier than they expected. That is exactly what we need. There is a lot of false knowledge and fear spread around by MS and lets call them influencers.

I really hope you're right, but still very much afraid not!

I wonder how many "Linux Deck" users would use Linux outside of the Deck.

Probably not as many at the start, but when I've looked at the Steam Deck reddit, there were many people that said that they were scared at first and then it was easier than they expected. That is exactly what we need. There is a lot of false knowledge and fear spread around by MS and lets call them influencers.

to be fair, part of their fear is... justified, just not updated.
linux had many issues back in the days, windows had even more, but they know about the issues that windows had that were solved and they dont know about the linux evolution

but they know about the issues that windows had that were solved

Well I don't think that many of the issues that Windows has are solved, but most people constantly work around them automatically.

For the survey to appear on Steam Deck, do you need to go into desktop mode for that to happen, or can you also get it while in gaming mode?

If they make the Cosmic Desktop standalone it may get even more popular than its Mother Gnome eventually...

They actually will be releasing Cosmic as a stand alone DE to be used on any distro and, if it delivers, I bet it'll be hugely popular. I personally can't wait to have Cosmic with the AUR. What will make or break it for me will be how good its touchpad gestures are. Whatever one thinks of Gnome, its touchpad gestures (and some excellent extensions made for them) make it the indispensible DE on my laptop...


Last edited by iiari on 2 August 2023 at 8:10 pm UTC

For the survey to appear on Steam Deck, do you need to go into desktop mode for that to happen, or can you also get it while in gaming mode?

You get it in gaming mode. There's a notification that pops up, but you need to go into the notifications to actually trigger the sending of data, since they need to ask permission.

It should happened, Apple is not actually a good platform for gaming.
They missed the Vulkan turn and isolated themselves with their exotic graphics specs.

They didn't miss the vulkan turn, they turned the other way intentionally.

The sad thing is that Linux isn't winning because of Linux, it is because of Apple. Apple killed off a lot of their developer trust for gaming on a mac with dropping all 32bit support and then also switching processor architecture.

I wonder how many "Linux Deck" users would use Linux outside of the Deck.

Exactly that's the point they aren't locked to steam os they could install windows but it's not designed to support the hardware. It's now different to Xbox or ps having their proprietary os it's just more capable than standard console os

I wonder how many "Linux Deck" users would use Linux outside of the Deck.

Exactly that's the point they aren't locked to steam os they could install windows but it's not designed to support the hardware. It's now different to Xbox or ps having their proprietary os it's just more capable than standard console os

The important thing about it is that most Steam Deck owners know that it runs Linux, and they see that it works well (arguably better than Windows on some other gaming handheld PC).

Steam Deck puts Linux on the gaming table.

I wonder how many "Linux Deck" users would use Linux outside of the Deck.

Exactly that's the point they aren't locked to steam os they could install windows but it's not designed to support the hardware. It's now different to Xbox or ps having their proprietary os it's just more capable than standard console os

That's the point though, right? If companies see the Steam Deck as a target to hit millions, that is a distinct target. The reason that game developers historically have not supported Linux is because it's hard for them to judge how many people are using it as a desktop OS that aren't just developers. Steam Deck numbers strictly show how many people are willing to use it for GAMING. That's why there are more and more companies at least testing out the Deck and Proton to work with their games.

That hopefully means at least AMD Linux users will see a great benefit. Nvidia needs to get on the ball (after running into some specific nvidia bugs with GTK4 and Firefox, I finally switched to the redder side of the aisle.)

Edit: Just had some additional thoughts; the Steam Deck really is brilliant, if you think about it. Valve needed to figure out a way to get out from under MS. So they created SteamOS, which if they had created a standard box themselves (they did this before they had any experience in the hardware space) it likely would have done much better. But with lessons learned there, it makes less sense to have a stationary PC in a living room to try and compete with the PS# / Xbox Whatever. And instead they did a handheld, because the only real competition in that space was either way too expensive for most people, or the Switch.


Last edited by slaapliedje on 3 August 2023 at 3:42 pm UTC

Looking at those numbers: bets on whether Linux exceeds MacOS in Steam share by the end of the year?

Well, that's faster than I was anticipating!

And even if this turns out to be a one-month blip due to fluctuations in the survey, the general trend suggests it'll happen again…and again…and again…until it stops being news anymore.