this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2025
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Linux gamers on Steam finally cross over the 3% mark (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 1 week ago by ampersandrew@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world
206 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Free Windows 10 support ended for most people this past month, and the trend line of Linux usage has been quite clear leading up to this, as people prepared for the inevitable. An increase in Linux usage is also correlated to a drop in Chinese players, which did happen this month a little bit, but Linux usage is also trending up when filtering for English only. It's worth noting that for all the official support Macs ever saw in gaming, they never represented anything better than about 5% of the market.

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[–] chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

I joined that group today, but it wasn't necessarily this support thing. I hated Windows update most of the time anyway. Mostly I just needed to buy a new SSD so I could dual boot, which will allow me to transition at my own pace while getting comfortable. I bought a cheap 500gb Saturday.

The other issue is my version of decision paralysis on choosing a distro, which generally is paralysis up until I suddenly just bite the bullet. I went with Nobara since it looked easiest to support my hardware and get into my games quickly.

So far I've gotten FFXIV, Warframe, and Enshouded running the way I want, and am slowly downloading my other current games. I have to keep a 200mpbs download limit because I'm working too. I also wiped one of my 2tb drives that mostly had games I was planning to play soon or just started playing to make it exFAT. I'll probably eventually convert the others but may need to buy another 2tb drive for transfers if needed.

Update: exFAT gave me issues with another game so I ended up just making it a btrfs drive.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, filesystem is a slow battle of forfeiture. Everyone wants to say "I'll just use FAT, or NTFS, because both Windows and Linux support them!" And then it inevitably gives them performance issues among other problems.

I still use either for the drives where both of my dual boot OS's need to access them, but I recognize it's not a good place for games (I have some old, light ones that I'm not worried about accessing on NTFS, but big ones like Helldivers are out). It may even be a good excuse to learn more detailed partitioning so you can slowly shrink/eliminate what's still using the two compatibility formats.

Distro choice is a tricky problem. I say that as someone that kinda settled on one; my own experience has not always matched others. But I will admit, it's nice to stay on an interface not too far from Windows' taskbar.

[–] chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago

I do have an edge there as I'm actually pretty technically inclined (I do tech support for living, and at the risk of sounding like touting my own horn, I'm high up the escalation path for my company). So partitions and stuff are common things I work with, and this isn't nearly my first brush with Linux. It's just more getting games and a bunch of small unique software working is somewhat different from working with business servers where you have either stricter policies on what gets installed or vendor backup if necessary.

Still, much of my actual work involves solving issues by looking up errors and symptoms, so figuring out the issues here aren't that hard for me either. While I do appreciate the GUI making it an easy switch from Windows, I'm no stranger to CLI either and feel quite comfortable using it, and documentation for a lot of what I've messed with so far has been pretty easy to find and follow.

As for my plans, I'll probably eventually limit NTFS to one 1tb drive, or maybe do what you said and repetition it down to maybe 500gb, and hopefully most of what I do will be in Linux. I am the type to force myself to learn by force, so I haven't actually booted back into Windows except for an issue where I couldn't delete the NTFS partition from Linux. And I'll probably hardly boot into Windows going forward either.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

It can be a slow transition, but I did the same. I had equal space for Windows and Linux in 2017, predating the Proton years. When I built a machine in 2021, I saw how much I was using each OS, and it ended up being 1.5TB Linux and 500GB Windows. Whenever I build my next PC, I'm quite confident I won't have any reason to use Windows at all, seeing as I haven't even booted that partition in about a year. If there is some odd use case, like a firmware update utility for a peripheral that requires Windows or something, I'll just install Windows briefly on a cheap mini PC I've got and then set it back to Bazzite when I'm done.

[–] MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Hopefully we can surpass 5% by the end of the decade :D

I switched this year, but the laptop I switched with was on repair during the survey so I probably wasn't counted this time :(

[–] arendjr@programming.dev 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

5% at the end of the decade is quite a pessimistic take 😉

Looking at the graph 1% was crossed mid/late 2021, while 2% was crossed mid 2024, so almost 3 years later. Now 3% is crossed a little more than a year later. Next year we would be likely to have crossed 4% and 5% should be no later than 2027, even if it doesn’t speed up much further.

[–] MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Not at, by. Hopefully sooner.

[–] Auster@thebrainbin.org 1 points 6 days ago

Haven't checked the news itself, but been following the hardware surveys from Valve for some years now, and on average, Linux is on a slow but constant growth. Also, been checking US's official analytics site every now and then for some months now, and there, Linux oscilates between 3 and 6% of users per system.

[–] snowby@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Do I need to do the yearly survey or do they know I've swapped already?

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

It's a random statistical sample. They know that approximately 3 people for every 100 are on Linux, but it doesn't matter which 3.

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 128 points 1 week ago (21 children)

I think it will continue to rise. People are updating their rigs all the time. Whenever they update their rig they’ll have to ask themselves whether they want to continue with Windows on their new rig, or try with something new.

