May has come and it’s time for another round of Linux distro trend analysis using the ProtonDB data. The usual disclaimer applies:

• This may not be representative of all types of Linux users. I’m sure this is not what your AWS engineer uses on EC2.
• This may not be completely representative of all Linux gamers either. But I’d wage this is actually a good predictor where the market is going to shift. We saw first that Manjaro was getting the boot here first, before going under pretty much everywhere.
• There may be some additional biases, due to whoever used ProtonDB.
• Flatpak is NOT a distro, but that’s what Steam reports when it’s running on Flatpak, and Flatpak being distro independent we report it as a separate environment, if that makes sense. Feel free to ignore it if you wish.
• Arch Linux is Arch Linux on desktop. The Steam Deck’s OS is reported as HoloISO, not Arch Linux, so stop trying to claim that Arch is first because of the Steam Deck! This is mainly data reported from desktop PCs, so no, SteamOS is not a thing at the moment on such machines. This may change as Valve starts providing official support beyond the Steam Deck.

Now on to the results. You might want to click on the picture to enlarge it.

There’s a lot to unpack here, but let’s start with the obvious

CachyOS’ Ascension

We have already mentioned it last time, but the trend has accelerated since then. CachyOS, based on Arch Linux, is now the fastest growing new distro and has surpassed Bazzite and Nobara and is now fairly close to EndeavourOS in share. One thing I did not know until recently is that CachyOS also has a version aimed at handhelds (think ROG Ally and Legion Go) where they bundle gamescope for a better gaming experience. So in effect this is almost a challenger for Bazzite and not just desktop distros.

A few people are reporting for example that CachyOS seems to perform consistently better than Windows11 on several games tested. Not sure how it actually compares vs Bazzite, but that’s at least one data point.

If you are interested in trying it out on your own handheld, CachyOS has a page dedicated to the installation on such devices.

Other Relevant Changes

A few more observations on the situation of other distros:

• Ubuntu has now been clearly under the 10% bar for the past few months, which means that Linux Mint, its derivative, is now at a solid Number 2 spot of the ranking with a share between 10 and 11%. Fedora and Ubuntu keep switching sides for the third position.
• Nobara and Bazzite are still growing and reached more or less a 5% share, but they don’t seem to progress much from one month to the next.
• Both Manjaro and Pop_OS! are on a downward trend leading them to oblivion, breaking the lower floors below the 4% share. For both of them it’s been a trend for a long time, and there is no sign they are coming back. Manjaro has always been a piss poor distro in terms of QA, and there are now much better options out there to get to an Arch based distro quickly and safely. Pop!_OS has been too busy with other projects (COSMIC desktop) and there does not seem to be much interest in developing the base distro anymore. Their download page is still stuck on a distro based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (!) and a Raspberry Pi 4 image. Just 3 years late at this stage…
• Looking at the distro choice, Arch-based distros are clearly winning as they are chosen by more than 37% of users in this data set. Debian-based distros come second, and not too far behind are Fedora-based distros.

Video version

If you like an animated version, we have one for you on Youtube:

It’s also available on Peertube.

We will be back in a few months with another update on where things are going.