SteamOS slips down in May 2025 as Windows 11 keeps climbing, Valve's survey reveal

It seems the May 2025 Steam Hardware & Software Survey is one SteamOS fans might want to forget (via Neowin). While Steam on Linux is growing overall, Valve’s own SteamOS just hit its lowest share in two years.

SteamOS loses ground as other Linux distros rise

Windows is still the clear leader, no surprise there. Windows 11 jumped again—now powering 58.3% of Steam systems. Meanwhile, Windows 10 keeps sliding, dropping to 37%.

macOS is hanging on with small percentage of users, but inside that group, Apple Silicon rules. Listed as “VirtualApple” chips, it now make up 81.69% of Macs on Steam. Most of those are MacBook Pros, showing up in over 25% of Mac setups.

On the Linux side, things get more complicated. Steam on Linux actually hit 2.69% this month, a nice jump from April—and a big improvement over last year’s 1.47%. But SteamOS is struggling. The “SteamOS Holo” version that powers the Steam Deck dropped to 30.95% of Linux systems.

That’s down from 33.78% last month, and way below the 45.34% peak in May 2024. This new number puts SteamOS close to the 21% mark it saw back in early 2023.

Other Linux distros are slowly taking over. Arch Linux is now at 10.09%, and Linux Mint 22.1 climbed to 7.76%. There’s also a clear split in CPU trends. Intel still leads Steam overall at 59.69%, but AMD dominates among Linux gamers with a 68.77% share.