A moment I’ve no doubt many Linux fans have been waiting to see. The Linux user share on Steam has smashed through the 2% barrier.
Not actually for the first time though, it did initially rise up above 2% in March 2013, shortly after the original Steam for Linux release when it left Beta. Part of the reason it had higher numbers at the start, was that Valve added a special Tux item into Team Fortress 2 only on Linux but it quickly dropped in the following months.
Steam Deck runs on Arch so it’s no surprise it’s up so high.
Edit: it doesn’t count as Arch. The Steam Survey results page has a bug where it doesn’t show SteamOS as top listing for Linux OS when combined Windows, Mac and Linux view is selected.
It doesn’t, the os is immutable and just based on Arch. Arch is counted separately in the Stream hardware survey too.
That’s interesting. When you look at the steam survey results under OS Version, with Windows Mac and Linux combined it shows under Linux that Arch is in first followed by Ubuntu 22, but when you switch the view to Linux only, the OS Version shows SteamOS Holo in first, followed by Arch, then Flatpack runtime and Ubuntu. So yes you’re right.
This shows why I thought SteamOS counted as Arch. My bad.
Oops. Thanks autocorrect
What’s interesting is Arch surpassed Ubuntu prior to the Steam Deck release. They were neck and neck for a bit after that, then the Steam Deck helped it push past.
https://boilingsteam.com/distros-used-for-gaming-ubuntu-recovers-a-little-pop-os-sinks-further-down/
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of how many people ended up installing other gaming distros after purchasing a Deck.
A lot of Linux enthusiasts use Arch, but it’s far from the most popular among regular Linux users. So we’re seeing early adopters since Arch users are probably more likely to tinker to get things working than Ubuntu users.
So if we start seeing Ubuntu take over Arch, that means we’re seeing Linux gaming reach the mainstream.
I would also like to see a survey about Linux adoption after using the Deck.