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The latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey is out for June 2022, putting the Linux user share at one of its highest ever points and likely thanks to the rise of the Steam Deck and SteamOS. As shown on our dedicated Steam Tracker, it's been trending upwards for quite a while but this latest figure is a pretty good showing.

As of June 2022, Linux is sitting at 1.18% of the Steam user share.

Now, that doesn't sound like a lot on paper, but it puts the monthly active Linux user count at around 1,557,600 at least (based on when Valve last gave the monthly active user count).

Here's the breakdown of the most popular Linux systems:

  • "Arch Linux" 64 bit 11.42% -1.43%
  • "Manjaro Linux" 64 bit 10.11% -0.98%
  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 64 bit 9.90% +1.86%
  • Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS 64 bit 9.73% -2.02%
  • "SteamOS Holo" 64 bit 7.58% +2.35%
  • Linux Mint 20.3 64 bit 6.45% +0.48%
  • Description:Freedesktop.org 21.08.14 (Flatpak runtime) 64 bit 6.05% +6.05%
  • Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS 64 bit 4.79% +4.79%
  • Other 33.96% -11.11%

So you can pretty plainly see that the Steam Deck with SteamOS is already rising up the ranks, as one of the most popular Linux gaming systems on Steam's survey with it already making up well over 7% of Linux players which is a nice increase from the 5% from May 2022.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial, Misc, Steam
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gradyvuckovic Jul 2, 2022
The ball is starting to roll down the hill. These marketshare gains are only going to make it even easier to gain more marketshare in the future. And Valve still has many more Steam Decks to ship yet. Good times ahead.
mphuZ Jul 2, 2022
It's a shame that Valve hasn't released the SteamOS desktop distribution yet.
And even the new Big Picture is missing in the beta version of Steam.
mr-victory Jul 2, 2022
If you limit the survey to Windows only and list the GPUs, you will see that there are GPUs with <%0.01 share and the Steam Deck GPU is not listed.

On Linux Steam Deck GPU has %7.57 usage, which is roughly %0.07 of total.

So few people have gone the Windows route...
TheRiddick Jul 2, 2022
Once RDNA3 handhelds hit the market (ie. Steam-Deck-2) then this will probably get another boost.
fireplace Jul 2, 2022
I’m glad the Steam Flatpak is getting more traction. Native games on Linux sometimes required libraries outside of the Steam runtime, and developers don’t notice this and just say that it only supports ubuntu or fedora or some crap like that. Now with the Flatpak, it’ll be clear as day if the native game works or not.
1xok Jul 2, 2022
Soon, the majority of Linux gamers will be Steam Deck users.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/5343/
CyborgZeta Jul 2, 2022
Quoting: fireplaceI’m glad the Steam Flatpak is getting more traction. Native games on Linux sometimes required libraries outside of the Steam runtime, and developers don’t notice this and just say that it only supports ubuntu or fedora or some crap like that. Now with the Flatpak, it’ll be clear as day if the native game works or not.
I agree. I use the Steam Flatpak on my desktop and it actually works quite well. I guess I'm included in that 6.05%.

What I find interesting is not just how high SteamOS Holo is already, but how Ubuntu is noticeable dethroned from the top. It doesn't feel like that long ago that Ubuntu still topped the list.
CatKiller Jul 2, 2022
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Quoting: CyborgZetaWhat I find interesting is not just how high SteamOS Holo is already, but how Ubuntu is noticeable dethroned from the top. It doesn't feel like that long ago that Ubuntu still topped the list.
It still does: it's at 19.63%. This is just the transition period between 20.04 and 22.04, with 20.04 users not being automatically offered the upgrade to 22.04 until 22.04.1 has been released.
denyasis Jul 2, 2022
So that's about 118,000 Deck Users. I guess that's a good number for sales, but I guess I was expecting the over all Linux % to be more positively affected by the Deck. I guess it'll take more time. Hopefully it translates into more mainstream Linux use as well.
Pengling Jul 2, 2022
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Quoting: CatKiller
Quoting: CyborgZetaWhat I find interesting is not just how high SteamOS Holo is already, but how Ubuntu is noticeable dethroned from the top. It doesn't feel like that long ago that Ubuntu still topped the list.
It still does: it's at 19.63%. This is just the transition period between 20.04 and 22.04, with 20.04 users not being automatically offered the upgrade to 22.04 until 22.04.1 has been released.
And I presume that the "Other" category also includes some of the other Ubuntu flavours, as well, unless they roll those in with regular Ubuntu?
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