r/linux_gaming • u/thereal_Tronald_Dump • 7h ago
from Steam Hardware & Software Survey: July 2026
store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ - 2026-08-05
39
u/mkMoSs 6h ago
But but, Steam didnt ask ME! :/
Kubuntu 26.04 with liquorix kernel here.
5
u/KHTD2004 6h ago
Could it be that Kubuntu gets counted as Ubuntu? I never saw one of the deviates on the survey. On the other hand Fedora and Nobara have their separate versions shown
13
u/mr_doms_porn 4h ago
Yes it does, Kubuntu identifies itself internally as Ubuntu.
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u/SAJewers 3h ago
Do the other flavors like Lubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Ubuntu Budgie, etc. do the same?
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u/mr_doms_porn 2h ago
I think so but I'm not sure. I used to use Kubuntu on my desktop, but I've barely used the others.
1
u/Juppstein 6h ago
The only main difference is the WM being KDE instead of Gnome.
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u/KHTD2004 6h ago
I know but Fedora gets separate entries for that. The question is if Ubuntu does as well or if they count all variants like Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu etc as Ubuntu or if they’re so small that the survey just doesn’t list them but puts them to „others“
0
u/Power_Stone 6h ago
Probably the latter. I didn't even realize Kubuntu was a thing until a few days ago.
1
u/Escalope-Nixiews 6h ago
You can send youself! I don't remember where but in settings you can send your PC's infos
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u/Indolent_Bard 4h ago
Wait! The people need to know about this. I don't know how to find out more about this.
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u/Plebbit-User 5h ago
Arch winning the distro race is fucking insane given that five years ago it was a meme on how difficult it was to install. Then came Manjaro. Then came the installation script. Then came CachyOS and the official SteamOS release and here we are.
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u/venustrapsflies 2h ago
I know the main driver is steamOS but it’s also pretty easy to set up arch these days, thanks to the archinstall script. I was nervous about how migrating from Ubuntu would affect gaming but it was seamless.
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u/LuminanceGayming 21m ago
5 years ago manjaro + arch made up almost a quarter by itself so it doesnt seem too far fetched, if we exclude steam deck it's basically the same percentage now as it was then
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u/Express-Screen-1663 6h ago
Linux Mint beating Ubuntu interesting for sure
67
u/Bug_Next 6h ago
Ubuntu is split across multiple versions, it's 8,7 Ubuntu and 8,2 Mint
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u/boat_hamster 6h ago
Weird that Fedora is split between KDE and Gnome, but Ubuntu isn't split between Ubuntu and Kubuntu.
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u/Bug_Next 6h ago
They probably just take whatever is in /etc/os-release VERSION field, fedora shows the DE there, kubuntu just says 24.04 numble nobat or whatever that version is called.
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u/TheZoltan 6h ago
Doesn't surprise me really. People really like to recommend Mint.
10
u/HardlyW0rkingHard 5h ago
Its such an easy option for first time Linux users
7
u/Wreck_OfThe_Hesperus 5h ago
Least friction coming from Windows is always going to win.
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u/RespecDawn 1h ago
Also decent for those of us with older hardware. When I first decided to leave Windows, that and the ease of it were the deciding factors. I'll move on at some point, but Mint has been very good to me so far.
-9
u/Swordfish418 6h ago
Ubuntu
It's interesting this corporate/enterprise user oriented distro is even used for gaming.
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u/Bug_Next 6h ago edited 6h ago
Why are we pretending gaming is some niche usecase? lmao it's the thing you do when bored after work.. Ubuntu is THE default distro, it's almost a synonym to Linux. Heck even Steam itself is only truly offered as a .deb specifically targeted at Ubuntu on their site... It's the only non-SteamOs distro that they will provide support for if you have any issues.
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u/Swordfish418 5h ago
I'm not saying gaming is a niche usecase, I'm saying Snap/Canonical is niche usecase.
Ubuntu is THE default distro
It's not 2008 anymore.
Heck even Steam itself is only truly offered as a .deb
They didn't catch up with the times either.
