Check out our Monthly Survey Page to see what our users are running.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

While there's been a clear drop, the Linux user share on Steam for June 2024 still remains about 2% showing the clear upwards trend overall. Interestingly, this is another month where Simplified Chinese as a language on Steam saw a jump, and quite often we see Linux drop when this happens.

According to Valve the latest operating system details are:

  • Windows 96.61% +0.40%
  • Linux 2.08% -0.24%
  • macOS 1.31% -0.16%

Here's the Linux stat over time:


You can see it on our Steam Tracker page.

For Linux, the Steam Deck with SteamOS continues propping up the numbers with it being the most popular by far.

  • SteamOS Holo 64 bit 41.17% -4.17%
  • Arch Linux 64 bit 8.08% +0.18%
  • Freedesktop SDK 23.08 (Flatpak runtime) 64 bit 6.71% +0.66%
  • Linux Mint 21.3 64 bit 5.10% +0.87%
  • Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS 64 bit 4.26% -0.50%
  • Manjaro Linux 64 bit 3.09% -0.09%
  • Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 64 bit 3.03% +3.03%
  • Ubuntu Core 22 64 bit (Steam Snap) 2.97% +0.35%
  • Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS 64 bit 2.65% +0.08%
  • Other 22.94% -1.04%

See all on the Steam Survey.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
20 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
See more from me
23 comments
Page: 1/3»
  Go to:

grigi Jul 2
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
It's really looking like a second order trend line would match those stats much better.
Or at least a trend line before/after the steam-deck release?
Korhaka Jul 2
I had the hardware survey just now. I have 1 SSD and 3 HDDs and it marked them all as SSDs. Other than that it got everything correct. Seems odd that there is no way to flag that it detected something incorrectly.
Lamdarer Jul 2
Quoting: grigiIt's really looking like a second order trend line would match those stats much better.
Or at least a trend line before/after the steam-deck release?
Not sure if it really is necessary, but yeah pretty much matches, although we don't know how it will develop in the future for sure.
grigi Jul 2
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: Lamdarer
Quoting: grigiIt's really looking like a second order trend line would match those stats much better.
Or at least a trend line before/after the steam-deck release?
Not sure if it really is necessary, but yeah pretty much matches, although we don't know how it will develop in the future for sure.

That trend line does track very closely.
Statistically we know these things end up being s-curves, and if so, we might be out of the long preceding tail.

Exciting!
CatKiller Jul 2
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: grigiIt's really looking like a second order trend line would match those stats much better.
Or at least a trend line before/after the steam-deck release?
As Lamdarer says, you can already set the date range to whatever you like on the Steam Tracker page, and the trend line will be updated appropriately.

It's also possible to separate out the two signals from the Deck and desktop Linux.



Edit: note for Eike - I've switched from using SteamOS to estimate the Deck share to using the Deck GPUs on the grounds that Valve have said that SteamOS will be released for not-Deck at some point in Valve Time.


Last edited by CatKiller on 2 July 2024 at 1:32 pm UTC
ToddL Jul 2
From looking at the breakdown of Linux distros, the only thing I can't figure out is why did SteamOS lose 4.17% in popularity.
On the one hand it surprises me that Linux isn't as popular in China as in, say, Germany, Brazil or India. But it also makes a lot of sense: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/

If you look at the "Linux market share on Steam, another way to look at it" section, you can see the Linux (English only) share madly distances itself from Linux Overall share soon after the Steam Deck releases. Which is still not available in China, as far as I know.

Still handily beating macOS.
CatKiller Jul 2
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualStill handily beating macOS.

That's unlikely to change.

CatKiller Jul 2
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: ToddLFrom looking at the breakdown of Linux distros, the only thing I can't figure out is why did SteamOS lose 4.17% in popularity.

All data are noisy.
QuoteOn the one hand it surprises me that Linux isn't as popular in China as in, say, Germany, Brazil or India. But it also makes a lot of sense: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/

If you look at the "Linux market share on Steam, another way to look at it" section, you can see the Linux (English only) share madly distances itself from Linux Overall share soon after the Steam Deck releases. Which is still not available in China, as far as I know.

Still handily beating macOS.


Warning here I'm probably a conspiracy theorist.
I can't help it.
If you don't want to read my conspiracy hypothesis(I don't have enough proof to rightfully call it a theory) about how Microsoft and the NSA are actively keeping China on Microsoft products don't click on the spoiler tag.
Spoiler, click me

The story behind Windows being popular in China smells like politics to me, but I can't prove anything directly.
Microsoft has widely encouraged Windows piracy explicitly in that market to get them reliant on their products, we've got Gates' word on this.
It's not in the consumer space alone either WannaCry wrecked Chinese servers left and right, because they all ran pirated xp to the point that China pressured Microsoft in updating XP out of release.
Microsoft is deeply embedded in the prism program.
China has done a lot of attempts to launch their "own" operating system(android and ubuntu forks) for "independence from western ecosystems", all these attempts failed miserably for all the expected reasons(reliant on proprietary shit that doesn't run on Linux).
Microsoft still barely makes a dime of all this pirated Windows in China.
I think the NSA pas them good money to make China reliant on their product and include espionage software on demand.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
Login / Register


Or login with...
Sign in with Steam Sign in with Google
Social logins require cookies to stay logged in.