- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
Valve just published their Steam Survey results for October and point to a small uptick in Linux gaming use on a relative basis.
According to today’s published Steam Survey figures, for October 2026 the Steam on Linux use was up 0.05% and taking it to 3.95% overall. This is quite a bit different from the original Steam Survey figures for September that showed Linux diving down to 3.05% as a 0.85% decline over August. But as noted in that article last month, it was closely associated with a strong shift in Simplified Chinese use. When that occurs in the Steam Survey, Microsoft Windows typically sees large upward swings against Linux.
In any case Valve revised their September numbers to 3.9% and now for October are reporting 3.95% for their overall Linux customer base. Apple’s macOS is at 2.35% and Windows at 93.7%. In comparison, this time last year we were celebrating Steam on Linux finally cracking 3% during October 2025.
Among the Linux distributions, Arch Linux based CachyOS remains most popular at 16.3% and even outpacing SteamOS at 13.89% in second place.
AMD CPU use by Linux gamers remains at just under 70%, driven in part by the Steam Deck and Steam Machine using custom AMD SoCs.
All the Steam Survey results in full for October can be found at SteamPowered.com.
yeah maybe keep reading the next line where I specifically call out trying to get casual audiences to install an operating system?
I don’t know when the last time you installed Linux was, or what distros you’ve used, but it’s beyond trivial now usually. Finding an executable online and running that, as Windows users have to do, is often more difficult than installing Linux. There is almost no user who couldn’t install Linux today, but there are many who will never try.
I installed Bazzite very recently, I fully understand it is trivial.
I work in customer service. I talk to people who have jobs and function in society. You are overestimating how many people find it simple to find an executable online and run it. The concept of creating a bootable disk is beyond these people, yes, even though there are programs that do 99.99% of the work for you. For many of these people, everything they download is an app that came from an app store, yes, people use the Microsoft app store.
When we’re taking casual, this is who we’re talking about. It’s why the casual gamer overwhelmingly still favors a console, hell, it’s why consoles still exist at all!
The “casual” gaming audience can follow intricate guides just to install minor mods, tune their devices for a few extra fps and so on, yet they magically can’t put a usb stick in their pc and follow a mostly automated installer.
the casual gaming audience doesn’t do any of that, I think you’re grossly overestimating what casual means.
The casual gaming audience owns a console that handles everything for them, and they buy new installments in franchises like FIFA and CoD. (Edit: even this might be asking too much, thinking about it. It’s probably just Fortnite updates these days) Asking them to do something even as “simple” as installing an operating system is just asking for trouble.
Nope. It’s not even Fortnite. These days it’s all Roblox.