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Operating Systems Windows Linux Games

Linux User Share Hits a Multi-Year High On Steam For May 2025 (gamingonlinux.com) 68

Posted by BeauHD from the year-of-the-Linux-desktop dept.
Linux user share on Steam rose to 2.69% in May 2025 -- the highest level recorded since at least 2018. GamingOnLinux reports: Overall user share for May 2025:

- Windows 95.45% -0.65%
- Linux 2.69% +0.42%
- macOS 1.85% +0.23%

Even with SteamOS 3 now being a little more widely available, the rise was not from SteamOS directly. Filtering to just the Linux numbers gives us these most popular distributions:

- SteamOS Holo 64 bit 30.95% -2.83%
- Arch Linux 64 bit 10.09% +0.64%
- Linux Mint 22.1 64 bit 7.76% +1.56%
- Freedesktop SDK 24.08 (Flatpak runtime) 64 bit 7.42% +1.01%
- Ubuntu Core 22 64 bit 4.63% +0.01%
- Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS 64 bit 4.30% -0.14%
- CachyOS 64 bit 2.54% +2.54%
- EndeavourOS Linux 64 bit 2.44% -0.02%
- Manjaro Linux 64 bit 2.43% -0.18%
- Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS 64 bit 2.17% -0.06%
- Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm) 64 bit 1.99% -0.28%
- Other 23.27% -2.27%

Linux User Share Hits a Multi-Year High On Steam For May 2025 More | Reply

Linux User Share Hits a Multi-Year High On Steam For May 2025

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  • Only 97.31% more to go! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 02, 2025 @06:14PM (#65423255)

    2025 is the year of the Linux desktop!!!

    • Re: Only 97.31% more to go! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Monday June 02, 2025 @06:22PM (#65423273)

      Well it's about twice as high as macos at the moment, so there's that.

      • Re: Only 97.31% more to go! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by DamnOregonian ( 963763 ) on Monday June 02, 2025 @07:55PM (#65423395)
        About tied if you don't include the Steam Deck, which is actually still pretty damn good.

      • Re: Only 97.31% more to go! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday June 02, 2025 @08:24PM (#65423441)

        Well it's about twice as high as macos at the moment, so there's that.

        Well given that we're talking specifically about people running Steam, that's not too surprising... quite a few Steam games don't work on the Mac (even on the Intel Mac).

        I'm actually shocked the Windows percentage is as high as it is (95%) - I thought more people had the SteamDesk than is apparently the case.

      • No, it's not about twice as much. It's 45% more, not 100%. Thereâs a big difference.

  • thanks pewdiepie (Score:4, Interesting)

    by snowshovelboy ( 242280 ) on Monday June 02, 2025 @06:17PM (#65423259)

    Pewdiepie recently did a video [youtube.com] where he installed arch linux and customized it.

  • Seamless (Score:3)

    by samwichse ( 1056268 ) on Monday June 02, 2025 @06:22PM (#65423277)

    I'm not even in the top list of linux's relatively small slice of steam market share (Fedora) but I e found the experience to be pretty seamless.

    • I was pleasantly surprised by Fedora, it's reasonably polished. Installing my networked printer-scanner and usb webcam wasn't though, required editing various text files, creating symlinks with old library names and ignoring 90% of the instructions for 'networked scanners' in SANE as they assume it means someone wanting to share their direct-connected scanner through the network. Nothing too complicated if one is familiar with command-line linux - but likely neigh impossible if one isn't...

    • You probably are. They count the flatpak runtime all in one big blob, and I think most Fedora users are actually in there, not in the Fedora category.

  • Microsoft's enshitttification (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NotEmmanuelGoldstein ( 6423622 ) on Monday June 02, 2025 @06:31PM (#65423287)
    I suspect that a number of tech-savvy people are horrified by Windows 11 to the point of installing Linux and Wine. If so, I expect Linux market share to gain 1 percentage point over the coming months.

    The real question is, how many businesses will move away from Microsoft's unashamed move into spyware and data piracy? One would think that people facing HIPAA would be the first to abandon Microsoft's enshittification but it is not happening.

