I've probably said this a bunch of times already, but based on my past experience, any analysis built on month-to-month changes in the Steam Hardware Survey should be taken with a very large grain of salt, if not considered outright useless for any serious conclusions.
The clue is already in the article itself. The author notes that "part of the jump at least appears to be explained by Valve correcting again the Steam China numbers." If you actually think about what that implies, it raises more questions than answers. A 31.85% monthly drop is obviously not organic, so yes, it makes sense to call it a "correction." But then why was the previous month's data so far off in the first place? Is there something fundamentally flawed in the survey methodology, like sampling bias, non-uniform distribution, regional skew, or something else?
And if this kind of correction happens this month, what's stopping it from happening in previous months? The reality is: it does happen all the time. You can usually spot at least one clearly unrealistic data point in almost every release.
At that point, it's hard to argue there's any real value in trying to analyze these results in a rigorous way.
The explanation I've heard is simply: Chinese New Years happened, which means a lot more Chinese gamers are online in February during the week long national holiday.
Of the publicly available sources I think CloudFlares Radar is one of the better ones. Silver linings of having such wide dragnet on the internet. It puts Linux market share at 3-4%, with some regional variance
Overall agreed. I think a more interesting look at this is the tracker which GamingOnLinux keeps (not yet updated with the new numbers as of writing), where they also have one graph that shows usage among only English speaking users. Overall it is trending upwards, and English Linux Steam users are approaching 9%.
This seemingly is a common problem with the Steam Hardware Report, with Chinese users being erroneously represented. It constantly gets fixed, although takes a bit. It could be the hardware surveys are sent out at a different time compared to the rest of the world, then combined in the following month.
This is proven by "Ended 2025 at around a 3.5% marketshare, dipped a bit in January, and fell to 2.23% in February."
Linux was already stable enough 10 years ago as daily driver, i used Arch.
everything worked just fine, i remember only having issue with graphic drivers and glitches
I never really wanted anything more from it but when i moved to Mac, i saw how it prevents me from opening apps i downloaded from trusted site and every now and then i need to set xattr to open the files, and go through bunch of lockdowns.
Now freecad has improved so much, with all AI coding and all opensource will improve DRASTICALLY and very fast.
using AI which stole everyone's code to develop OpenSource is morally right thing to do vs using it at private companies. It will attract more devs.
unpopular opinion: this can be explained by the social and monetary economics of the gaming ecosystem as a whole.
- Microsoft has worked tirelessly to make the windows compute experience an evermore intrusive and soul crushing experience for the average gamer. artificially outmoded hardware at a time of GPU scarcity means consumers cant comply with redmonds increasingly arbitrary hardware edicts even if they wanted to. at the same time, linux has become ever easier to install and use as an alternative. there is likely an inflection point for a lot of gamers that are just looking to access their library.
- console gaming has become hideously overpriced. madatory tie-ins with playstation network, high costs for all consoles, and the potential for the console stocks to simply not be available at time of release make for a frictional and frustrating experience. Microslop is embracing the same playstation style enshittification that routinely brings sony to its knees. neither juggernaut seems genuinely interested in the end user with the exception of Nintendo, whos quality control issues and pricing as well with switch hardware make it a nonstarter for anyone but the most diehard zelda fan.
- steam + linux offers a largely seamless experience for the casual gamer. steam sales are fun and engaging. the community is generally well rounded. gabe newell is generally well respected by gamers and visibly interested in gaming and the community. Valve has contributed significantly to Linux since their push to obliterate the Windows store and shows no sign of retreat anytime soon. Steam + Linux is free and works with your existing hardware in a time of high prices, inflation, and scarcity in the western world.
> any analysis built on month-to-month changes […] should be taken with a very large grain of salt
Agreed.
January and February are school vacations in South America. The whole month. Kids have a lot more free hours to tinker and play video games. That might not be the cause of the spike in this particular case, but there's probably dozens of similar random facts that can affect statistics on any month in unexpected ways.
Agree the numbers are not set in stone, but there is absolutely no denying that the Linux userbase has increased.
Proton's updates is a game changer, Windows 11's absolutely garbage buggy slop is frustrating more and more people. OS' like CachyOS and Bazzite etc making the transition far more approachable than ever.
Even if it wasn't for corrections, one has to look at the longer trends and not just single months.
Loads of people switch to Linux but I do wonder how many are still there a year later? I say this as someone that been a Linux daily runner since about 2010.