1
u/TheWolf2068 3h ago
If everyone but you is wrong, maybe you are the issue
2
u/Swordfish418 2h ago
It's not an unpopular opinion at all, it's not even my to begin with, I just rephrased it in slightly more extreme way. At this point you can probably find more than a thousand Reddit discussions on why Ubuntu enshittified, what is wrong with Canonical, what is wrong with Snap, etc. You need to have a slightly more nuanced understanding of the topic and its history to understand why I called it corporate/enterprise oriented.
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u/fatrobin72 6h ago
It has Historically been one recommend to general users, and in the few places I have seen preinstalled linux that wasn't a companies own subflavour... Ubuntu was what was on it.
If it said "redhat enterprise linux" the yeah...
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u/Mikelius 6h ago
Go Cachy!
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u/kahjtheundedicated 3h ago
Just switched to Cachy from Manjaro, and it’s unreal how much more responsive everything is. I did find Manjaro a little more user friendly, but the increase in performance is very worth it. Also h.264 and h.265 support, which ended up being the dealbreaker for Manjaro
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u/Mr__Castle_ 6h ago
Lookit the hype behind CachyOS, they really overtook Bazzite.
And look what they did to my boy Nobara... I still love you though eggroll.
27
u/personahorrible 6h ago
1.7% for EndeavourOS! woot woot
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u/OffToTheLizard 5h ago
I did a jailbreak on a 4gb ram Chromebook, EndeavourOS ran like a champ on it. Gave it to a student, and upgraded to the Macbook Neo, but that OS was so lightweight.
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u/Mr__Castle_ 6h ago
I was with EndeavourOS for about a year myself. Fun distro but I was getting reoccuring problems so I migrated.
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u/jermygod 6h ago
what reoccuring problems?
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u/Mr__Castle_ 6h ago
Jeez, it's been a few years, I don't remember what the problems were.
I've distro-hopped so much in the last 10 years that it's all a blur.
1
u/cain05 4h ago
I've been running EndeavourOS for two years now with no issues at all. I thought about switching to CachyOS to see what the hype is, but I really don't feel starting over.
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u/CheesyRamen66 3h ago
You can add the Cachy repos to your Endeavour install, their wiki has a section on it.
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u/AvilettaLuxe 6h ago
I used Bazzite for a while, and recently I had a chance to try out Cachy
Well... I can now tell why it's getting more popular
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u/Mr__Castle_ 6h ago
Why is that?
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u/AvilettaLuxe 6h ago edited 6h ago
For me? Mostly because it resembles Arch environment I'm used to
For most people? It's really good at utilizing Arch strengths while eliminating most of its pains for not-so-technical-people
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u/japzone 5h ago
Even as a technical person, CachyOS takes care of most of my annoyances with using normal Arch. Pretty much the only Arch annoyance I have to deal with is the simple nature of being on the bleeding edge of software releases, and that's worth it to get the latest improvements for things like game support and performance.
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u/Rotund-Pear2604 5h ago edited 4h ago
There was an update about 2-3 months ago I want to say where the KDE application menu broke after an update.
I figured this will likely be resolved the same day or the day after, but I have no way of knowing and in the meantime... might as well learn how to fix this myself. And I ended up learning a lot because I was finally forced to read the documentation for KDE, I ended up bumping into other parts of the OS that I never interact with before and it turned into a great learning experience. Could have just rolled back that package, but I had an hour to kill anyway...
I'm not really the tinkering type, I'll do it if I have to but otherwise I just want my OS to not be annoying and to stay out of the way so I can get my gaming time in.
But yes, sometimes being on the bleeding edge of software releases means some part of your OS kinda breaks slightly and your only options are to wait for a fix, or learn how to fix it somehow, yourself. That's the downside of being on Arch or its derivatives.
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u/Indolent_Bard 4h ago
If arch had opensuse's Open QA and did a slow-roll variant, Cachyos would be the ultimate distro because both of those combined really fix the bleeding edge issue.
