Why Am I Getting 'apt: command not found' When Trying to Install Software on Steam Deck?

The easiest first step is to specify what exactly you want to install. Steam Deck’s command line tools use pacman, but if you’re not familiar with Linux package management, it can be a lot at once. Try to use Steam’s own store and library as much as possible for games and apps, and only dive into CLI installations when you need something very specific. If you’re following guides that mention apt, those are for different Linux distros, so they won’t work here.

The main issue here is that Steam Deck runs SteamOS, which is based on Arch Linux, not Debian or Ubuntu. So, apt and apt-get won’t work because those package managers are for Debian-based systems. Instead, SteamOS uses pacman as its package manager. You’ll want to learn pacman commands to install software via the terminal on your Steam Deck.

If you’re trying to install .tar.gz or .rpm files, those might not always install cleanly via the terminal commands. For Arch Linux-based systems, .rpm packages aren’t typically supported directly. You usually want to find the equivalent package in the Arch repositories or use an AUR helper (like yay) if it’s not in the official repos. For .tar.gz files, sometimes you need to extract them and run install scripts manually. Alternatively, for GUI apps like AppImageLauncher, you can often just run the AppImage directly without installation.