Steam Survey for April 2026 shows Linux still trending well

0 64 bit? 😆

Hopefully the dip brought the numbers closer to reality.
That's still a 1.5% increase since the Windows 10 EoL. Roughly 2% over the last year. Despite the Steam Deck being out of stock for many months now. The future of Linux gaming is looking bright, folks.

Last edited by _Mars on 2 May 2026 at 1:59 pm UTC

It's really wild. 10% by ~2030 seems just about inevitable now.

Even as someone who's used Linux for literally decades now, I'd have never thought this would be such a thing.

There is no real exponential trend. I did the math some hours ago and there was a linear trend before Steam Deck release, than an accelerated trend between Steam Deck Release and Win10 EOL and a 5.5 times increase after Win10 EOL. Steam Deck OLED did not change the linear trend. November and December 2025 had exactly the same 5.5 times increase as the whole 2026 until April. January and February were Chinese New Year, March somehow bad data, so these should be ignored.

If it would be a real exponential curve, March data would be real and April even above that. So it would be better to use 3 linear lines, clamped between those relevant dates.

PS: If it is linear we will see on Windows 10 extended support end of life. It should be around 6%. It should be far above 6% if it is exponential.

Last edited by PlayingOnLinuxphone on 2 May 2026 at 2:07 pm UTC

Quoting: mattaraxiaIt's really wild. 10% by ~2030 seems just about inevitable now.

With the current speed, 9.5% is reached by end of 2027 and considering Steam hardware it should even be above 10% next year (if nothing slows down).

Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphone

Quoting: mattaraxiaIt's really wild. 10% by ~2030 seems just about inevitable now.

With the current speed, 9.5% is reached by end of 2027 and considering Steam hardware it should even be above 10% next year (if nothing slows down).

I'm as excited as every other Linux enthusiast but that's very unlikely.
We're probably not going to see such big jumps frequently.

Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphoneThere is no real exponential trend. I did the math some hours ago and there was a linear trend before Steam Deck release, than an accelerated trend between Steam Deck Release and Win10 EOL and a 5.5 times increase after Win10 EOL. Steam Deck OLED did not change the linear trend. November and December 2025 had exactly the same 5.5 times increase as the whole 2026 until April. January and February were Chinese New Year, March somehow bad data, so these should be ignored.

If it would be a real exponential curve, March data would be real and April even above that. So it would be better to use 3 linear lines, clamped between those relevant dates.

PS: If it is linear we will see on Windows 10 extended support end of life. It should be around 6%. It should be far above 6% if it is exponential.

Here's a visual aid.

As you say, it's all pretty flat before the Deck, then we get added a pretty linear Deck signal, and then we get a pretty linear desktop signal as the Deck flattens out.

I've found the 5-month moving average to be quite good at separating out the signal from the noise.


There's no real justification for splatting the data onto an exponential curve, although we get someone demanding that it's done pretty much every month so I'm not surprised that Liam's given it to them to make them stop. One could splat it into a logarithmic, sinusoidal or tangent curve just as easily.

Quoting: SakuretsuWe're probably not going to see such big jumps frequently.

That jump is already done. We are on a 3% per year rate right now. 2 years multiplied with 3% = 6% plus 3.5% of last year December = 9.5%. No further jump or acceleration, just continuing growth of last 6 months, which is very likely considering 25% of Win10 users and that Win11 growths slower than Linux does. I did not even include Steam Machine and VR or EOL#2 in this math.

And also consider this: until now Linux never had a slow down in growth. That will happen at some point, but there is no sign it will happen in 2026/2027.

Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphone

Quoting: mattaraxiaIt's really wild. 10% by ~2030 seems just about inevitable now.

With the current speed, 9.5% is reached by end of 2027 and considering Steam hardware it should even be above 10% next year (if nothing slows down).

Maybe. I doubt it's quite that fast, but could be. I mean that is certainly by ~2030. There isn't another Windows 10 EOL coming, so it probably won't be quite as fast as the current rate non-stop, but I'm virtually sure it won't reverse. We also may just not need another Windows 10 EOL. Linux is hip now. It may just get even faster.

Steam Hardware is tricky. On the one hand the RAM shortage is hurting it. But that's probably balanced out by the RAM shortage driving Windows 10 EOL'ers to switch.

Since people don't trust me, I also draw some lines:



Everyone can extrapolate the line themselves.

Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphoneSince people don't trust me, I also draw some lines:

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Everyone can extrapolate the line themselves.

The last line might be Windows 11 and not happening like this again.

Can't stop us now!

Sadly no longer the praised 5% but nonetheless a great success!
So, lets welcome every new fellow gamer :3

Beware the monkey's paw. When you wish for increased Linux use it could lead to all kinds of places you'd rather not go.

