Linux reaches new peak of 5.33% in Steam Hardware & Software Survey: March 2026

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Jamdrizzley@reddit

I'm surprised that arch is too and mint second, I wouldn't have thought that

I use mint and it works great for me, I can't comment on any other distro, but I'm playing games, mmos, and otherwise, it's been my daily driver for about 4 months. For 90% of the games I play it's flawless. One game I had to do -dx11 as a startup argument as it's natively dx12 and throws a fit

I only log into windows to play league of legends sometimes with friends, lol

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AliceCode@reddit

Oh, also, SteamOS is Arch based, so that might be where those numbers come from.

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nlflint@reddit

From my view, SteamOS is counted separately from Arch: https://imgur.com/a/qqPcLDO

By the way, what are those "64-bit" and "0 64-bit" entries??? What is wrong with Steam hardware survey?

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Turbulent_Intern_427@reddit

Cachy prolly bumping this numbers then?

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Sarv_@reddit

Those entries are from computers that have scrubbed the distrobution info or didn't have any to begin with. While it can read the architecture of the pc, they have probably set NAME="" or NAME=0 in /etc/os-release to make their machine slightly more anonymous.

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legitimately surprised CachyOS doesn't even make the charts. it's number one on distrowatch at the moment

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Sarv_@reddit

Distrowatch is not a good metric. Number one on there is just the number one visited distro on the site itself. It does not translate to actual installations on machines. Most people don't use distrowatch and it is trivial to bot it.

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PuzzleheadedHead3754@reddit

But on distro watch i remeber. Cachyos is the most used os.

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TheG0AT0fAllTime@reddit

As it should be. Distros are separated and this is by all means just another distro.

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SirGlass@reddit

I wonder if CatchyOS is just being reported as Arch? However that doesn't explain why Manjaro is seperated

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Living_Shirt8550@reddit

Its because steamos is arch base, so every steamos user will be counted as an arch user, afaik

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gmes78@reddit

That is not correct. SteamOS shows up as "SteamOS Holo 64 bit".

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AK56___@reddit

Then where is SteamOS Holo in the image ?

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gmes78@reddit

If you filter specifically for Linux, you'll see it.

InfiniteSheepherder1@reddit

Arch does not have versions or report differently based on DE. Fedora GNOME and KDE are split up, Fedora users using the flatpak like I am also don't show up as Fedora.

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AliceCode@reddit

I love Arch!

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CandleTemporary4611@reddit

Now I'm joining it

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ShadowFlarer@reddit

clears throat

The year of linux is never coming. People are not emmigrating from windows at rates high enough to do so.

But the takeover of linux? The decade of linux, where more and more people being switching, maybe not in a year, but across time? That is something I can believe in.

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sje46@reddit

I reckon it'd be a win by default thing (again, very gradually over time).

People are not using PCs as much. I read a reddit thread the other day in which a shocking amount of people said they do not own a computer. They ONLY use phones. Adn as the internet is getting more and more mobile-friendly (and less desktop friendly), I don't see this reversing anytime soon.

Linux enthusiasts will always own computers. If 100% of the population owns a computer, and 2% of the population are linux enthusiasts, then 2% of the population runs Linux. If only 50% of the population owns a computer, then linux enthusiasts will have 4% of the market. And so on. Obviously we're not going to get to 100% linux based off that. Desktops aren't going away entirely. But I do think this could be a relatively large factor.

It's also helping significantly how much press Linux is getting in social media, particularly on youtube. Maybe it's just my algorithm. But I'm seeing a lot of videos with very popular youtubers talking about Linux. SomeOrdinaryGamers, LinusTechTips, fucking Pewdiepie. Many others. I do not think when I started running Linux in 2009 that a tenth of the people I went to college with would have even recognized the term "Linux". I'd be awfully surprised if that were still the case with people around age 20 today.

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EconomistNo5807@reddit

Idk, the % of households which have a computer is at the highest in history......just we buy them less often due to slower progression of upgrades.

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sje46@reddit

Is that global or just within the us ( or other developed country)?

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KCGD_r@reddit

For context: Linux broke 1% in 2021 and 3% in 2025

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Tuomas90@reddit

Those are the really important numbers people like to forget when showing stats like this or when they say:"Uh, Linux is just 4% marketshare."

TRIPLING your userbase in 4 years is NUTS!

And then doubling it within another year? Wow!

The question is: How will this continue, once everyone has finished switching from Windows?

