Game on! Penguin levels up as Linux finally cracks 3% on Steam

Only a point up in a year, but that’s a 50% leap for Linux gamers

The latest edition of Valve's monthly Steam Hardware & Software Survey is out, showing a rise in Steam usage on Linux. Penguin likes to play!

In isolation, the numbers aren't all that impressive. Linux usage is at 3.05 percent, up 0.37 percentage points from last month. However, it's a significant uptick compared to the October 2024 results, which showed Linux usage at exactly two percent, up a mere 0.13 percentage points. It's also up about 0.4 percentage points from the August survey numbers.

Yes, only a bit over one percentage point in a year - but compared to the total user numbers, that's roughly a 50 percent jump. Adding half again to your market share in a year isn't bad going. Keep this up and soon, you're talking real mon— oh, wait, free software. Never mind.

Coupled with this is another bit of analysis of the Steam-on-Linux market from Linux gaming site Boiling Steam, which reported that by the end of October 2025, Windows games' compatibility on Linux is at an all-time high. It buries the lede a little, but it gets there eventually:

the amount of games that refuse to launch is ... getting very close to just 10%. This means that close to 90% of Windows games manage to launch on Linux.

Now, to be fair, just because a game launches doesn't mean it runs well enough to play - it might start but still be unplayable for all sorts of reasons: being unusably slow, suffering from stutter or lag, showing graphics corruption, or constantly crashing. We've also read that some multiplayer games use anti-cheat measures that run at a low level and talk directly to the Windows OS - something emulation probably can't fix in the foreseeable future. Even so, though, being able to run is a good start. It can be the point where a vendor starts troubleshooting what's wrong, as opposed to telling customers something simply isn't compatible.

This can't simply be attributed to the Steam Deck. The Register reported on that way back in 2021, so it's no longer new and shiny. There is other, newer SteamOS gadgetry, though. In January, Lenovo announced the first handheld officially licensed to ship with Valve's SteamOS, the Lenovo Legion Go S. However, that officially went on sale back in May, so it's a little too early to judge its impact.

It's almost as if something happened earlier in October to make loads of people try out Linux. What an enduring mystery for the ages. ®