More "normies" using it might lead to more "dumbed down" developments. Normies don't care about the unix philosophy or FOSS, they want it to "just work". If normies ever become the majority, devs will focus on them and not the current "power" users.

More mainstream attention also leads to more corpo and government attention. I won't even mention how bad that could go, we all know corpos and governmnets don't have great track records at... anything!

If you twisted my arm, I'd wager that the golden age (probably 2015-2025) of linux is sadly coming to an end. We've seen it over and over again. Some niche thing gets mainstream attention and then it gets enshitified.

And I know people say things like "you control what you install", but I think that is short sighted. When said masses show up and expect (for example, I have no stake in them) snaps, that will become the norm. Developers will slowly move to only supporting the now mainstream snaps and package managers may become second class citizens.

Of course I don't have a crystal ball, but as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for (doubly so in the age of enshitification).

That's one of my concerns with the recent push for immutable distros. They're an interesting idea but this notion that they "fix" linux for new users I think is just leading down a poorly defined path. They're only easier when they work. When they don't they're actually harder to fix because they deliberately obfuscate all the stuff you learn with regular builds. "Oh you can just roll back to when it worked", but then users never learn why it didn't work.
We're already seeing that smartphones have led gen z/alpha to be less tech literate than even gen x.

Quoting: eggroleMore "normies" using it might lead to more "dumbed down" developments. Normies don't care about the unix philosophy or FOSS, they want it to "just work".

Meh. Engineers don't care about FOSS either. I remember when the Free Software Foundation was a big deal. I remember when people seriously avoided more permissive licenses in favour of the GPL for the sake of keeping software Free. I remember when people worried about "Tivoization" and cloud stuff making the openness of the source irrelevant and invented the AGPL in an attempt to deal with it, and this was taken seriously. It wasn't normies that changed that, it was corporate programmers.

And in any case, I personally am a "normie" in terms of whether I can or care to program, mess with the guts of the system etc., and I care more about FOSS than most programmers here.

Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 3 May 2026 at 5:14 am UTC

Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphoneThere is no real exponential trend. I did the math some hours ago and there was a linear trend before Steam Deck release, than an accelerated trend between Steam Deck Release and Win10 EOL and a 5.5 times increase after Win10 EOL. Steam Deck OLED did not change the linear trend. November and December 2025 had exactly the same 5.5 times increase as the whole 2026 until April. January and February were Chinese New Year, March somehow bad data, so these should be ignored.

If it would be a real exponential curve, March data would be real and April even above that. So it would be better to use 3 linear lines, clamped between those relevant dates.

PS: If it is linear we will see on Windows 10 extended support end of life. It should be around 6%. It should be far above 6% if it is exponential.

if we want an accurate trend line, it should be able to predict the future with an good precision.

Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphone

Quoting: SakuretsuWe're probably not going to see such big jumps frequently.

That jump is already done. We are on a 3% per year rate right now. 2 years multiplied with 3% = 6% plus 3.5% of last year December = 9.5%. No further jump or acceleration, just continuing growth of last 6 months, which is very likely considering 25% of Win10 users and that Win11 growths slower than Linux does. I did not even include Steam Machine and VR or EOL#2 in this math.

And also consider this: until now Linux never had a slow down in growth. That will happen at some point, but there is no sign it will happen in 2026/2027.

most of people arent techy savy enough to install another OS, we are probably looking at the tech savy people installing linux on their machines right now, but soon we will enter the average joe territory.

Steam Survey is useless garbage. It's not humanly possible to do polling and statistics any worse than this. Please ignore it, it's just worthless random noise junk not worth anyone's 2 seconds of attention (except maybe to teach a toddler how not to do statistics).

Quoting: elmapulmost of people arent techy savy enough to install another OS, we are probably looking at the tech savy people installing linux on their machines right now, but soon we will enter the average joe territory.

Most people are able to search Steam on internet, download installer, install, create an account, login, buy a game, download the game and actually play the game. We are not speaking about grandpa who never touched a PC before or who just knows how to open the news paper on web browser. We are speaking about people that already have enough knowledge to be comfortable with such tasks. Those people are also able to search for tutorials on YouTube while Linux installers are easy these days.

And even in case people don't know how to install it themselves. As more people already switched as more people are also able to help friends and family to switch and also as more people getting interested in Linux. There are even Linux install parties, especially made for people who cannot deal with it themselves, including after installation support. I also expect more PC makers jump onto the Linux preinstalled train at some point.

Last edited by PlayingOnLinuxphone on 3 May 2026 at 7:57 am UTC