Linux User Share Hits a Multi-Year High On Steam For May 2025 (gamingonlinux.com)
- Reference: 0177903781
- News link: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/06/02/2124213/linux-user-share-hits-a-multi-year-high-on-steam-for-may-2025
- Source link: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/06/linux-user-share-hits-a-multi-year-high-on-steam-for-may-2025/
> Overall user share for May 2025:
>
> - Windows 95.45% -0.65%
> - Linux 2.69% +0.42%
> - macOS 1.85% +0.23%
>
> Even with SteamOS 3 now being a little more widely available, the rise was not from SteamOS directly. Filtering to just the Linux numbers gives us these most popular distributions:
>
> - SteamOS Holo 64 bit 30.95% -2.83%
> - Arch Linux 64 bit 10.09% +0.64%
> - Linux Mint 22.1 64 bit 7.76% +1.56%
> - Freedesktop SDK 24.08 (Flatpak runtime) 64 bit 7.42% +1.01%
> - Ubuntu Core 22 64 bit 4.63% +0.01%
> - Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS 64 bit 4.30% -0.14%
> - CachyOS 64 bit 2.54% +2.54%
> - EndeavourOS Linux 64 bit 2.44% -0.02%
> - Manjaro Linux 64 bit 2.43% -0.18%
> - Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS 64 bit 2.17% -0.06%
> - Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm) 64 bit 1.99% -0.28%
> - Other 23.27% -2.27%
[1] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/06/linux-user-share-hits-a-multi-year-high-on-steam-for-may-2025/
thanks pewdiepie (Score:4, Interesting)
Pewdiepie recently did [1] a video [youtube.com] where he installed arch linux and customized it.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVI_smLgTY0
Seamless (Score:2)
I'm not even in the top list of linux's relatively small slice of steam market share (Fedora) but I e found the experience to be pretty seamless.
Microsoft's enshitttification (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect that a number of tech-savvy people are horrified by Windows 11 to the point of installing Linux and Wine. If so, I expect Linux market share to gain 1 percentage point over the coming months.
The real question is, how many businesses will move away from Microsoft's unashamed move into spyware and data piracy? One would think that people facing HIPAA would be the first to abandon Microsoft's enshittification but it is not happening.
Re: (Score:3)
Microsoft allows businesses to control the amount of data privacy they offer to enterprise customers. That privacy comes, of course, at a cost, but businesses will pay it. Microsoft will even sign HIPAA Business Associate Agreements (BAA) with healthcare providers and other businesses covered by HIPAA. Essentially, a BAA says that Microsoft will abide by HIPAA privacy laws and makes itself liable for any breaches caused by its products, should a provider be fined under HIPAA. [1]https://learn.microsoft.com/en. [microsoft.com]
[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/compliance/regulatory/offering-hipaa-hitech#:~:text=HIPAA%20regulations%20require%20that%20covered%20entities%20(defined%20under%20the%20Rules)%20enter%20into%20agreements%20with%20business%20associates%20to%20ensure%20that%20PHI%20is%20adequately%20protected.%20This%20agreement%20is%20called%20a%20Business%20Associate%20Agreement
Re: (Score:2)
If you're on an azure government tenant, then they really can't fuck with your data. AFAICT azure government was left unscathed by the last few azure data breaches that affected basically every single commercial tenant. My guess as to why they don't offer the same level of protection to commercial tenants is because there are strict controls in place where, unless you're a legal US person (and even then, not likely without citizenship AND a squeaky clean criminal record) then they're not going to let you an
Re: (Score:3)
Every new version of Windows generates howls of protest from "tech-savvy people," who then end up sticking with Windows anyway. People always want things to stay just like they were. But a 95%+ market share, as stated in the summary, says that the vast majority have decided that Windows is still the best option. At least, that's how *most* people would read a 95% market share.
Re: Microsoft's enshitttification (Score:2)
There's a huge amount of devices out there that don't support Windows 11 and that are not going to disappear overnight. The Windows 10 paid support extension buys these devices another year. After that year is up, what will happen to them? Some (most?) may lag along on an unsupported OS no longer patched. I'm expecting a good amount to switch to Linux however, as there's no supported alternative and at least some proportion of owners must be sufficiently worried by that thought to take action.
