VSCode on SteamOS without Flatpak

steam_deck_vscode_no_flatpak.md

Installing VSCode on SteamOS without Flatpak

Notes

• SteamOS locks down basically all directories outside of the /home directory
  • Hence, installs via pacman or the AUR are disabled by default, and will be deleted after each SteamOS upgrade
• The installation steps below will install VSCode without Flatpak
• Some things might not work well, such as browser hooks when logging into external services and extensions

Installation Steps

1. Navigate to the VSCode Downloads Page
2. Select the Linux x64 .tar.gz tarball for download
3. Extract the contents into a folder anywhere in your home directory (must be in at least /home/deck)
4. Add VSCode to your PATH
   • If using zsh, you can add the below to your .zshrc

# Add VSCode to PATH
path+=($HOME/VSCode-linux-x64/bin)
export PATH
alias vscode="code"

5. (Optional) Add VSCode to your KDE Application Launcher
   • Follow the official instructions for adding an app using kmenuedit
6. (Optional) Install Homebrew
   • Take a look at this other Gist
   • If you are using zsh as your main shell, you should be able to just safely follow the official Homebrew installation guide

Updating VSCode

VSCode will show a badge over the settings button when there is a new update available. Since we installed VSCode using a tarball, it will direct us back to the website to download the latest version. All you need to do is extract the tarball back to your home directory, saying yes to overwrite and write into any current objects.