Steam Survey for January 2026 shows a small drop for Linux and macOS

By Liam Dawe - 2 Feb 2026 at 10:55 am UTC

Last updated: 2 Feb 2026 at 10:58 am UTC

Valve have released the data for the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for January 2026, showing Windows getting a small bump while Linux and macOS drop.

After Linux jumping up repeatedly recently, it was inevitable there would be some bumps along the way. As we've seen in the past, the share tends to bounce up and down but it's still clearly trending nicely upwards overall. Here's the current operating system user share for Steam as of January 2026:

Windows - 94.62%
Linux - 3.38%
macOS - 2.01%

This month overall the English language on Steam saw a small drop too with Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Russian, Japanese and others rising.

Here's a snapshot of the Linux chart from our dedicated Steam Tracker page for the trend:

Plus a snapshot of the overall Linux distributions being used over time:

Here's the most popular Linux distributions for January 2026:

SteamOS Holo 64 bit 24.79% -1.53%
Arch Linux 64 bit 9.21% -0.33%
CachyOS 64 bit 8.89% +1.69%
Linux Mint 22.2 64 bit 6.57% -1.28%
Bazzite 64 bit 6.54% +0.65%
Freedesktop SDK 25.08 (Flatpak runtime) 64 bit 6.34% +0.05%
Ubuntu Core 24 64 bit 3.92% +0.69%
Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS 64 bit 3.77% -0.16%
Linux Mint 22.3 64 bit 2.33% +2.33%
Fedora Linux 43 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition) 64 bit 2.17% +0.26%
EndeavourOS Linux 64 bit 1.92% -0.20%
Nobara Linux 43 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition) 64 bit 1.76% +1.76%
Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) 64 bit 1.74% +0.02%
Manjaro Linux 64 bit 1.68% -0.05%
Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS 64 bit 1.51% +1.51%
Ubuntu 25.10 64 bit 1.50% +1.50%
Other 15.38% -2.29%

A completely new entry appears to be Nobara Linux 43 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition) 64 bit, as I don't think any edition of Nobara has showed up at all before.

Specifically on the Steam Deck side on the Linux stats the "AMD Custom GPU 0405" (Steam Deck LCD) is at 12.26% (-1.11%) and the "AMD Radeon Graphics (RADV VANGOGH)" (Steam Deck OLED) is at 11.92% (-0.56%).

Source: Valve

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.

Tags: Misc, Steam, Survey, Survey Results, Valve

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About the author - Liam Dawe

I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
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7 comments

pb 2 hours ago

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a healthy correction before another leg up ;-)

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Eike 2 hours ago

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Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) 64 bit 1.74% +0.02%

That was me, yesterday. ;)

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Johnologue 1 hour ago

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And if we check the dedicated tracker page, we find...yup. Linux share for English users is steady. Unchanged, even, which makes enough sense. It's a wretched time to buy new hardware, nothing has really happened last month to push people to switch, etc.

The drop is just the proportion of English-language Steam accounts.

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syylk 45 minutes ago

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Well, we must never forget that Steam total numbers keep going up. Especially after the holiday season, I expect more mainstream systems to be installed and join the Steam pool. So, a decrease in percentage could be a normal post-holiday adjustment.

I would love to see a raw numbers dataset for these surveys, and not just percentages.

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Drakker 44 minutes ago

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You should start to use whole years for reference. Monthly noise means nothing, just like in the stock market. For January 2026 Linux usage is up roughly 1.5% on the chart from January 2025. This is a much more meaningful number. You could go a bit farther and be a lot more sensationalist. Actual Linux usage is up what, 80%? In term of net users increase, the jump is much higher, with the number of users almost doubling.

Last edited by Drakker on 2 Feb 2026 at 12:28 pm UTC

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BlackSun 35 minutes ago

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I use Flatpak on the Arch-based EndeavourOS, so I don't have to install the 32bit libraries.
I wish Steam would release a 64bit launcher for Linux. 😫

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hardpenguin 9 minutes ago

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Quoting: Eike
Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) 64 bit 1.74% +0.02%
That was me, yesterday. ;)

Me too but on Debian Sid! ☺️

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