Really happy to see this kind of analysis on HN. The news you want to hear the most must also be looked at critically, and as much as I love Linux gaming we want to be sober in our expectations.
I mean you make good points and all, but on the other hand I really want this to be the year of the Linux desktop, so I'm gonna go with the other interpretation anyway!
A few weeks ago, I installed linux (Nobara, if you're curious) on my PC and hooked it up to the living room TV to use as a gaming console. I have absolutely no regret. I did it initially because apparently playing games on a shared screen is better for my kid. But I was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly Windows only games run on Linux. The whole experience has been great, and I don't think I'll ever go back. I have an nvidia gpu as well, which apparently does not work very well on Linux. For me, on Nobara, it's been working flawlessly.
The most annoying thing I encountered was the Switch controller support being rather poor. Every button press was somehow interpreted as two different buttons at the same time and I had to figure out which commands to run on Terminal to stop it from happening. Even then, the bluetooth connection on my PC was so bad that I had to stay within 3 feet lest the controller disconnects. I don't really think this is a Linux issue per se, but I recommend people buy a couple of 8bitdo controllers on Amazon which come with USB dongles if they want to go this route.
I will miss games that I can only play with mouse and keyboard, but I think there are enough games out there with controller support that this is not going to be an issue.
When Windows 11 was force-installed on my main game development desktop, I was skeptical, but kept using it. I was annoyed at having to turn off all the tracking and noise (like news articles)
When it updated and started shoving AI down my throat, with no easy way to turn it off and suddenly lots of data I don't consent to sharing getting used, 11 became the last Windows OS I'll ever use.
Whenever the next version comes out, Im moving fully to *buntu.
My main laptop already uses it and Steam on Linux has been fantastic. Any bugs or issues Ive experience have been due to my very unusual setup (like an eGPU over Thunderbolt)
I was waiting for the steam machine and grew impatient. I instead built a PC to go behind our family room TV. I gave bazzite a chance before committing to a copy of Windows. I'm glad I did. It runs perfectly. Zero hassle, no chasing down drivers. The only thing to be aware of is that a handful of games are not compatible, generally due to their anti-cheat software (e.g. marathon won't run, but arc raiders does.)
I got my Steam Deck that month, so pleased to be a part of it. The Deck fills a gap that has been empty in my soul since the PSP was discontinued, and feels like a genuine step forward that makes technology fun again.
It's fully open! It has a KDE desktop that I can access any time! I can shove in any size of SSD I like!
And I'm playing Halo 3... on Linux... on hardware made by Steam. If you spoke that sentence to me in 2009, I'd suggest you ought to be sectioned.
Pewdiepie becoming an arch-pilled rice-maxxer who advocates Linux for freedom and gaming has surely had some effect. He's such a good sport he even swore off Photoshop and tries to learn to like Gimp.
Man the distro breakdown is an even bigger mess than normal:
Feb 2026:
31.58% Other
23.83% SteamOS Holo 64 bit
9.07% ArchLinux 64 bit
8.59% CachyOS 64 bit
6.62% Linux Mint 22.3 64 bit
5.79% Bazzite 64 bit
5.26% Freedesktop SDK 25.08
3.82% Ubuntu Core 24 64 bit
2.83% Ubuntu 24.04.03 LTS 64 bit
2.59% Linux Mint 22.2 64 bit
March 2026:
25.64% Other
24.48% SteamOS Holo 64 bit
17.60% 0 64 bit
8.78% Arch Linux 64 bit
8.01% 64 bit
6.90% Linux Mint 22.3 64 bit
3.58% Ubuntu Core 24 64 bit
1.90% Linux Mint 22.2 64 bit
1.67% Ubuntu 25.10 64 bit
1.45% Manjoro Linux 64 bit
I'm guessing that "0 64 bit" and "64 bit" are CachyOS and Bazzite, as I would be surprised to see either of those fall off the list given their current popularity. It is also interesting to see the flatpack installs (Freedesktop SDK) fall off the list.
I really wish that Valve would increase the number of distros they report, or stop breaking out individual versions. The purpose of having multiple versions is to see how quickly people are upgrading and when to stop supporting older ones, but the current presentation doesn't actually let you do that since there is so much churn in which releases make the top 10 cut.
I was keeping a Windows install around solely to play Fortnite with my kids but they've finally found other games.
Rocket League performance on Linux used to be the other big reason but about 4 months ago I fired it up and found it ran smoother (the random stutters I have suffered through on Windows are not there on Linux).