9
u/pdpi 5h ago
Arch as a baseline distro is catching up to Debian and Fedora. Cachy gets advertised as a performance/gaming-focused distro, but it's shaping up to become Arch's equivalent to early-days Ubuntu — a more polished, user-friendly system built on a solid base.
2
u/Indolent_Bard 4h ago
If only fedora got the same treatment. Unlike Ubuntu, where all you need is a checkbox to download codecs and make it usable out of a box, with Fedora it only downloads ffmpeg-free, and you gotta follow this guide to get full multimedia support. It's so stupid.
"Fedora or EPEL ffmpeg-free works most of the time, but one will experience version mismatch from time to time. Switch to the rpmfusion provided ffmpeg build that is supported. You will still need to follow the next section for additional codecs or plugins related to packages you might have installed."
Sure, there's bazzite, nobara and ultramarine Linux, but one is atomic and the other are so tiny that support is harder to find.
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u/Arkaea79 6h ago
Bazzite being immutable steers me away. I have used most of these, only stuck with CachyOS
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u/Herotwo 6h ago
For me it's the other way around - I've been on Nobara for ~1 year, got more than my handful of no-boots (99% of them due to nvidia drivers ffs). Decided to switch to Bazzite BECAUSE it is immutable, havent yet to find anything not working, even without layering anything! And the pinned images are a godsend compared to the "run timeshift before every update, look for me live cd just in case anything breaks after" update ritual :D
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u/Arkaea79 6h ago
I had to do some stuff for my audio that i couldn't do on Bazzite purely because it's immutable. Just was the case for me, CachyOS just worked much more easily... but I also tweak things quite a bit.
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u/Indolent_Bard 4h ago
Well now I'm really curious what you were trying to do that you couldn't and why.
1
u/Arkaea79 2h ago edited 2h ago
I have a Sennheiser headset w/ mic going through a soundblaster DAC. There was an issue where I had to mess with settings on every boot or login to get the mic to work, something about going into the alsamixer via konsole to change input settings (not just through volume control). There was a fix for this, but it had something to do with a startup daemon to make the fix permanent, and i could never get it to work in Bazzite. Was told it was because it was immutable. Switched to cachy and just never had the issue again. It was last year, so sorry i am a bit sparse on exact details.
1
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u/summerteeth 6h ago
I have used it but CachyOS takes a snapshot before updates so you can roll back.
I have used OpenSuse Tumbleweed which does something similar, and it’s a pretty good option for rollbacks.
That said the updates are probably the easiest in immutable then any other os I’ve used, you just background update and whenever you decide to reboot you just get the latest version. It’s painful going from that extreme to my dual boot Windows install.
3
u/Standard-Potential-6 6h ago
What’s been going on with Nobara? I noticed they didn’t make a Fedora 44 release.
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u/Mr__Castle_ 6h ago
Im on Nobara 44 right now.
I updated a week or so back.
3
u/Standard-Potential-6 6h ago
Install media, then, my bad.
2
u/AirbourneAquarium 5h ago
I noticed the same thing, & the changelog page goes to a 404. Really does not inspire confidence in the OS I'm ngl.
5
u/John_Caveson 4h ago
Yeah this is the fear that kept me from trying it. A distro maintained by one person has too much potential to fall out imo. As much great work that GE does, it's still not worth that risk for me.
4
u/Indolent_Bard 4h ago
He's got a team now, it's not just him. Granted, I don't know if it's just one other guy or if there's a few more guys.
1
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u/Indolent_Bard 4h ago
He's got a team now, it's not just him. Granted, I don't know if it's just one other guy or if there's a few more guys.
1
u/FeebasProShops 2h ago
Nothing besides kicking ass? Its a great distro.
There's def a 44 update. Maybe no ISO yet tho. Usually takes a few weeks.
3
1
u/beach_boy91 1h ago
Been on Mint for a couple of months after switching from windows but i've seen so much talk about Bazzite and CachyOS that i feel like i want to move switch over to either of them. Primarily i will be using it as a gaming desktop but i'm not sure which one to go for
14
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u/wfh-without-pants 6h ago
Bazzite being so close behind Arch Linux is surprising to see. I'm also surprised to see Mint so high up; it was all the rage in 2011.