The survey had to be corrected a couple months ago. The distro data is obviously wrong currently; a large portion is attributed to "0" and "0 64 bit". Probably should wait for that to be corrected before trusting the massive increase in Linux users.

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TimChr78@reddit

The increase is absurd because the February showed a 1.15 percentage point decrease in share - which obviously wasn’t correct.

You math doesn’t math since you forgot “other”.

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SoonerOrHater@reddit

The decline was correct; it just depicted the known change in their user base during Chinese New Year. It would still be a massive increase without that dip.

I didn't forget other. If you can't follow basic arithmetic, I can't help you.

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GolemancerVekk@reddit

Linux at 5.33% would be an absurd increase.

OrangeKefir@reddit

I come to r/linux and am happy to see others have noticed this. Yep the data looks a bit sketchy.

>(It’s me I’m that annoying Linux friend)

No way! Me too! I see you use Arch (btw) so I aspire to one day be like you! :3

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TheOneTrueTrench@reddit

I upgraded my parents to Fedora 41 on my dad's old laptop.

(From 1000 miles away, I might add)

A couple months later, my mom called me to switch her WORKING brand new framework 17 to Fedora, because she just preferred using my dad's 8 year old Intel 7000 i3 craptop.

They're all on ZFS, and they backup to my server hourly, which was a good thing when my dad's craptop had a lithium related problem when I visited them a year later.

I used zfs send to restore his image to a spare surface laptop I had with me, had my mom order a new framework, and restored it from the temp laptop to his new one.

They got to see his installation jump between 3 different computers in 4 days with zero complications.

All of their computers are on Linux now. And my favorite part is I end up helping them with their computer issues like 4 times less.

Linux is ready for your 70 year old parents/grandparents.

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hobo_stew@reddit

Linux is ready for your 70 year old parents/grandparents.

I'd expect that to be the easiest demographic to be ready for, after programmers. After all, most 70 year olds only do basic spreadsheets, light web browsing and e-mail. maybe streaming.

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tagsb@reddit

You'd think that, but in my experience that hasn't been the case. Although their use cases mean they'll never NEED something other than Windows, their understanding of how to use computers is prescriptive.

Nothing can change or move around on the UI because they fundamentally don't understand what they're doing on a computer - they just have a series of steps memorized to do their favorite things.

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Brillegeit@reddit

In my opinion that's a Linux advantage, at least if you stick with Ubuntu.

I installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on a brand new laptop for my mother during Christmas 2013, her first computer. That installation is still what she use, I do a do-release-upgrade every four years, and I've since cloned the spinning drive to an SSD and replaced the cheap Acer Celeron laptop with a faster (used) Thinkpad 420s, but the OS installation has been the same for 12 years.

What has happened with the GUI? A new animal on the wallpaper every four years.

If you do a google image search for "ubuntu 12.04", then 16.04, 20.04, 24.04, you'll see the changes are basically non-existent.

Then do a search for "windows vista", "7", "8", "10", "11", and the changes are much larger. Another problem is that Windows spawns popups every few months trying to sell you things, ask stupidly technical questions, install different generations of AI tools, revert to using their applications, re-install candy crush, move or replace shortcuts.

Her partner uses Windows and he calls me about twice a years about changes on his computer that he needs to either adjust to or revert. A normal case is that Edge is suddenly the default browser and he can't find his shortcuts which are in Chrome. Another is that after removing the Edge shortcut from the pinned taskbar, it restores itself and looks almost identical to Chrome resulting in the same confusion. Microsoft recently changed their photo viewer from Photo Viewer to Photos which is a completely different application with completely different interface. Windows Defender and Office also often ask completely irrelevant and way too complicated questions that confuses him, which trains him to just click "OK" on all popups. A recent call I got a month ago was that all his images were gone. After a few minutes we figured out that he had to right click the desktop and click "show desktop icons". Not sure if that was caused by him being fat fingered or Microsoft deciding it should be in that setting, but it's an insane setting to have that available.

My mother on the other hand has had two technical problems in 12 years, both solved by rebooting the network printer.

The only technical issue I had was integrating with the Google environment, so I bought an Insync license for $40 (I think I got it at a discount) that has solved that problem so far.

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PsyOmega@reddit

Linux is ready for your 70 year old parents/grandparents.
I'd expect that to be the easiest demographic to be ready for

I feel like the macbook Neo is a better fit.

I switched my mom to chromebooks a decade ago and the support calls ceased. She switched herself to a macbook air M1 and liked it the same.

