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 are now in and it’s clocking in just above 3%.
The Steam Survey results for September that were published this evening indicate a rather steep decline of 0.85%, down to 3.05%. Meanwhile macOS is at 1.92% and Microsoft Windows at 95%.
As with most months where Steam Survey indicates an abnormally large decline for Linux use, the second stop is checking on the language use… Once again a case of a big spike in Simplified Chinese use. Steam’s Survey reports a 7.42% increase in Chinese use, up to 31.39% overall of the Steam population. Usually with 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.
Those wanting to dive in to all the Steam Survey stats for September can find the fresh data on SteamPowered.com.
I even ensured I refused survey data on my Windows machine but that it ran on my Linux machine to help game the numbers as I’m sure other Linux users do.
I’m convinced Microsoft would have to mandate sticking a probe up your ass when creating a user account/setting up a computer before significant switching among average users would take place and even then a huge 50% of the population would say it’s not that big a deal and switching is a larger hassle and they have no choice, blah, blah.
Linux is kind of still stuck in the doldrums of tech and privacy enthusiasts and a few of their friends and I’m just not sure what if anything can change that in terms of individual actions and markets. Now sure if China or the EU made it harder to sell Windows computers and really pushed people onto a version of Linux that could bump the numbers but in both cases they’re just trying to gain some sovereignty by putting government systems on Linux and that transition alone will probably run for a good part of a decade.
Literally just defaults. The average person does not care what their operating system is, and will just run whatever is already on their computer.
Reporting every bit of noise in this statistic is kinda boring?
To be fair, the spike up in the noise in march was reported widely. Now the “correction” can be as well IMO. But oh well, lets hope there is a tleasr a larger trend to Linux
I’m doing my part 🙂
Sorry. My fault. I’ve been working too much to play games.
F*ck that’s on me. I took a break from gaming to focus on other projects + the occasional GBA SP.
I wonder what the sampling/reporting issue is? Why Chinese specifically? Are there droves of Chinese gamers flip-flopping between Linux and Windows? That doesn’t seem likely.
I think it’s that Chinese gamers are much more likely to use Windows and that sampling is random so whenever too many Chinese computers are selected on sampling the Linux share decreases
The Year of Linux is, when China bans Windows.
I’ve actually been surprised that they haven’t already
Happening now actually, according to this
Not exactly what I meant. They ban for the government, similar to what is happening in Europe. It won’t have any effect on gamers, as no one is forced to give up Windows (other than the government bodies themselves).
I am pretty sure they banned gaming at work a long time ago.
I’m talking about banning Windows for any citizen.
I am surprised that any nation would adopt a closed source product from abroad when it could build its own, especially given Linux. In a world like this, choosing that path seems genuinely diabolical.
Nations where using Windows for years when Linux came out. And it took at least two decades for Linux to be a viable option for governments, because they are dependent on Windows and didn’t have much experience in Linux. But the “turns have tabled”, finally. The world woke up.
Sorry dudes forgot to fill in my survey
It’s extremely hard to believe that someone that has had a taste of Linux would switch back to Windows, if this is what the stats imply, which I’m not sure. I would need to be paid thousands to willingly use Windows again.
The type of person who watches trashtubers, is the same type of person who was born to use windows.
The stats imply there were more chinese users sampled this month and chinese steam users don’t use linux much
Sampling variation/statistical noise, probably. I wouldn’t read too far into it.
I mean the stats very clearly are useless this month for Linux usage as they are all months that have this simplified Chinese spike.
I still don’t get why I can’t opt in to participate in the survey every month, I’ve only been asked twice in the last three years on Arch
Because thats not how good stats works. They want random samples to draw actual stats from.
Volunteering ruins the point.
Yeah, you have a point, but still, twice in three years? I don’t know how representative it really is, ESPECIALLY when you see 50-100% ups and downs in the Linux user base. 5 to 3 percent and back cannot be the actual stat, that has to be unreliable selection of users.
steam has at least 130 million monthly active users
a margin of error of 1% (resulting in a range of 3–5%) is very, very good
They could just pull the stats from every system
privacy issue
censuses only have marginally better results than random sampling
Probably. But it’d 50x the cost of the tool. And for only marginally better results.
Would pushing a request through steam to participate in the survey realistically increase cost?
It’s disappointing how weak minded people are.
