Use habits in Dec diverge from the rest of the year because of the holidays. People are gifted new systems that come with windows 11 pre installed, and people who don't usually have time to game come online. I would not take this to mean that anything has stopped using Linux and is using windows 11 instead.
Phoronix has a good take on it [0]. Michael reports the same tiny slip but also points out that Linux was at 2.29% at the end of 2024 and sub 2% at the end of 2023. Those are pretty decent increases considering the size of the installed base. Hopefully the new Valve hardware coming out soon gives Linux another good bump by the end of 2026.
It brings a nostalgic tear to my eye to see the OS flame wars heating up like it's 2002 again. Time to re-download some of those 1024x768 3D render wallpapers of Tux smashing a Windows computer
I've been a Windows user since 3.0 came out. Windows the last 5 years has been annoying the ** out of me, even more than normal. I'll see what 12 looks like, but looks like I'll be Linux user in the future.
I saw the writing on the wall back when Windows 7 went EOL. I'm now 100% Linux in my home, and insist on Linux with employers. I don't regret a thing; instead I laugh at people who have masochist tendencies with Microsoft.
Switch to Linux today. Unless you're working with a shit company, chances are pretty good that all of your software and workflows will work on Linux too, and possibly even work better. Plus, you'll be able to actually triage your own computer (if you want).
> Unless you're working with a shit company, chances are pretty good that all of your software and workflows will work on Linux too, and possibly even work better.
I wouldn't call the company where I work shit, but in Germany many big companies are deeply entrenched in the whole Microsoft ecosystem, and some sectors are even more entranched. So, I am very certain that a lot of insanely business-critical software at the company where I work at (which is about a market where easily billions of EUR/USD are moved) will not work in a GNU/Linux ecosystem.
Over many, many years, many parts of the (often custom-built) software was developed to work together with the existing big ecosystem of existing (also often custom-built) software. Some parts of the programs that I work on are deeply intertwined with various products from Microsoft - if they weren't, the users would not be able to work so productively with these programs (i.e. the workflows would take a lot more time for the (highly qualified) users, which would cost the company a big load of money).
I've had another annoying problem with some gigs recently where the employer insisted on MacOS for developer workstations.
While I (generally) like the hardware, I don't like the UX in MacOS but more than that I have a strong distaste for having my runtime deployment environment be entirely different from my working environment. I prefer to eat my own dogfood and have Linux all the way through, and I really like my own tooling and configuration I've set up over the years.
I had a job recently where the whole deployment stack was NixOS (to Aarch64) but the issued devices were Mac laptops, and you couldn't even build the software on MacOS (not even Nix Darwin) so had to do everything inside Parallells etc and it was a giant PITA.
I've never understood why .. if you're going to pay people six figure salaries for their time why would you slow them down with process and tooling that makes them less efficient...
In my personal bubble of power users, Windows' dominance in gaming and coding has been heavily eroded. Even I switched to a Mac (considering I can't even play Red Alert 2 on this machine, that's a huge deal)!
The way that Microsoft counts a Windows install is really the question, but they have never disclosed their methodology for exactly what constitutes an install.
If I have a laptop, it boots and contacts Microsoft, but I wipe it and install Linux, does that count? Microsoft doesn’t say.
Sounds more like: Windows users upgraded to 11 during the holiday season. If Windows 10 and 11 count separately vs “Linux”, then some of the “increase” is probably just double counting.
> That increase is likely being driven by users migrating away from Windows 10 as its end-of-life occurs, but could also be a surge of new users from devices like the Xbox Ally or other Windows handhelds.
My kneejerk says it is more likely the first explanation as it’s either leave windows (unlikely) or finally go to 11 whereas the latter is about making a deliberate, pricey purchase. But I don’t have a lick of data to support that of course ha
The last reported monthly active user count for Steam by Valve puts it at 132 million users per month. Since this was in 2021, it’s a conservative estimate now. But based on that conservative figure and if my numbers are correct, Steam added roughly 7 million Windows 11 users in December 2025.
Meanwhile, the most recent estimates show the Steam Deck, the most popular handheld gaming PC by far, having sold around 4 million units, while every other handheld gaming PC (including the Asus ROG Ally, the predecessor to the ROG Xbox Ally) having sold around 2 million units combined. While the Xbox name carries some weight, I highly doubt the Xbox Ally has sold significantly in the two months since its launch.
TLDR: You’re likely correct that numbers from Windows handhelds did not contribute significantly to the added Windows 11 users in December.
Wild how less than 24h ago we were told to assume Linux was finally a hardened contender for gaming OS. The facts are the facts, and they're yet again trending opposite of journalism's opinions. The users have chosen Windows. Again.
The author of the PC Gamer article acknowledged that the install base for Linux among gamers was dwarfed by the install base for Windows. All they were arguing is that Linux is the better platform for gaming, not that it’s more popular.
