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PayPalValve 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.
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Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) 64 bit 1.74% +0.02%That was me, yesterday. ;)
*edit* As yesterday was February already, I'm probably part of the rise next month.
... plus, it asked me on my second computer as well today! (Running Debian Trixie. Of course. :) )
Last edited by Eike on 2 Feb 2026 at 2:03 pm UTC
Johnologue 4 hours ago
The drop is just the proportion of English-language Steam accounts.
I would love to see a raw numbers dataset for these surveys, and not just percentages.
Last edited by Drakker on 2 Feb 2026 at 12:28 pm UTC
I wish Steam would release a 64bit launcher for Linux. 😫
hardpenguin 3 hours ago
Quoting: EikeMe too but on Debian Sid! ☺️Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) 64 bit 1.74% +0.02%That was me, yesterday. ;)
I wonder what is it that makes Chinese rise and ebb so sporadically - you'd think it would be a more or less constant chunk.
Quoting: TheSHEEEPThat flow of +Chinese -Linux is fairly normal by now.It was rumoured to be the difficulty of how to count internet/gaming cafes.
I wonder what is it that makes Chinese rise and ebb so sporadically - you'd think it would be a more or less constant chunk.
Besides the small drop, one interesting fact relating to linux on desktop.. i noticed over at globalstats, that from the period of december 2025 to january 2026 linux the marketshare of linux desktop rose from 3.86 to 4.01 percent worldwide.
So even with this drop i think linux as a whole is moving forward as a viable OS.
We still have to get the Chinese onto Linux.
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