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PayPalValve released the statistics from the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for November 2025, which shows once again that Linux use is trending nicely upwards.
Slow and steady wins the race? Thanks in part due to all of Valve's work with SteamOS and Proton, and thanks to Microsoft forcing AI rubbish in Windows - more people are checking Linux out than ever before.
For November 2025 the overall operating system share is:
- Windows - 94.79%
- Linux - 3.20%
- macOS - 2.02%
Our dedicated Steam Tracker is up to date for the Linux overall trend, as well as our newer distribution chart as well. Here's a snapshot from it:
For the breakdown of popular Linux distributions on Steam here's November's details:
- SteamOS Holo 64 bit 26.42% -0.76%
- Arch Linux 64 bit 9.97% -0.35%
- Linux Mint 22.2 64 bit 7.36% +0.71%
- CachyOS 64 bit 6.74% +0.73%
- Freedesktop SDK 25.08 (Flatpak runtime) 64 bit 5.96% +1.67%
- Bazzite 64 bit 5.53% +1.29%
- Ubuntu Core 22 64 bit 4.29% -0.26%
- Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS 64 bit 3.86% +0.16%
- EndeavourOS Linux 64 bit 2.10% -0.22%
- Linux Mint 22.1 64 bit 1.96% -0.60%
- Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS 64 bit 1.90% -0.03%
- Manjaro Linux 64 bit 1.90% -0.14%
- Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) 64 bit 1.58% +1.58%
-
Other 20.43% +2.39%
It's not entirely clear what Valve uses to sort the Linux list, as distributions seem to randomly flick in and out of it each month. Would be nice if we could just get a full list each month. The order has been all messed up for a few months too across various parts of the survey, hopefully Valve will eventually fix that.
Be sure to click along to our Steam Tracker for a lot more info and interactive charts. We've been tracking this for years now so you don't have to.
Source: Valve
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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LordDaveTheKind 3 hours ago
Last edited by LordDaveTheKind on 2 Dec 2025 at 8:26 am UTC
And as the Steam Deck sold around 4 millions units and is at 1 million monthly active users, we can extrapolate to 16 millions total Steam Linux user base, which is bigger than Wii U.
There are practically no Linux games out there.
A lot of franchises that had linux(bad ones at that) ports - became windows only with proton.
I suppose it only matters for proton, there is more initiative to make proton better as result.
I am not sure if it matters any more.Of course it matters! I get to use Linux and play games. And there are thousands of native games out there. Not many big-budget ones, but I can live with that. I don't buy AAA anyway, unless it's old and cheap as chips.
There are practically no Linux games out there.
A lot of franchises that had linux(bad ones at that) ports - became windows only with proton.
I suppose it only matters for proton, there is more initiative to make proton better as result.
I am not sure if it matters any more.
There are practically no Linux games out there.
A lot of franchises that had linux(bad ones at that) ports - became windows only with proton.
I suppose it only matters for proton, there is more initiative to make proton better as result.
As a point and click, CRPG and puzzle game player, I still got more native games to play than I would ever find time to do so.
- "We will be more than 1%"
- "We will hit 2%"
- "We are now more than 3%"!
Proton, Steam Deck, PC gaming handhelds showing Linux distros working better on them than Windows, the end of Windows 10, Recall, Co-Pilot, etc... all aspects to our benefits. Wow... more than 3 percent.
Okay, next goal: Windows drops below 90%
Liam Dawe 54 minutes ago
Quoting: amataiThat's like 4 millions monthly active users. That's too low to make Linux a primary target, but hopefully too high to be dismissed.That number is massively out of date. We haven't been given a new overall monthly active for years, and since Steam has grown massively - the Linux number is probably more like 8-9 million total.
And as the Steam Deck sold around 4 millions units and is at 1 million monthly active users, we can extrapolate to 16 millions total Steam Linux user base, which is bigger than Wii U.
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