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YuvrajXG@reddit

Framework 16 you mean? Whats a framework 17?

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TheOneTrueTrench@reddit

Yeah, it was a 16, I misrememebered

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ILikeBumblebees@reddit

framework 17

Is that a secret, unannounced prototype?

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Nutellapiee@reddit

What did you use for backup/restore?

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TheOneTrueTrench@reddit

zrepl

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Nutellapiee@reddit

awesome Thanks 🙏🏻

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dougmc@reddit

Linux is kind of doing the same thing -- for example, RedHat 10 drops support for x86-64-v2 and earlier, so it wants cpus from 2018+.

Of course, I say kind of because this is just RedHat (and its downsteam distros), and AlmaLinux is adding the support back as an alternate architecture.

This fire is probably already lit for some enterprises, but shouldn't have too much impact outside of that -- but it's coming, and eventually people with older cpus may find themselves limited to specific distros even though their computer is still very capable.

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AbbreviationsWide331@reddit

That is exactly what happened to me and my parents. We both didn't want to throw away perfectly fine hardware.

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knightcrusader@reddit

My family just looks up info online, pays bills, checks email, looks at the grocery store's weekly ads with their 4th gen Intel HP Elite systems.

There is absolutely no reason to upgrade the hardware for their use - its more than capable. They're going to Ubuntu soon.

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What porn survey?

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Journeyj012@reddit

PornHub 2025 year in review features a "Devices and Tech" section. As we aren't allowed to link to NSFW stuff, I'll give you the gist of the url and you can guess the rest. There's no porn, but obviously everything else is related to porn in there.

Ya that’s kind of what I meant. Like I assume as more people build pcs more people will install Linux rather than windows due to cost saving. And less people are building pcs right now than in a very long time due to rammagedan. But now that I think about it ram is about $150 dollars more on average right now so if you skip windows you actually aren’t missing out on preformance per dollar compared to pre ram shortage prices

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Remember that it is a random survey.
We have to look at it from a multiple-month window.
For example, 2 months ago, it was reported to be higher than last month.
This month, even without growth, it would be probabilistically higher than last.
Anyway, looking at the growth curve, if we remove the variations/outliers, it is accelerating as expected, and I'm excited!

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Witless-One@reddit

This is insane! I'm part of that number :D

I recently switched to Linux Mint, and I've got to say, I haven't thought about booting up Windows since. I've tried Linux over the years, but I've always switched back because there were always slight annoyances. I usually used Ubuntu, so not sure if Mint just works better than Ubuntu or if the Linux ecosystem has matured in general. Either way, I'm super happy.

Only thing I'm hoping for is anti-cheat to work on Linux for iRacing (which I want to get back into). Apparently it should be easy to add but the developers haven't prioritized it or something. So hopefully this boost will provide them some incentive!

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Horseshoetheoryreal@reddit

5% impressive, but any specific reason Manjaro has higher than CachyOS?

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deathschemist@reddit

makes sense, manjaro is considerably older than cachyOS.

flucayan@reddit

Meme flavor of the day distros infiltrating blogs/media got newcomers lost

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I think I can translate for you.

Manjaro is the best! CachyOS' numbers are coming from distrohoppers. This makes me laugh in an audible manner. You're Welcome!

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Horseshoetheoryreal@reddit

Possibly, than again was surprised because of bigger community in reddit r/cachyos/ comparison r/ManjaroLinux/ obviously that has nothing to do steam counts.

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NOT_EVEN_THAT_GUY@reddit

honestly terrifying

Helmic@reddit

CachyOS was like the third or fourth msot popular distro in these surveys not that long ago and Manjaro was much more marginal. I think there's just some straight up errors. Which unfortunately might mean the 5% figure itself isn't accurate, even if I expect the overall percentage is still growing.

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gamas@reddit

I feel like people really seem to struggle with the idea that these surveys cannot be individually taken as gospel.

I think I've only gotten 1 since I switched to Fedora back in August.

My distro didn't make it to this list :(

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Pikterra@reddit

Mint FTW

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Tavalus@reddit

Mint FTW vs Arch BTW. FIGHT!

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KingEfficient7403@reddit

This is the era of the linux desktop. Not the year but the era.

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4CodeX@reddit

Será que distros baseadas em por exemplo Arch e Ubuntu são contabilizadas separadamente tipo ZorinOS ou Omarchy?

Percebi que o Linux mint está sendo considerado separadamente mas mesmo assim acho que a maioria não usa o Arch puro.

