Abstract:
Valve recently announced the results of the August 2026 Steam hardware and software survey. After the proportion of Steam users on the Linux platform exceeded 4% again in July, this proportion fell back to less than 4% in August. However, CachyOS continues to expand its influence among Linux gamers. In March this year, the proportion of Steam users on the Linux platform reached a historical high of 5.33%. Since then, the ratio has fluctuated between 3% and 4%. In August 2026, Linux accounted for 3.9% of the Steam platform.
Compared with July, August dropped by only 0.11 percentage points. Judging from the absolute number of users, the total number of Linux game players may be basically the same as last month, or even increase. However, since Steam has not released the latest absolute data on the overall number of users of the platform, it is currently difficult to accurately assess the number of Linux game players.
In terms of Linux distributions, SteamOS continues to occupy the leading position, with a market share of 21%. SteamOS is an operating system based on Arch Linux, currently used on Steam Deck and Steam Machine. CachyOS ranked second, with a market share of 15.4%, an increase of 1.16 percentage points month-on-month.
The proportion of Linux gamers using AMD processors is still over 60%. In addition to the custom AMD SoC used in Valve Steam Deck and Steam Machine, AMD's overall support for the open source ecosystem has also kept it highly popular among Linux game and enthusiast groups. Among Steam users on the Windows platform, the proportion of AMD processors has increased to 45%.
Users who want to view the complete data of the Steam survey in August 2026 can go to SteamPowered.com to check:
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam
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