Steam Survey for May 2026 is out – Linux down at 3.99% but still above macOS
Steam Survey for May 2026 is out – Linux down at 3.99% but still above macOS
Publish Date: 2026-06-04 04:33:00
Source Domain: www.gamingonlinux.com
Valve released the data for the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for May 2026, showing a dip in the overall Linux user share.
The overall operating system stats for May 2026 show:
- Windows = 93.85% +0.38%
- Linux = 3.99% -0.53%
- macOS = 2.16% +0.15%
Here’s a snapshot from our dedicated Steam Tracker for the trends over time:
Check out the dedicated page linked above for the proper interactive charts.
And the bundled trends of distributions:

As for the most popular surveyed Linux distributions for May 2026:
- SteamOS Holo 64 bit 23.34% +0.29%
- CachyOS 64 bit 13.36% +4.99%
- Arch Linux 64 bit 8.70% -0.08%
- Linux Mint 22.3 64 bit 7.65% +0.18%
- Bazzite 64 bit 7.28% +2.54%
- Freedesktop SDK 25.08 (Flatpak runtime) 64 bit 5.49% +1.33%
- Ubuntu Core 24 64 bit 3.44% -0.14%
- Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS 64 bit 2.84% +0.48%
- Nobara Linux 43 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition) 64 bit 2.02% +2.02%
- Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) 64 bit 1.86% +0.46%
- EndeavourOS Linux 64 bit 1.86% +1.86%
- Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 64 bit 1.70% +1.70%
- Fedora Linux 44 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition) 64 bit 1.57% +1.57%
- Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS 64 bit 1.56% +1.56%
- Fedora Linux 43 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition) 64 bit 1.42% -0.30%
- Manjaro Linux 64 bit 1.26% -0.16%
- Other 14.66% -5.99%
The overall reduction in Linux is pretty much to be expected. It flickers up and down a fair bit but this looks like the sharpest drop we’ve seen for a while. Likely not helped by the Steam Deck going out of stock (and then coming back with a much higher price) and the Steam Machine and Steam Frame which both use SteamOS Linux currently missing in action.
Source: Valve