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.
Quoting: mphuZI do agree with you about this--SteamOS provided a sort of reference for game developers, and indeed other distros, a target that said "If I target this, most people should be able to run my games" or, on the distro side, "If I do it like this, games should run."Quoting: LightkeyI think you are mixing up SteamOS with Steam SDK.No. Runtime did not appear immediately and a lot depended on the distribution itself.
But you perceive that this did not in any way depend on the quality of SteamOS as a distro. It just had to exist. And I've never really heard that SteamOS 1&2 were all that great to actually use.
Quoting: mphuZRight, I mixed it up myself, I meant the Steam Runtime. Like Purple Li.. that one said, SteamOS was not exactly a great distribution to use and you had no advantage over using the Runtime on a different distribution.Quoting: LightkeyI think you are mixing up SteamOS with Steam SDK.No. Runtime did not appear immediately and a lot depended on the distribution itself.
Quoting: MohandevirQuoting: denyasisSo 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.
I'm wondering if Valve wasn't also using Q1 and Q2 shipments for beta testing. They might have voluntarily reduced the quantity of units shipped to avoid being overwhelmend by support tickets. Probably they feel more confident now, because the first batch of Q3 emails is like a tidal wave compared to what it was before, in terms of units shipped. Looking forward for next months Linux market share.
I am reminded of the Librem 5 phone. Years later, people are still receiving them, but it sure feels like they ship them out 5 a month...
Quoting: MohandevirQuoting: denyasisSo 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.
I'm wondering if Valve wasn't also using Q1 and Q2 shipments for beta testing. They might have voluntarily reduced the quantity of units shipped to avoid being overwhelmend by support tickets. Probably they feel more confident now, because the first batch of Q3 emails is like a tidal wave compared to what it was before, in terms of units shipped. Looking forward for next months Linux market share.
I am reminded of the Librem 5 phone. Years later, people are still receiving them, but it sure feels like they are sending out like 5 peer month...
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