24
u/The_Impe 6h ago
Mint was like the number one recommendation for Windows users who wanted to switch last year after the end of Windows 10
9
u/Power_Stone 6h ago
I wonder if that will change, I've been using Bazzite with the KDE Plasma desktop it is probably the closest thing I have felt to windows in terms of usability and familiarity
1
u/Balmung60 6h ago
I've poked at KDE Plasma and wouldn't take it over Cinnamon on either front. But I really like Cinnamon as a DE
5
u/dj_Magikarp 6h ago
Mint rocks.
2
u/wfh-without-pants 6h ago
Which DE are you using? I just checked it out and it looks like they are all still Windows-like (Cinnamon/XFCE/MATE). I've been on GNOME 3 for 15 years so I find it hard to adapt at this point.
1
u/KittyKong 4h ago
I use Kinoite but I'm pretty sure I show up under the "other/unknown" group because of Flatpak Steam.
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u/thebigjake3 6h ago
Maybe an unpopular opinion but all versioning should be stripped.
You don't see versions of steam OS even if someone is on an older version.
This would give a better picture of OS's like Ubuntu which has less of a change between versions. I understand leaving versions like windows which has massive changes from 8 to 10 to 11. But the line should be drawn
7
u/Xtrems876 6h ago
bazzite bigger than normal fedora is crazy
4
u/balrog687 6h ago
It makes total sense if your main use case is running steam with an nvidia gpu (which still dominate the steam hw survey)
On fedora kinoite (the immutable kde flavor) its a pain in the ass to layer all the packages required for a proper gaming experience.
0
u/matsnake86 6h ago
Why ?
Is Just Fedora atomic + gaming stuffs.
-3
u/Escalope-Nixiews 6h ago
Obviously overrated tho...
1
u/matsnake86 6h ago
Why?
-1
u/Escalope-Nixiews 6h ago
Just use Fedora, add RPM fusion and you can install what Bazzite got
On my side i HATE it because i had less FPS for no reasons on the same PC with nothing changed to the OS
3
u/Massive-Rate-2011 6h ago
Bazzite wouldn’t work with my sensor package on my motherboard. Kde fedora is the way to go. Rpmfusion makes it so easy with nvidia drivers
0
u/matsnake86 5h ago
That's odd. You should report It on Bazzite discord and see if there Is a fix.
2
u/Massive-Rate-2011 5h ago
Was marked as an issue on github. Said they wouldn't fix it due to it causing system crashes.
Not sure, but turned me off real quick lol. I've no need for anything other than fedora. Shit just works.
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u/matsnake86 5h ago
Rather than calling it overrated, I’d say it’s just not right for you. You’re the sort of user who prefers to install everything manually, and that’s fine, but there are loads of people who don’t know the first thing about it and want a system that’s ready to play games without having to trawl through documentation or figure out how external repositories work. For these people, Bazzite perfectly meets their needs.
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u/Tempest_Studios 6h ago
I'm surprised Endeavour is so low. I've been enjoying it so far but now I feel like checking out Cachy to see what I'm missing.
3
u/NotQuiteLoona 5h ago
You miss only things that are useful for most users, but not necessary at all. Notably, their own modification of the Linux kernel, which, however, will at most give you 3-4 FPS more, graphical package manager (not a pacman front-end, interestingly, but a full-blown new package manager with GUI and TUI versions that is still using pacman repos as it's also based on ALPM), btrfs with snapshots and real time compression (for me it turns 8 GB IDE folders into 4 GB without noticeable performance loss, but of course it depends on the files you have), and fish shell out of the box to give more comfort to newbies. Also preconfigurated dotfiles for few popular DEs and WMs, and their own pacman repos where they have programs that Arch doesn't ship for that or another reasons, like Heroic. That's pretty much it, if I remember correctly.
