There's no doubt that the best way to use Valve's latest piece of gaming hardware, the Steam Deck, is within its native SteamOS operating system. It just takes a few steps to log into your Steam Account (or create a new one) and have instant access to your bursting library of games, ready and waiting to (hopefully) work just as seamlessly on the go. However, Steam isn't the only digital distribution platform out there, and it's certainly not the only one that works on the Steam Deck.

The Epic Games Store, with its weekly free games and numerous exclusives, has become a major force in digital distribution, and it's a storefront that you can quickly access on the Steam Deck. The store has been available for Linux users for a long time now thanks to Lutris, which uses Wine to create a compatibility layer with the Windows version of the store, but you won't need either to get it working on the Steam Deck. Here's how to install Epic Games Store on Steam Deck.

Log into Desktop Mode

First things first, you need to boot your Steam Deck into the underlying desktop of its stock Plasma KDE Linux installation. You can do this by holding down the power button and hitting "Switch to Desktop" on the menu that appears. After a short transition, you should be in a familiar-looking desktop environment.