Now that those two are no longer relevant I can finally reclaim that wasted SSD storage.
I am a long time windows pc gamer, but lately I was having to re-pair my DS4 controller every week or so. But the windows Bluetooth device manager will just refuse to remove that device. So I was periodically having to open the old school device manager, click show hidden and remove the controller there. By the fifth time I got fed up, replaced windows with Bazzite and am happy now. Good riddance.
Long time Linux user, but I got lazy into the Windows ecosystem for too many years. My son convinced me to move over and I haven't looked back. I haven't found a game that hasn't run, the worst I have to do is change Proton version. Ubuntu was good, but Nobara is amazing (ndivia 5000 series drivers out of the box).
Considering how awful Microslop's Win11 is, Linux could really gain some traction if it were to begin to consider the desktop environment as a useful target. Server is already dominated, top 500 supercomputers running linux (since 2017; https://www.top500.org/statistics/details/osfam/1/) - yet the desktop area is one where I don't feel there is really a lot of real improvement. I know, I know, GNOME and KDE keep on promoting how above they are beyond epic perfection already, but this is just buzzword-PR-chaining. GTK is a mostly-GNOME-only toolkit now and qt has its own objectives. Things that should be super-simple and work on Linux, do not work that well for Average Joe for the most part. One can fix most things with some research, but not everyone knows how to do so, or will fatigue after a while. Now most gamers are usually young and tend to be more tech-savvy, so they can solve things more easily, but even then one has to wonder why so much time has to be invested to make things work well. Why does Linux not consider the desktop system a priority? Smartphones are a special place as the environment is mostly controlled by one private vendor or an open ecosystem (which then is usually much smaller, and still does not yield real improvements for the desktop system, for the most part, give or take; GNOME3 kind of looks and feels like a smartphone-UI).
Question: What percentage of windows gamers are actually Linux gamers who are using wine/proton or some anti-cheat workaround/VM that causes them to be reported as using windows when they are in fact running linux?
Using proton, I regularly see crash reports where games want to report that I was running some version of windows, which is a result of how proton implements wine. I never send such reports as they are of little use to developers.
I wish things were working so seamlessly for me, as people describe in the comments. There seems to be something wrong with Steam and how it works, so that in my machine (and CPU and GPU from 2019, with official Linux drivers from standard repos, running Debian KDE) it almost never manages to start a Windows game. I will click the green "Play" button, it will change to a blue "Stop" button, as if the application was running, then shortly after silently switches back to the green Play button again, without any visible error and without actually starting the game. This has been going on for years and I have tried various things, Including HWE kernel, OS reinstall from Linux Mint to Debian, installing the steam client via various means, and whatnot.
I have a suspicion, that somehow Steam has issues when Guix is installed, which I am always using, but then the question is, why Steam is incapable of just shipping with whatever it needs and using the things it shipped with properly, instead of getting confused by Guix, which only puts things in the GNU store, and not in a place that Steam should ever look at. But like I said, it is only a hunch or suspicion, and I need Guix more than Steam on Linux.
Then there are games that just work, like Stardew Valley. And maybe Terraria. I suspect, that it is somehow also about what engine the games use and what those engines rely on. But these games are very few, and most bigger mainstream games like AoE2 simple won't start, like I described.
So for me it still seems, that it is not actually working that reliably on just any GNU/Linux system, and that there are still blind spots, that Valve or whoever is clearly not seeing or considering in their whole Proton development or how Proton is used by Steam. Probably some isolation thing that they are completely missing for several years now.
I’ve had a good experience running Arch Linux on my “gaming” PC in the living room. It helps that I’m very comfortable with Linux internals, but I’d say I have no issues or issues that can be fixed with 2-3 clicks about 95% of the time.
My setup is basically Arch Linux, ProtonUp-Qt (to easily install specific versions of Proton, the compatibility layer), Steam, and the proprietary Nvidia drivers/Vulkan. I generally have no issues with Easy Anti-Cheat games like Arc Raiders, but obviously anything that requires secure boot attestation like Arena Breakout Infinite won’t play. I’ve not bothered to try setting up full secure boot as the games that require it aren’t typically in my wheelhouse.
I hope Linux adoption continues for my own, very self-serving, interests. I get the sense that those who primarily use their computer for gaming are the frogs slowly being boiled by Microsoft who continues to back their these customers into uncomfortable, unnecessary corners.