    • Re:Microsoft's enshitttification (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Monday June 02, 2025 @07:12PM (#65423359) Homepage

      Microsoft allows businesses to control the amount of data privacy they offer to enterprise customers. That privacy comes, of course, at a cost, but businesses will pay it. Microsoft will even sign HIPAA Business Associate Agreements (BAA) with healthcare providers and other businesses covered by HIPAA. Essentially, a BAA says that Microsoft will abide by HIPAA privacy laws and makes itself liable for any breaches caused by its products, should a provider be fined under HIPAA. https://learn.microsoft.com/en... [microsoft.com]

      • If you're on an azure government tenant, then they really can't fuck with your data. AFAICT azure government was left unscathed by the last few azure data breaches that affected basically every single commercial tenant. My guess as to why they don't offer the same level of protection to commercial tenants is because there are strict controls in place where, unless you're a legal US person (and even then, not likely without citizenship AND a squeaky clean criminal record) then they're not going to let you an

        • Still, not sure why they don't offer the same level of technical protections that are mandated by US law for government entities and commercial entities that are subject to the more stringent export control laws.

          I think this question answers itself. Of *course* government mandated protections will apply to government equipment to which the mandates apply. Why would they apply outside that scope, when those protections are counter to Microsoft's business model? For the government, the business model works, because the government can and will pay for that protection. Regular people won't.

          As a private individual, you *can* pay for and get a license that will afford you the same privacy protections offered to the gover

    • Every new version of Windows generates howls of protest from "tech-savvy people," who then end up sticking with Windows anyway. People always want things to stay just like they were. But a 95%+ market share, as stated in the summary, says that the vast majority have decided that Windows is still the best option. At least, that's how *most* people would read a 95% market share.

      • There's a huge amount of devices out there that don't support Windows 11 and that are not going to disappear overnight. The Windows 10 paid support extension buys these devices another year. After that year is up, what will happen to them? Some (most?) may lag along on an unsupported OS no longer patched. I'm expecting a good amount to switch to Linux however, as there's no supported alternative and at least some proportion of owners must be sufficiently worried by that thought to take action.

        • The problem with older devices is real. But the people who have these devices tend *not* to be tech savvy people, who as a group generally want newer, better performing equipment.

      • But this is the first version of windows that locked out a massive swath of hardware, during a time when linux can run most games via proton.

        when 10 came out, i think all of 15 games ran on linux via ports, and 10 installed on every last piece of hardware that could run 7.

        • Less than 30% of my roughly 500 titles library shows as supported under Linux, few of which are modern AAA titles. There are probably quite a few indie games supported mainly because they use Unity and it makes it cheap and easy, but there are almost no devs specifically targeting Linux.

          • There is a big difference between officially supported and working with Proton.
            Like Eve Online is not officially supported, but works fine.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward
            "Not supported" doesn't mean it won't work, it just means they won't help you. I have a roughly 800 titles library, and countless pirated games. Many of which are modern AAA titles (the pirated ones, at least. Admittedly, I tend to find what games I like and then wait years for them to get cheap before buying). In years there has not been a game I tried/wanted to play that would not work in Linux.

            There are some games that don't work due to anticheat [areweanticheatyet.com] but even with those sometimes a different version works

      • While tech-savvy people around here might number close to 100%, in the general population, this number is well below 5%. So even if 100% of the /. crowd live up to the comments on this site, that translates to nothing important in the real world. Itâ(TM)s clear though that many people on this site donâ(TM)t care that much and choose Windows anyway.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sethra ( 55187 )

        "Tech Savvy" people represent a much smaller group than you think. And many of them, including myself, moved to an alternative OS when Win11 was announced and have been getting along just fine. The vast majority of my team moved off windows years ago, so it's incorrect to say they stick with windows. What's correct is they represent a tiny fraction of the market base.

        The year of the Linux Desktop has been here for some time, and the increasing compatibility with the SteamOS portfolio of games will see mo

        • The year of the Linux Desktop has been here for some time

          I would mod this "funny" if I could. Linux desktop adoption is still below 5% and not likely to reach 5% any time soon.

