Valve has published the results of the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for January 2026. The data indicates a slight increase in Windows’ share, while Linux and macOS experienced a minor decline.
Following recent gains for Linux, minor fluctuations are expected. Historical data shows that the share often varies, yet the overall trend for Linux remains positive. The operating system user share for Steam in January 2026 is as follows:
- Windows – 94.62%
- Linux – 3.38%
- macOS – 2.01%
Additionally, the English language saw a slight decrease in usage on Steam this month, with Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Russian, Japanese, and other languages showing an increase.
A visual representation of the Linux trend is available from a Steam Tracker page:
Below is a snapshot illustrating the overall usage of Linux distributions over time:
The most popular Linux distributions for January 2026 include:
- 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%
Notably, Nobara Linux 43 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition) 64 bit seems to be a new addition to the list, as no previous Nobara editions have appeared in the survey.
Regarding Steam Deck statistics within the Linux category, the “AMD Custom GPU 0405” (Steam Deck LCD) registered at 12.26% (-1.11%), while the “AMD Radeon Graphics (RADV VANGOGH)” (Steam Deck OLED) stood at 11.92% (-0.56%).
Source: Valve
Article originally published by GamingOnLinux.com.
