It is no secret that Linux has never had the same level of popularity as Windows in its various distributions, although it is true that the mentioned operating system offers important benefits versus Microsoft and which has a very loyal user community that doesn’t hesitate to defend it tooth and nail when they see fit.

Its market presence has also been changing in recent years. It currently has a bigger presence thanks to the Steam Deck push it uses SteamOS, an operating system based on Arch Linux, And it seems that step by step it is making a bigger and bigger hole in the desktop market, at least according to the latest data shared by StatCounter and commented on in this article by our colleagues at MuyLinux.

Take a good look at the attached graph, in it we can see data about market share of different operating systems on desktop computers between June of last year and June of this year. During this one-year journey, we can see that Linux continues to grow and that last June it ended with 3.07%, a number that represents a new record in this database.

When we do a general review, we see this Windows continues to lead in share with 68.15%, followed by macOS with 21.38% and Chrome OS in third place with 4.15%. In fourth position we have unknown operating systems, a cluster of unidentified systems that together reach 3.23%, and Linux closes with this 3.07% (3.08% is shown in the upper area) and FreeBSD, which gets 0 0.01%

There is no doubt that 3.07% is a low market share when compared to the rest of the operating systems, but the important thing is the positive trend which leaves us with steady growth in recent months, and also the great success that the SteamOS version has used in Steam Deck. The latter is a clear indicator that Linux could make its way into the desktop sector if a modified version of this style, focused mainly on games and fully optimized, was released.

We’ll see how this trend develops in the coming years, but I’m using this article to ask you a question, Do you think Valve should release a desktop-friendly, gaming-focused version of SteamOS? Would you be willing to use it as a secondary operating system as well? The comments are yours.