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Steam On Linux - Down To 3.05% For September? (phoronix.com) 28

Posted by EditorDavid from the losing-Steam dept.
Phoronix reports: Steam on Linux use in March hit an all-time high of around 5.33% marketshare. Since then it pulled back to around 4% while for September 2026 the Steam Survey results... indicate a rather steep decline of 0.85%, down to 3.05%. Meanwhile macOS is at 1.92% and Microsoft Windows at 95%... Steam's Survey reports a 7.42% increase in Chinese use, up to 31.39% overall of the Steam population. Usually those large month-over-month swings where Steam China use shoots up dramatically is a boost to Windows and a detriment to Linux. Some attribute the large increases in Simplified Chinese use to being a reporting/sampling issue.

When diving into the Steam Linux data exclusively, CachyOS has spiked by another 2.65% to now account for 18.12% of the sampled Linux gaming population. That even outperforms SteamOS Holo coming in at 17.37%. Among Linux gamers on Steam, AMD CPUs still account for the high 60 percentage space thanks to the Steam Deck and Steam Machine using AMD APUs and their open-source/Linux support being popular with enthusiasts.

Steam On Linux - Down To 3.05% For September? More | Reply

Steam On Linux - Down To 3.05% For September?

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  • Market share (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Vintermann ( 400722 ) on Saturday October 03, 2026 @05:43PM (#66361656) Homepage

    I suspect that "market share" is a lot about what kind of games heavy players are playing on Steam right now. March was when Slay the Spire 2 was released, a very Linux friendly game, popular with Linux demographics. Months where DRM-ridden MMOs or extraction shooter of the month dominates - which is most of them - will see lower Linux use.

    • I agree. All the games that I want to play on steam are just not available on Linux. So I have steam installed but check the steam website. If it doesn't have Linux I don't even bother starting the app. Downward spiral

      • All the games that I want to play on steam are just not available on Linux.

        Unless you are playing exclusively MMOs, this is just misinformed. I moved my desktop to Linux over a year ago, and literally everything I've tried on Steam just works. None of it is native Linux, but it all runs perfectly fine.

        A few examples: MW5:Mercenaries, MW5:Clans, Empyrion, Starfield, X4, Just Cause 3, Control, Battletech, etc. I've played local, streamed remote, put things in a window side-by-side with videos running, run games concurrently with background VMs. No audio problems, no video probl

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by evanh ( 627108 )

          That's not really MMOs generally either. It's just the subset that are built for cheating, and then try to claim not by slapping on anti-cheat DRM.

    • Popular with Linux demographics... you mean Steam Decks right.

    • To be pedantic, Slay The Spire 2 hasn't been released yet, it's still in beta.

  • A few months ago, there was lots of buzz about Steam and Linux. Many gave it a try. Some are deciding that the effort and loss of functionality isn't worth it and they are moving back to Windows.

    Unfortunate. But it should be a surprise to no one.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by higuita ( 129722 )

      Linux market share changing every month is a know issue in steam... steam do sampling for each month and we get statistics based on that sampling. But when China market, with a huge amount of users, get more samples, windows (pirated, so both older and latest version) increase, as hardware more common on that market. China have very low linux numbers. When it get less samples, windows share decrease and so linux also increase. There is also another problem, China have lot of internet cafés, where many

    • Which loss of functionality are you referring to?

      • Which loss of functionality are you referring to?

        HDR if you choose X over Wayland and if you have a Nvidia card you're using a hell of a lot when it comes to DLSS, especially because there's no Nvidia App that can automatically over-ride the game's DLSS version on a per game or global basis. Those are just two I can think of OTTOMH.

      • Which loss of functionality are you referring to?

        All of them.

        All of the things that desktop users do, with ease, all the time on Windows but fucking struggle and or fail on Linux. Deficiencies that have existed for fucking years and years and years.

        But, let's keep it on topic, shall we? This thread is about Steam on Linux. Why don't you go have a look at all the Steam games that work fine on Windows, but are unlaunchable or unplayable on Steam(Proton). There's a greater than 20% loss of functionality in Steam on Linux. And those losses extend across the E

        • I asked for specific examples of your claim. I haven't used windows in ages so I have no idea, genuinely. No need to write a long ranty answer with zero example. I'm also interested in where you get this value of 20%, I have only encountered rare cases of games that do not work with proton and I think they have been fixed since then; but this might say more about my taste in games than anything else.

  • I don't know why this is so hard to understand for some people. The wave in Linux numbers is hugely driven by the overwhelming success of the Steam Deck. The usage seems to skyrocket during holiday season precisely because that's a) when people have time, and b) when people travel.

    Signed:
    Someone who didn't use their own Steam Deck in September, not even once, because he didn't travel anywhere and prefers to play on his PC / PS5 instead. But man I put a lot of hours on it in August while jet setting around t

  • Memory now is expensive now, and fewer people shell out for the gigabytes of memory a typical Linux system needs. So people will likely just stick to Windows and DOS games as those run fine on 64 Megabytes of RAM.

    I mean, as the numbers show, few people played games on workstation class machines anyhow. Why waste hundreds of dollars or euros on a Linux workstation, when you can rescue a Windows box from scrap.

    • Memory now is expensive now, and fewer people shell out for the gigabytes of memory a typical Linux system needs.

      Linux uses less RAM than Windows. A typical Windows 11 installation will use 2GB more than a typical Linux installation sat on the desktop.

    • You forgot the sarcasm tag.

      I hope.

      • Well, this is fucking twice in the last few weeks /. has put my comment on completely the wrong post.

        When I posted this, the comment I was replying to was Casandro.

        The fucking post you attached it to didn't even exist yet.

        Seriously, this site is where I could get real time posts from people on site for 9/11 (the whole fucking thing happened while I was on my morning commute).

        Now you have problems serializing a conversation thread.

        Turn in your geek card dudes. You appear to be incapable of performing basic

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