Microslop’s Windows 11 is doing wonders for the popular of Linux gaming as the market share has reached 5.33% in the past 12 months. According to data from Steam Hardware Surveys that show monthly figures, in March was a big month for Linux as many new and existing users switched to Linux on Steam.
The 5.33% market share is double the macOS share and is a huge boost considering Linux ended 2025 at around 3.5% marketshare. Only a few years a go Linux was only 1% of all Steam hardware.
Steam on Linux has never been 5% or above and it is now easily a new all time high for Linux gaming market share.
While Linux saw a massive 3.1% spike in March, Windows dropped 4.28%. Windows still dominating the market share with 92.33% but this is surely a sign of things to come if Windows 11 doesn’t improve.
Meanwhile, macOS also jumped from 1.19% to 2.35% in March 2026.
At least part of the increase seems to stem from Valve once again adjusting the Steam China figures. Month over month, Simplified Chinese usage reportedly fell by 31.85%, while English rose by 16.82% to reach 39.09%. Several other languages also posted gains alongside the sharp drop in Simplified Chinese usage.
Almost a quarter of Linux gamers are running SteamOS.
This is partly due to Steam Deck APU which is a custom AMD chip popular among Linux users.
With that said, Windows is still the leading platform on Steam and will remain for the foreseeable future. Microsoft has announced multiple improvements for the current state of Windows, especially rolling back its plans to add Copilot AI heavily in its future Windows features. It is possible that Windows might even gain some of its share back from Linux but for the time being, Windows has a long way to go and it needs to drop its vibe-coded features, improve gaming performance, and fix general performance issues with Windows 11.