Most will stay on Windows of course, but some don’t. And those who switch to Linux are likely not returning to Windows (for gaming at least).

[–] 3x3@lemy.lol 1 points 3 days ago

Actually I wish that was true but the reality is still that unfortunately a lot of online multiplayer games do in fact not work without issues on Linux

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[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 70 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

SteamOS Holo 64 bit - 27.18% (-0.47%)

Arch Linux 64 bit - 10.32% (-0.66%)

Linux Mint 22.2 64 bit - 6.65% (+6.65%)

CachyOS 64 bit - 6.01% (+1.32%)

Ubuntu Core 22 64 bit - 4.55% (+0.55%)

Freedesktop SDK 25.08 (Flatpak runtime) 64

bit - 4.29% (+4.29%)

Bazzite 64 bit - 4.24% (+4.24%)

Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS 64 bit - 3.70% (+3.70%)

Linux Mint 22.1 64 bit - 2.56% (-5.65%)

EndeavourOS Linux 64 bit - 2.32% (-0.08%)

Freedesktop SDK 24.08 (Flatpak runtime) 64

bit - 2.31% (-3.98%)

Fedora Linux 42 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition)

64 bit - 2.12% (+0.19%)

Manjaro Linux 64 bit - 2.04% (-0.31%)

Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS 64 bit - 1.93% (-0.04%)

Fedora Linux 42 (Workstation Edition) 64 bit - 1.75% (-0.43%)

Other - 18.04% (-4.28%)

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 47 points 1 week ago (5 children)

According to statcounter, Linux desktop was over 4% marketshare in April 2025, damn that's impressive.

We really are getting there.

[–] rodneylives@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

By some reports it's over 5%, statcounter may be undercounting Linux.

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[–] nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip 44 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

What makes the chart "only" on 3% is Chinese users. English Linux user alone has more than 6% percentage of Linux users.

We need Chinese government for their independent tech stack to include Linux further. At the moment, there are already several Chinese distro with big companies porting their basic apps to Linux (like chat app, office app, etc).

If Chinese gov force gaming company to support Linux as well, we will see a huge surge evenmore. There are a huge number of Chinese game that never made out of China, and exclusive to PC only.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 36 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (11 children)

Here's a graphic showing that from this page:

I wish there was a graphic that showed English users with SteamOS separated from non-SteamOS users, because I think if we get 5% of non-SteamOS users, we should start to see devs pay a lot more attention. We're starting to see devs make SteamOS-specific versions (e.g. THPS 1&2 offline mode), so the next step is getting Linux-specific adjustments for more games.

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[–] TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world 41 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I wonder if Valve will ever release an official desktop version of SteamOS? I think Linux adoption would really increase fast if there was a gaming focused Linux desktop distribution with the support of an established company. But does Valve want that? A full featured operating system is a lot to maintain and provide support for.

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 31 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Is that really needed?

I think what could really drive adoption is if computers with Linux pre-installed was more easily accessible. Just boot the computer, choose which DE you want to install and then it’s done. It doesn’t need to be SteamOS. Just any good distro will do.

[–] djdarren@piefed.social 1 points 6 days ago

Its become abundantly clear to me over the past few years that Linux is in place where, to get significant share it needs to have a major figurehead. Imagine if all ThinkPads suddenly were only available with Lenovo's own fork. That kind of thing.

Unfortunateoy, that's kinda the opposite of Linux ethos, and not necessarily likely to make Lenovo much money.

So the best we can really hope for at this point is a company with the brand awareness of Valve pushing SteamOS into the mainstream. People who play games know and generally trust Valve, so people (like my wife) who are on the fence, or who just need their computer to work without needing too much faffing, could likely trust SteamOS in a way they wouldn't necessarily trust Bazzite or CachyOS.

[–] damnedfurry@lemmy.world 25 points 1 week ago (34 children)

Just boot the computer, choose which DE you want to install

Yeah, that's not at all accessible to the average consumer; they don't know what a "DE" even is, much less why they should choose any over any other.

Very, very few people want to deal with something other than a 'just works' situation.

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[–] 1985MustangCobra@lemmy.ca 40 points 1 week ago (5 children)

shoutout to WUBI for making factorio and space age native on linux.

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[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago (36 children)

I have a Windows laptop specifically for gaming, but I end up using my Linux coding laptop for games in the end.

It's less hassle figuring out how to enable nvidia drivers on xorg in GNU linux so that I csn use Proton emulation than to deal with this weeks clusterfuck of windows update trying to make me turn on ads and spying and trick me into using a microsoft.com account to log in.

I am not joking.

The windows still has some dust on it from when I did some house renovations months ago, because I haven't been bothered to use it.

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[–] Bamboodpanda@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I spent the last two days building a machine from old parts and installing Linux Mint. It's my first time using Linux and I am really surprised at how lovely it is. I am still learning, but I can easily see it replacing my home gaming PC. I have yet to find something I can't get to work.

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[–] atmorous@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

MORE!! MORE!!!!!!

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