this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
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Steam Hardware

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I am having a bit of a brain freeze here but I would like to install pandoc but I don't want to disable the default steam deck settings to do so even though using pacman on the command line would be way simpler I don't want to fiddle if I don't have to fiddle.

https://pandoc.org/

Can I not just download a binary and point Linux towards it? I know this is a silly question but frustratingly I am more familiar with how you are supposed to do this on windows with the $home variable nonsense.

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[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

SteamOS on Steam Deck supports Nix packaging system, besides pacman. pandoc is in the Nix repositories: https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=25.11&query=pandoc The Nix packaging does not require you to disable read only, as Valve did an exception for this. It should also persist between updates, if I understand this right.

Having said this, i did not ever use the Nix packaging system on Steam Deck (yet). So I cannot assist with advice and have no idea how easy is it to pull off. Here is a random article to set it up once: https://chrastecky.dev/gaming/persistent-packages-on-steam-deck-using-nix The good thing is, once Nix is setup, one can use it for other stuff too.

[–] SteleTrovilo@beehaw.org 2 points 1 week ago

This. Nix on SteamOS works great and gets you access to a lot of packages, easily. Set up Nix, then Pandoc is just right there.

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It works about the same as any other non-NixOS system running a user install of Nix.

nix-env -i neovim

You could also choose to enable and use more advanced features like flakes, but I would suggest not doing that unless you want to dive into the Nix ecosystem.

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is the nix-env packing system preinstalled on Steam Deck?

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

The nix-env tool is part of Nix (the package manager; not NixOS, which is an OS based around Nix). You need to install Nix to use the tool.