When playing eve online on Linux (via Proton), the moment any other window gets focus, or the mouse slights off the game screen onto the second monitor on the side, game minimizes.
I have a feeling it's just wine things. Can anybody understand what happens and maybe explain it a little?
I remember that 13 years ago I did everything on Linux and only switched to Windows to play eve online. Now the game works beautifully (graphics and all) on Linux with just one slight modification in the "run command" in Steam.
This is nothing, as anybody who tried to play games on Linux using wine can attest. It used to be a hell of modifications, dependency hunting and obscure hacks to get any windows game to work.
368 comments
The clue is already in the article itself. The author notes that "part of the jump at least appears to be explained by Valve correcting again the Steam China numbers." If you actually think about what that implies, it raises more questions than answers. A 31.85% monthly drop is obviously not organic, so yes, it makes sense to call it a "correction." But then why was the previous month's data so far off in the first place? Is there something fundamentally flawed in the survey methodology, like sampling bias, non-uniform distribution, regional skew, or something else?
And if this kind of correction happens this month, what's stopping it from happening in previous months? The reality is: it does happen all the time. You can usually spot at least one clearly unrealistic data point in almost every release.
At that point, it's hard to argue there's any real value in trying to analyze these results in a rigorous way.
It happened in last year's March stats too: https://web.archive.org/web/20250404061527/https://store.ste... -25%
I’m not talking about the Feb number that is reported in March.
https://radar.cloudflare.com/explorer?dataSet=http&groupBy=o...
Fun tidbits, Finland is at ~10% (!), and Germany at 6.3%.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/
'Valve correcting again the Steam China numbers.'
This seemingly is a common problem with the Steam Hardware Report, with Chinese users being erroneously represented. It constantly gets fixed, although takes a bit. It could be the hardware surveys are sent out at a different time compared to the rest of the world, then combined in the following month.
This is proven by "Ended 2025 at around a 3.5% marketshare, dipped a bit in January, and fell to 2.23% in February."
Linux was already stable enough 10 years ago as daily driver, i used Arch.
everything worked just fine, i remember only having issue with graphic drivers and glitches
I never really wanted anything more from it but when i moved to Mac, i saw how it prevents me from opening apps i downloaded from trusted site and every now and then i need to set xattr to open the files, and go through bunch of lockdowns.
Now freecad has improved so much, with all AI coding and all opensource will improve DRASTICALLY and very fast.
using AI which stole everyone's code to develop OpenSource is morally right thing to do vs using it at private companies. It will attract more devs.
- Microsoft has worked tirelessly to make the windows compute experience an evermore intrusive and soul crushing experience for the average gamer. artificially outmoded hardware at a time of GPU scarcity means consumers cant comply with redmonds increasingly arbitrary hardware edicts even if they wanted to. at the same time, linux has become ever easier to install and use as an alternative. there is likely an inflection point for a lot of gamers that are just looking to access their library.
- console gaming has become hideously overpriced. madatory tie-ins with playstation network, high costs for all consoles, and the potential for the console stocks to simply not be available at time of release make for a frictional and frustrating experience. Microslop is embracing the same playstation style enshittification that routinely brings sony to its knees. neither juggernaut seems genuinely interested in the end user with the exception of Nintendo, whos quality control issues and pricing as well with switch hardware make it a nonstarter for anyone but the most diehard zelda fan.
- steam + linux offers a largely seamless experience for the casual gamer. steam sales are fun and engaging. the community is generally well rounded. gabe newell is generally well respected by gamers and visibly interested in gaming and the community. Valve has contributed significantly to Linux since their push to obliterate the Windows store and shows no sign of retreat anytime soon. Steam + Linux is free and works with your existing hardware in a time of high prices, inflation, and scarcity in the western world.
> any analysis built on month-to-month changes […] should be taken with a very large grain of salt
Agreed.
January and February are school vacations in South America. The whole month. Kids have a lot more free hours to tinker and play video games. That might not be the cause of the spike in this particular case, but there's probably dozens of similar random facts that can affect statistics on any month in unexpected ways.
Proton's updates is a game changer, Windows 11's absolutely garbage buggy slop is frustrating more and more people. OS' like CachyOS and Bazzite etc making the transition far more approachable than ever.
The future is bright.
Loads of people switch to Linux but I do wonder how many are still there a year later? I say this as someone that been a Linux daily runner since about 2010.