Re: (Score:3)
But this is the first version of windows that locked out a massive swath of hardware, during a time when linux can run most games via proton.
when 10 came out, i think all of 15 games ran on linux via ports, and 10 installed on every last piece of hardware that could run 7.
Re: Microsoft's enshitttification (Score:2)
Less than 30% of my roughly 500 titles library shows as supported under Linux, few of which are modern AAA titles. There are probably quite a few indie games supported mainly because they use Unity and it makes it cheap and easy, but there are almost no devs specifically targeting Linux.
Re: Microsoft's enshitttification (Score:3)
I suspect most of this change is already due to Windows changes. While as observed, the shift is small, I've still never seen so many people saying they were switching at one time before.
When my Win10 machine can no longer run my games.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll be switching to Linux exclusively. If the game won't run on Linux then I won't buy the game.
Pretty much everything else I need to use a computer for is FOSS anyway.
Re: (Score:3)
I won't. I'll be installing Windows 11. It's annoying, but the literal only thing I use that machine for is games, anyway, so frankly, who cares what OS it's running, and what that OS is doing? Worse it can spy on is my game usage, and it's not like my consoles aren't doing the same.
Anyone still using Windows for actual work should give Macs or Linux a shot. Get the hell off that shit OS.
Arch at 10%? (Score:1)
I understand that Ubuntu can largely be combined (likely with Mint too), but Arch at 10% is surprising. Am I missing something here? Does Arch do really good with Steam?
Re: (Score:2)
I think it is that a more fanatical Linux user is more likely to use Arch, so where quite many mint or Ubuntu users might do most of their things on Linux, they might dual boot and use Windows for gaming, but an Arch user is less likely to do that and will thus game on Arch.
Re: (Score:2)
Arch really sucks the llama's ass, frankly.
It is super popular with the "people who really like to have bad experiences" crowd right now, though, who are also more likely to try gaming on linux.
Re: (Score:2)
Arch is 17.5% if you sum CachyOS, EndeavourOS and Manjaro which are Arch derivatives.
3 more Arch devices from me (Score:1)
Finally have SteamOS Halo on my ROG Ally, and both my server and desktop are running EndeavourOS. progress, now to get my wife on Linux.
Ubuntu Core (Score:2)
I'm interested that Ubuntu Core beats out the mainline Ubuntu. A quick search doesn't reveal any device people would be Steam gaming on in this way.
Only 97.31% more to go! (Score:5, Funny)
2025 is the year of the Linux desktop!!!
Re: Only 97.31% more to go! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well it's about twice as high as macos at the moment, so there's that.
Re: eh (Score:2)
Why, are monks primarily into barebacking? It's not like religious figures who have promised not to have sex don't have sex.
Re: (Score:1)
> MacOS is becoming less useful for unixy-type things like software development because so much of the terminal is rotting away (a combination of GPL3 antagonism, and MacOS being ridiculously locked down in newer versions)
No, that's not why. Macos terminal is not and never was GPL; it was always proprietary. It sucks because apple doesn't pay any attention to it, probably because it's not cool to the dominant crowd of macos users: Hipsters.
Though I suspect you're confusing 'terminal' with 'bash', because their version of it is the last non-gplv3 version, which is like 20 years old now. When I talk about a terminal, I'm talking about the actual terminal emulator that renders the text that your shell runs in. The one apple mad
Re: (Score:2)
Apple's Terminal.app is definitely unadulterated dogshit. Use iTerm2. It's frankly fucking awesome, coming from decades of using great terminals under linux, I felt pretty lost until i found iTerm.
Re: Only 97.31% more to go! (Score:4, Interesting)
About tied if you don't include the Steam Deck, which is actually still pretty damn good.
Re: (Score:3)
> Well it's about twice as high as macos at the moment, so there's that.
Well given that we're talking specifically about people running Steam, that's not too surprising... quite a few Steam games don't work on the Mac (even on the Intel Mac).
I'm actually shocked the Windows percentage is as high as it is (95%) - I thought more people had the SteamDesk than is apparently the case.