          Among software developers, Windows desktops still rule, at about 64%, and growing. Linux desktops are at 43% and shrinking. https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com] So it seems incorrect to say that technical users are "moving from Windows to Linux."

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sethra ( 55187 )

            The other way to interpret that data is to acknowledge that highly skilled tech workers are a shrinking population being replaced by AI agents and "Vibe" coding.

            • "Vibe coding" is not yet prime time. It's a sales pitch. Recipe Ninja was recently held up as an example of real code built using Vibe Coding. https://developers.slashdot.or... [slashdot.org] But if you actually try the site https://www.recipeninja.ai/ [recipeninja.ai] you will quickly see that it has many problems. The first glance looks good, but try to actually _use_ the site, and it starts to fall flat. This is the Achilles heel of "vibe" coding--it generates some plausible code, but it needs lots of edits and curation and hand-tuning

    • I suspect most of this change is already due to Windows changes. While as observed, the shift is small, I've still never seen so many people saying they were switching at one time before.

  • I'll be switching to Linux exclusively. If the game won't run on Linux then I won't buy the game.
    Pretty much everything else I need to use a computer for is FOSS anyway.

    • I won't. I'll be installing Windows 11. It's annoying, but the literal only thing I use that machine for is games, anyway, so frankly, who cares what OS it's running, and what that OS is doing? Worse it can spy on is my game usage, and it's not like my consoles aren't doing the same.

      Anyone still using Windows for actual work should give Macs or Linux a shot. Get the hell off that shit OS.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by G00F ( 241765 )

        Give linux a shot, it's surprising how many games work via steam or wine(once you remove the distro wine/mesa and install newer release)

        I prefer Mint/mate or xfce for desktop.

        • I have a Steam Deck, and I daily drove linux from about 2005 to 2020-ish when I got my first Apple Silicon mac ;)
          Game functionality on linux has progressed effing lightyears since 2005, and I support it every step of the way (and keep an up-to-date Crossover license to help fund the amazing Wine work that keeps moving that ball forward)

          But now the brass tacks... Of my library of ~1300.. 1600? I can't remember- about 200 are "verified". Many more are "playable" of course- but Y very much will V. Some thin
  • I understand that Ubuntu can largely be combined (likely with Mint too), but Arch at 10% is surprising. Am I missing something here? Does Arch do really good with Steam?

    • I think it is that a more fanatical Linux user is more likely to use Arch, so where quite many mint or Ubuntu users might do most of their things on Linux, they might dual boot and use Windows for gaming, but an Arch user is less likely to do that and will thus game on Arch.

    • Arch really sucks the llama's ass, frankly.
      It is super popular with the "people who really like to have bad experiences" crowd right now, though, who are also more likely to try gaming on linux.

    • Arch is 17.5% if you sum CachyOS, EndeavourOS and Manjaro which are Arch derivatives.

    • I understand that Ubuntu can largely be combined (likely with Mint too), but Arch at 10% is surprising. Am I missing something here? Does Arch do really good with Steam?

      Arch is the most bleeding edge Linux that isn't Gentoo. That's most of the story. It's also reputed to have better multiarch than other distributions. Certainly multiarch sucks on all Debian-based systems...

  • Finally have SteamOS Halo on my ROG Ally, and both my server and desktop are running EndeavourOS. progress, now to get my wife on Linux.

  • I'm interested that Ubuntu Core beats out the mainline Ubuntu. A quick search doesn't reveal any device people would be Steam gaming on in this way.

  • Multi-year high & credit where credit is due (Score:4, Interesting)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Tuesday June 03, 2025 @12:40AM (#65423719) Homepage Journal

    I've been gaming on Linux for a very long time. But I partially attribute my multi-year high to the nearby dispensary.

    Joking (or not) aside, I often wonder why there is so much anger from a tiny but loud minority of Windows gamers. Actually it's more accurate to label them anti-Linux gamers, because most Windows gamers are reasonable folks in my experience. Why can't I be allowed to game on Linux? How am I ruining Steam for you? Isn't more choice better for everyone?

  • Skimming the story quickly, I was first shocked at the percentage Windows 95 still has, before realizing that overall Windows share just happens to be 95 something percent ;)

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