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echon_44@reddit

I'm a first timer. Just Installes mint. Beautiful

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btw i use 0,34%

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HengeWalk@reddit

Made the switch to linux a month ago.

Thankfully, I had a linux nerd help me out. I'm done with windows.

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Clanceeinfinity@reddit

i switched too!

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DietUnagi@reddit

Why doesn’t this include fedora universal blue os? There’s a crap load of gamers that use it, the gaming distro that is a SteamOS clone is almost like SteamOS but doesn’t use arch Linux and can be dual booted for other os’s or Linux distros. I know SteamOS is based on arch and so is cachyos.

I use Nobara, which is still basically 95% Fedora

like last month linux and windows 11 lost users to windows 10, and now those users split back into linux and 11, favoring linux this time

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DopeBoogie@reddit

like last month linux and windows 11 lost users to windows 10, and now those users split back into linux and 11, favoring linux this time

I suspect a lot of Windows 10 users are having to make hard choices now that the 2011 Microsoft Secure Boot certificates are about to expire and they will only be officially updating them for Windows 11 users.

If you do not get the updated certs before they expire you cannot get them at all (in order to be securely enrolled they have to be signed by the existing certs, before those expire) and your system will be vulnerable going forward to any bootloader exploits because it cannot be patched against them.

Linux users don't have this issue with Secure Boot as we typically implement our own Certificate Authority and sign bootloaders with our own unique certificates.

I personally think it was not super smart for Microsoft to have waited until February this year to start patching this issue on affected systems (anything manufactured before approximately 2024, depending on when the manufacturers implemented the change) but what do I know

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Ryaniseplin@reddit

yes but the month prior to that w11 gained a massive amount of users, from windows 10, so unless people were flip flopping between the two, i think its a variance issue

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SensuousChocolate@reddit

Be careful. Linux evangelists don’t like to listen to facts.

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Ryaniseplin@reddit

im actually being fairly generous to linux here

obviously LTT, and microslop had something to do with this, more and more are feeling disenfranchised with w11 and LTT posts a video showing an escape path

but i feel linux is at the state where it might actually keep alot of these people

id say 4% is fairly reasonable after the hype dies down is perfectly reasonable, but i feel this month and possibly next month are gonna be statistical anomalies

i feel this is more reasonable than a sudden vibes shift

A few hours later, I'm running at cooler temps, less ram and CPU usage, and overall way snappier performance on desktop and gaming. I'm so happy I bit the bullet.

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GrouchyCranberry8982@reddit

A few hours later, I'm running at cooler temps, less ram and CPU usage, and overall way snappier performance on desktop and gaming. I'm so happy I bit the bullet.

Same. Got mad at windows, created a partition to try Linux on my hardware, found it pretty immediately superior and 'lost' my windows partition on purpose.

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CrazyAsian@reddit

The only problem is that one of my favorite games is teamfight tactics, and I can't play that on Linux due to vanguard. Waydroid seems to have some issues with Nvidia gpus, so it's not a great option either.

grady_vuckovic@reddit

I remember in 2019 celebrating windows like +0.03% and I remember folks laughing at me and saying, 'Yeah at this rate we might reach 5% by 2100'.

And at the time I kept saying (summarising), 'It doesn't matter how slow the rate of increase is, because as long as the rate of increase is positive, as long as we're trending upwards, we're winning. Because every additional person who switches to Linux means there will be more demand for developers to support Linux. Every additional bit of support means it's easier for someone else to switch to Linux. This isn't a sprint, it's a marathon, as long as we're inching up higher we're winning. Because right now lots of things are holding back Linux and most of them are related to low market share. So if we can be gaining marketshare while down at 0.75% marketshare, imagine how much easier it will be to gain marketshare when we're up at like 3%? We just have to get past the point of having extremely low marketshare and then it'll be easy to make big gains.'.

Here we are years later, the marketshare has more than doubled and launched up to 5.3% in just a few months.

Feeling vindicated right now, not gonna lie.

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aoeudhtns@reddit

I bought Slay the Spire 2 and noticed it was native Linux, not running through Proton. And I see there's a few games doing this, and that game engines are adding Linux targets.

That makes me happy. I know when Proton came out, there was worry that Linux would never get support with Proton as an option. But way back when, even Macs got Mac-only games when they had 5% of the PC market. We'll see how the trends go but things are looking very positive for Linux.

