How To Install Microsoft Visual Studio Code on Linux

V

isual Studio code (VScode) is the cross-platform Chromium-based code editor is being open sourced today by Microsoft. How do I install Microsoft Visual Studio Code on a Debian or Ubuntu or Fedora Linux desktop?

 

Visual Studio supports debugging Linux apps and code editor now open source by Microsoft. It is a preview (beta) version but you can test it and use it on your own Linux based desktop.

Why use Visual Studio Code?

From the project website:

Visual Studio Code provides developers with a new choice of developer tool that combines the simplicity and streamlined experience of a code editor with the best of what developers need for their core code-edit-debug cycle. Visual Studio Code is the first code editor, and first cross-platform development tool – supporting OS X, Linux, and Windows – in the Visual Studio family. If you use Unity, ASP.NET 5, NODE.JS or related tool, give it a try.

Requirements for Visual Studio Code on Linux

Ubuntu Desktop version 14.04

GLIBCXX version 3.4.15 or later

GLIBC version 2.15 or later

The following installation instructions are tested on:

Fedora Linux 22 and 23

Debian Linux 8

Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS

Download Visual Studio Code

Visit this page to grab the latest version and save it to ~/Downloads/ folder on Linux desktop:

Fig.01: Download Visual Studio Code For Linux

 

Make a new folder (say $HOME/VSCode) and extract VSCode-linux-x64.zip inside that folder or in /usr/local/ folder. Unzip VSCode-linux64.zip to that folder.

Alternate install method

You can use the wget command to download VScode as follows:

$ wget  https://az764295.vo.msecnd.net/public/0.10.1-release/VSCode-linux64.zip

 

Sample outputs:

–2015-11-18 13:55:23–  https://az764295.vo.msecnd.net/public/0.10.1-release/VSCode-linux64.zip

Resolving az764295.vo.msecnd.net (az764295.vo.msecnd.net)… 93.184.215.200, 2606:2800:11f:179a:1972:2405:35b:459

Connecting to az764295.vo.msecnd.net (az764295.vo.msecnd.net)|93.184.215.200|:443… connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 200 OK

Length: 64638315 (62M) [application/octet-stream]

Saving to:  VSCode-linux64.zip

 

100%[======================================>] 64,638,315  84.9MB/s   in 0.7s

 

2015-11-18 13:55:23 (84.9 MB/s) –  VSCode-linux64.zip  saved [64638315/64638315]

Install VScode using the command line

Cd to ~/Download/ location, enter:

$ cd ~/Download/

$ ls -l

 

Sample outputs:

Fig.02: VSCode downloaded to my ~/Downloads/ folder

Unzip VSCode-linux64.zip in /usr/local/ directory, enter:

$ sudo unzip VSCode-linux64.zip -d /usr/local/

Cd into /usr/local/ to create the soft-link as follows using the ln command for the Code executable. This is useful to run VSCode from the terminal application:

$ su –

# cd /usr/local/

# ls -l

# cd bin/

# ln -s ../VSCode-linux-x64/Code code

# exit

 

Sample session:

Fig.03 Create the sym-link with the absolute path to the Code executable

How do I use VSCode on Linux?

Open the Terminal app and type the following command:

$ /usr/local/bin/code

 

Sample outputs:

Fig.04: VSCode in action on Linux

And, there you have it, the VSCode installed and working correctly on the latest version of Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora Linux. I suggest that you read getting started pages from Microsoft to understand the core concepts that will make you more productive writing and navigating your code.