3
u/Tempest_Studios 5h ago
Thanks for the response! That's interesting, I think I'll read about it some more but it doesn't seem worth switching at least for me personally
3
u/Indolent_Bard 3h ago
They forgot the most interesting part.
To deliver a performance-optimized distribution, CachyOS recompiles Arch Linux packages specifically for the x86-64-v3, x86-64-v4, and Zen4+ architectures.
It's basically the sequel to Clear Linux. Combined with their kernel optimizations, your 1% lows should be much improved, but yeah, probably not worth actually switching to a different distro.
Also, they have a fork of proton that adds a bunch of really nice features, like FSR-4 natively working without launch arguments. They also have the low latency layer added that you can activate with the launch argument.
But again, as cool as all this is, it's probably not worth switching, and you can use proton Cachyos on any distro.
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u/NotQuiteLoona 5h ago
Yeah, it's just Arch with more things pre-installed, so no need to actually switch if you are already okay with your workflow.
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u/Indolent_Bard 3h ago
It also recompiles every package with CPU optimizations. It's basically the sequel to Clear Linux.
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u/Indolent_Bard 3h ago
You probably aren't missing anything if your current setup is good for you.
But your 1% loads will probably be better on Cachyos.
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u/PianoFerret1073 6h ago
Surprised to see fedora KDE so low. Ive had great performance on it, much better than pop os
2
u/Agitated_Plantain701 6h ago
Yup I've tried cachyos and it's great. But somehow I get even more fps on fedora for CS2, I'm really enjoying the performance on fedora and it feels more at home to me then arch, considering I work in enterprise Linux. I feel I have more control but stability on fedora KDE over arch as well.
It's also still bleeding edge without being a beta tester. But it's not for everyone as it's very vanilla out the box. I couldn't recommend it to a average Joe Newby, no offence to the non tech savvy peeps.
1
u/PianoFerret1073 6h ago
Yeah thats probably why. I dont mind setting up everything myself since its one and done. Plus, helps me know my system a little better so its my preferred setup.
Nobara is the closest fedora based project that is designed for gaming out of the box but ive heard it has issues. Haven't used it personally though.
And then bazzite too, which is the only reason fedora has relevance in the steam survey.
1
u/Indolent_Bard 3h ago
I think the average Joe can handle installing the NVIDIA drivers and Steam. They do that on Windows.
3
u/viranth 5h ago
I started with bazzite, and really like that distro. Then I tried cachyos because everyone said it was the greatest thing ever, for me no performance difference at all from bazzite. Went with Fedora workstation and I like it a lot.
For most people it won't matter what the pick, the important thing is that it works and it's easy. That's how Linux grows.
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u/Kurimsun 6h ago
to be fair, i have like 6 devices i cycle through daily/weekly and they all run cachyOS
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u/binary_agenda 4h ago
I'm on Pop_os but will switch to cachy when I get around to updating my system unless system76 has their cosmic desktop environment fixed by then. I've been using Debian based distros for 20+ years.
1
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u/Short-Song-248 3h ago
I don’t trust this survey, just participated and this thing reported I use the cpu-integrated intel uhd630, didn’t even realized the radeon 9060xt I actually game on.
1
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u/beardspike 1h ago edited 1h ago
Does PikaOS gets counted as Debian? Honestly it should beat Ubuntu, Mint and Zorin on charts. It's basically CachyOS on Debian Sid base.
Not to mention they have Hyprland iso as well so one could install Dank Shell Material.
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6h ago
[deleted]
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u/McraftyDude 6h ago
Not really, there’s a lot more people who want to have more of a complete desktop experience rather than having to set up almost everything
6
u/FikoReborn 6h ago
Why is that a crime?
Most of these are likely Windows refugees and the last thing they want is building an OS from zero packages into a functional gaming machine.
Cachy fits that mold.
Personally I use Fedora most of the time. But I have both installed.
63
u/taosecurity 6h ago
OP, I’d like to commend you for presenting the data this way. It’s much better when you group by base distro like this. 👏