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--aethel@reddit

I’d guess that that’s a byproduct of STS2 switching to Godot,

From what I've seen, there is NO Visual Studio for Linux. You might want to check that again.

But I would bet that you can replace it with Visual Studio Code.

VM = Virtual Machine

Use Libre Office or Open Office on Linux. They contain equivalents for word, excel etc.. They can even open and save Microsoft documents (not sure if 100% compatible). Whether or not that'll work for you depends on your use case.

But let me tell you: I switched to Linux a year ago and am quite happy. I only boot up Windows for Games and Win-only programs.

Oneday the year of the linux desktop will come, its prophesied in the old tales :D

but to be honest: I think if/when the steam hardware will drop, there will be a new wave of users coming in. And there will be surely be copies of other companies and so on.

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-light_yagami@reddit

I guess this is thanks to the steamdeck and/or other similar handheld console that run linux.

either way that’s good!

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Gullak_gaming@reddit

I use arch btw

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ledow@reddit

Before Christmas I had a Windows 10 gaming laptop that was on its last legs.

I had no interest in Windows 11, having deployed it at work.

I got myself a Framework laptop because they had released a new model with an RTX5070 in it. Started with Linux on it from day one (I've booted Windows 10 precisely twice on it, from the old NVMe from my previous laptop, to see if it would work, and to install the Framework drivers into that install of Windows).

Installed Steam, played all my games. I don't even BOTHER to look at the ProtonDB entry any more unless I have a problem. I just assume things will work. Bought several games in the recent sale... all "just worked". The only thing I had to change so far was adding a startup command in one game to make it skip a launcher (I hate launchers anyway).

No problems, everything is so much... snappier. No more junk doing things I don't want it to do. No more updates being forced on me, and the updates I choose to do take literally seconds.

I now have a Linux-only house. Laptop, Steam Deck, Raspberry Pi's. That's it.

I did this about 20 years ago, running Slackware as a primary desktop for 10 years, and honestly... I'd forgotten how bad Windows really is. It's only when you come off it and go onto something else for EVERYTHING (rather than just work, toys, headless servers, etc.) that you realise how bad it is as a GUI (I hesitate to say OS, it's a GUI).

DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Slackware, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 10, Ubuntu.

There's a pattern there. Windows gets shite and then Linux just carries on being decent. And my Windows requirements were always FORCED on me by what I needed to do - and in some cases that was actually gaming. I had Crossover Office on Slackware but it wasn't ready. I played with the early SteamOS (years ago) and it wasn't ready. But now... now it's ready. My Steam Deck proved it to me, and my laptop is just reinforcing quite how great a job they've done of that, against impossible odds.

With all the RAM etc. stuff I won't be changing hardware for quite a while, and I have a machine that should last me quite some time and I can use for absolutely everything I want to do (VMs, programming, gaming, writing, browsing, watching videos, etc.)

Even though they lied, Microsoft were right in their conference a few years ago: Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows. At least, for me.

I was wondering this since that’s a big representation for Ubuntu Core there - the embedded immutable variant built around Snaps.

Lunar new year. Happens every February.

https://gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker

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Alatain@reddit

I've never seen Linux that high before on a steam survey. 6% would be News worthy

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WhiteFoxT@reddit

Oh wait no, it was even less than I remember. It was 2.23% and change is -1.15% Maybe it's regional

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AnEagleisnotme@reddit

Last month was the Chinese new year, which brings tons of pc cafes online, who all use windows

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NinStars@reddit

linux lost about third of the whole population

drballoonknot@reddit

I got Expedtion 33 running flawlessly on Linux Mint which was enough for me to finally to go back to Linux as my daily driver. Hail Gaben.

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RobotechRicky@reddit

I installed Steam in Omarchy and Counter-Stike 2 was running great!

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SithLordSid@reddit

He uses Arch and plays steam games on it.

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25vol96@reddit

Just switched to Fedora last month after 25 years with microslop. I don’t know if I’d say I wish I’d done it sooner as it seems just recently it’s become more or less equal between them in terms of gaming experience but I’m so glad I did. No ads, faster and more responsive is what I’ve gotten so far.

I’m still trying to get the hang of coding on Linux. It’s not bad, just different.

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Comfortable_Relief62@reddit

Happy to offer help for coding on Linux coming from a windows perspective

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5% is already 6-7m monthly active users (probably much more since this is based on very outdated stats)

still, the goalpost of being relevant will be moved to 10%

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mr_MADAFAKA@reddit (OP)

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/