Using this definition means Firefox is a contender in the browser wars, an independent will be a contender in the next Presidential election, and a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is a contender for your next car. Can we just leave out this contender nonsense and replace it with exotic choice?
Keep widening the context. Last thing we need is a developer with rent on their minds, influenced by internet comments, developing on linux and being ignorant of the realities there.
Slop content is still slop... especially when saying things people want to hear.
Fact is most modern Linux Kernels >6.8.x don't support the legacy nvidia driver 470. Thus, on modern OS distros a lot of legacy video cards and laptops running Linux >6.18.x just isn't practical without a GPU upgrade.
The situation will probably get worse in the next few years as perpetual permutation kernel culture hits unmaintainable EOL hardware driver Blobs.
Most dual boot a Windows 10/11 ssd, as it still sort of works. YMMV =3
No, 580 is the new legacy driver branch, it's still supported for a couple years. Just not optimized for new titles iirc.
I'm not sure what the state of the open-source drivers is for the really old nvidia GPUs, but for Pascal and such it's pretty decent. No video hwaccel though. However, for hardware encoding, NVENC has improved a lot over the generations. So the old chunkers are probably beat on every metric by e.g. a T400 card. Or Intel Arc (business model: "Quick sync for AMD").
> Linux slipped 0.01% month-on-month
That's just noise
Use habits in Dec diverge from the rest of the year because of the holidays. People are gifted new systems that come with windows 11 pre installed, and people who don't usually have time to game come online. I would not take this to mean that anything has stopped using Linux and is using windows 11 instead.
Phoronix has a good take on it [0]. Michael reports the same tiny slip but also points out that Linux was at 2.29% at the end of 2024 and sub 2% at the end of 2023. Those are pretty decent increases considering the size of the installed base. Hopefully the new Valve hardware coming out soon gives Linux another good bump by the end of 2026.
[0] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Steam-December-2025-Survey
It brings a nostalgic tear to my eye to see the OS flame wars heating up like it's 2002 again. Time to re-download some of those 1024x768 3D render wallpapers of Tux smashing a Windows computer
Edit: Here we go: https://wallpaper-house.com/data/out/9/wallpaper2you_359831....
Doesn't seem newsworthy, unless you are a Windows-centric news site trying too hard to dis Linux.
The slow but steady move to 6+ CPU core systems seems at least a bit more interesting.
Concur. Reads like financial news commenting on a stock going up or down.
I've been a Windows user since 3.0 came out. Windows the last 5 years has been annoying the ** out of me, even more than normal. I'll see what 12 looks like, but looks like I'll be Linux user in the future.
I saw the writing on the wall back when Windows 7 went EOL. I'm now 100% Linux in my home, and insist on Linux with employers. I don't regret a thing; instead I laugh at people who have masochist tendencies with Microsoft.
Switch to Linux today. Unless you're working with a shit company, chances are pretty good that all of your software and workflows will work on Linux too, and possibly even work better. Plus, you'll be able to actually triage your own computer (if you want).
> Unless you're working with a shit company, chances are pretty good that all of your software and workflows will work on Linux too, and possibly even work better.
I wouldn't call the company where I work shit, but in Germany many big companies are deeply entrenched in the whole Microsoft ecosystem, and some sectors are even more entranched. So, I am very certain that a lot of insanely business-critical software at the company where I work at (which is about a market where easily billions of EUR/USD are moved) will not work in a GNU/Linux ecosystem.
Over many, many years, many parts of the (often custom-built) software was developed to work together with the existing big ecosystem of existing (also often custom-built) software. Some parts of the programs that I work on are deeply intertwined with various products from Microsoft - if they weren't, the users would not be able to work so productively with these programs (i.e. the workflows would take a lot more time for the (highly qualified) users, which would cost the company a big load of money).
I've had another annoying problem with some gigs recently where the employer insisted on MacOS for developer workstations.
While I (generally) like the hardware, I don't like the UX in MacOS but more than that I have a strong distaste for having my runtime deployment environment be entirely different from my working environment. I prefer to eat my own dogfood and have Linux all the way through, and I really like my own tooling and configuration I've set up over the years.
I had a job recently where the whole deployment stack was NixOS (to Aarch64) but the issued devices were Mac laptops, and you couldn't even build the software on MacOS (not even Nix Darwin) so had to do everything inside Parallells etc and it was a giant PITA.
I've never understood why .. if you're going to pay people six figure salaries for their time why would you slow them down with process and tooling that makes them less efficient...
In my personal bubble of power users, Windows' dominance in gaming and coding has been heavily eroded. Even I switched to a Mac (considering I can't even play Red Alert 2 on this machine, that's a huge deal)!
Say "Good bye!" to your free time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45991853 (but looks like you already knew, lol. Dishonest wink)
Yes, since then Chrono Divide also added modding docs and oh boy am I excited!
The way that Microsoft counts a Windows install is really the question, but they have never disclosed their methodology for exactly what constitutes an install.