The most annoying thing I encountered was the Switch controller support being rather poor. Every button press was somehow interpreted as two different buttons at the same time and I had to figure out which commands to run on Terminal to stop it from happening. Even then, the bluetooth connection on my PC was so bad that I had to stay within 3 feet lest the controller disconnects. I don't really think this is a Linux issue per se, but I recommend people buy a couple of 8bitdo controllers on Amazon which come with USB dongles if they want to go this route.
I will miss games that I can only play with mouse and keyboard, but I think there are enough games out there with controller support that this is not going to be an issue.
When it updated and started shoving AI down my throat, with no easy way to turn it off and suddenly lots of data I don't consent to sharing getting used, 11 became the last Windows OS I'll ever use.
Whenever the next version comes out, Im moving fully to *buntu.
My main laptop already uses it and Steam on Linux has been fantastic. Any bugs or issues Ive experience have been due to my very unusual setup (like an eGPU over Thunderbolt)
It's fully open! It has a KDE desktop that I can access any time! I can shove in any size of SSD I like!
And I'm playing Halo 3... on Linux... on hardware made by Steam. If you spoke that sentence to me in 2009, I'd suggest you ought to be sectioned.
Feb 2026:
March 2026: I'm guessing that "0 64 bit" and "64 bit" are CachyOS and Bazzite, as I would be surprised to see either of those fall off the list given their current popularity. It is also interesting to see the flatpack installs (Freedesktop SDK) fall off the list.I really wish that Valve would increase the number of distros they report, or stop breaking out individual versions. The purpose of having multiple versions is to see how quickly people are upgrading and when to stop supporting older ones, but the current presentation doesn't actually let you do that since there is so much churn in which releases make the top 10 cut.
I'm using CachyOS with a PS2 controller or mouse and keyboard. I had to do virtually zero tinkering.
However I'm very thankful for the work Valve has done, as this has made Wine much much better.
I can now just download a game from GOG, set it up with a winetricks one-liner, and expect it to work. Even the latest games that just came out.
Although to be fair I usually wait a couple months to get a good discount. But, before, you had to wait years for support, if any at all.
I'm also seeing some studios releasing support for Vulkan either day one or in updates, which is great.
Rocket League performance on Linux used to be the other big reason but about 4 months ago I fired it up and found it ran smoother (the random stutters I have suffered through on Windows are not there on Linux).
Now that those two are no longer relevant I can finally reclaim that wasted SSD storage.
Using proton, I regularly see crash reports where games want to report that I was running some version of windows, which is a result of how proton implements wine. I never send such reports as they are of little use to developers.
I have a suspicion, that somehow Steam has issues when Guix is installed, which I am always using, but then the question is, why Steam is incapable of just shipping with whatever it needs and using the things it shipped with properly, instead of getting confused by Guix, which only puts things in the GNU store, and not in a place that Steam should ever look at. But like I said, it is only a hunch or suspicion, and I need Guix more than Steam on Linux.
Then there are games that just work, like Stardew Valley. And maybe Terraria. I suspect, that it is somehow also about what engine the games use and what those engines rely on. But these games are very few, and most bigger mainstream games like AoE2 simple won't start, like I described.
So for me it still seems, that it is not actually working that reliably on just any GNU/Linux system, and that there are still blind spots, that Valve or whoever is clearly not seeing or considering in their whole Proton development or how Proton is used by Steam. Probably some isolation thing that they are completely missing for several years now.
My setup is basically Arch Linux, ProtonUp-Qt (to easily install specific versions of Proton, the compatibility layer), Steam, and the proprietary Nvidia drivers/Vulkan. I generally have no issues with Easy Anti-Cheat games like Arc Raiders, but obviously anything that requires secure boot attestation like Arena Breakout Infinite won’t play. I’ve not bothered to try setting up full secure boot as the games that require it aren’t typically in my wheelhouse.
I hope Linux adoption continues for my own, very self-serving, interests. I get the sense that those who primarily use their computer for gaming are the frogs slowly being boiled by Microsoft who continues to back their these customers into uncomfortable, unnecessary corners.
I have a feeling it's just wine things. Can anybody understand what happens and maybe explain it a little?
I remember that 13 years ago I did everything on Linux and only switched to Windows to play eve online. Now the game works beautifully (graphics and all) on Linux with just one slight modification in the "run command" in Steam.
This is nothing, as anybody who tried to play games on Linux using wine can attest. It used to be a hell of modifications, dependency hunting and obscure hacks to get any windows game to work.
Proton and Vulcan are Awesome.