If I have a laptop, it boots and contacts Microsoft, but I wipe it and install Linux, does that count? Microsoft doesn’t say.
Not relevant, since this article is about results from the Steam Hardware Survey.
Christmas happened. People got new PCs with Windows 11 preinstalled on them. This says nothing about the popularity of Windows itself.
Sounds more like: Windows users upgraded to 11 during the holiday season. If Windows 10 and 11 count separately vs “Linux”, then some of the “increase” is probably just double counting.
Is there a specific Win 11 setup that gamers prefer? The non-IoT versions seem to be bloatware.
It's trivial to debloat with an unattend.xml during install or the various debloat tools.
LTSC
This is what the kids call "cope."
Measuring growth along a tiny time frame; nice try.
Now subtract the Windows 10/11 delta from the growth rate.
The only thing holding me back is nvidia drivers. I want people talking about how good they are before I switch over my gaming laptop.
A company that bet the farm on gamers back in the '90s needs to embrace their bread and butter. AI is cool, but don't forget what got you here.
NVIDIA is more than happy to forget about gaming.
Windows is doing great!
Says “Windows Central”.
Most articles I've seen from them on here have been negative enough that I'd assume bias the other way
2026 is the year of the Windows desktop! :)
> That increase is likely being driven by users migrating away from Windows 10 as its end-of-life occurs, but could also be a surge of new users from devices like the Xbox Ally or other Windows handhelds.
My kneejerk says it is more likely the first explanation as it’s either leave windows (unlikely) or finally go to 11 whereas the latter is about making a deliberate, pricey purchase. But I don’t have a lick of data to support that of course ha
The last reported monthly active user count for Steam by Valve puts it at 132 million users per month. Since this was in 2021, it’s a conservative estimate now. But based on that conservative figure and if my numbers are correct, Steam added roughly 7 million Windows 11 users in December 2025.
Meanwhile, the most recent estimates show the Steam Deck, the most popular handheld gaming PC by far, having sold around 4 million units, while every other handheld gaming PC (including the Asus ROG Ally, the predecessor to the ROG Xbox Ally) having sold around 2 million units combined. While the Xbox name carries some weight, I highly doubt the Xbox Ally has sold significantly in the two months since its launch.
TLDR: You’re likely correct that numbers from Windows handhelds did not contribute significantly to the added Windows 11 users in December.
Wild how less than 24h ago we were told to assume Linux was finally a hardened contender for gaming OS. The facts are the facts, and they're yet again trending opposite of journalism's opinions. The users have chosen Windows. Again.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46457770
The author of the PC Gamer article acknowledged that the install base for Linux among gamers was dwarfed by the install base for Windows. All they were arguing is that Linux is the better platform for gaming, not that it’s more popular.
These are not contradictory statements. Linux can be a contender and not currently be in the lead.
Using this definition means Firefox is a contender in the browser wars, an independent will be a contender in the next Presidential election, and a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is a contender for your next car. Can we just leave out this contender nonsense and replace it with exotic choice?
Keep widening the context. Last thing we need is a developer with rent on their minds, influenced by internet comments, developing on linux and being ignorant of the realities there.
Users are using Windows, not choosing it.
It's clear that on the long term trends, Linux is rising. From 1.2% in 2022 from 3.2% now. It just didn't rise in December.
From the chart, it looks that Windows took some small share to some older OSX in December and Linux stayed mostly the same.
No, that was a single journalist's article on how Linux is working for him gaming-wise.
ah yes - "we were told" and "journalism's opinions"
Slop content is still slop... especially when saying things people want to hear.
Fact is most modern Linux Kernels >6.8.x don't support the legacy nvidia driver 470. Thus, on modern OS distros a lot of legacy video cards and laptops running Linux >6.18.x just isn't practical without a GPU upgrade.
The situation will probably get worse in the next few years as perpetual permutation kernel culture hits unmaintainable EOL hardware driver Blobs.
Most dual boot a Windows 10/11 ssd, as it still sort of works. YMMV =3
470 is for GTX 700 series and older - these are ~13 year old GPUs.
note 580 is now also EOL, and a rack of hardware video encoders is less demanding than gaming. =3
No, 580 is the new legacy driver branch, it's still supported for a couple years. Just not optimized for new titles iirc.
I'm not sure what the state of the open-source drivers is for the really old nvidia GPUs, but for Pascal and such it's pretty decent. No video hwaccel though. However, for hardware encoding, NVENC has improved a lot over the generations. So the old chunkers are probably beat on every metric by e.g. a T400 card. Or Intel Arc (business model: "Quick sync for AMD").
I have yet to see a fully working nouveau based system, as most people are just looking to blacklist the mod given the collateral problems.
Depends on the hardware codecs use case, as some legacy cards are valuable to people that own legacy workflows.
Without CUDA + hardware-encoders a GPU is just a paperweight regardless of age for some use-cases. =3