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I just downloaded VSCode-linux-x64 from the Microsoft website. It's a 62 MB zip file. How can I install it on my Ubuntu system?

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3  
If you want to keep up with the filesystem structure: the best place to install this is in /opt/ If there is need for a binairy in /usr/ somewhere symlink the file. – Rinzwind Apr 30 '15 at 7:43
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Here: gist.github.com/brunolm/65a760f6130fd2e1d39c – BrunoLM Oct 29 '15 at 23:58
    
Updated @BrunoLM gist with some changes in files names (can't put it as an answer because question is protected) gist.github.com/pomber/db44098f3413d5213aec – pomber Mar 20 '16 at 16:13
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They are providing a .deb file now. – Pavak Paul Apr 27 '16 at 20:54
    
Direct PPA solution (since feb. 2017) askubuntu.com/a/895790 – zurfyx Mar 31 '17 at 17:44

10 Answers 10

up vote 103 down vote accepted

Update

VSCode is now available as DEB file. You can download it and then run sudo apt install ~/path/to/code_1.XXX.deb and you are ready to go.

Old answer

  1. Download Visual Studio Code for Linux
  2. Extract it: unzip VSCode-linux-x64.zip -d ~/path/to/VSCode
  3. Run the code executable to open Visual Studio Code
  4. (Optional) Create a symbolic link to conveniently run code from the terminal:
    sudo ln -s /path/to/VSCode/code /usr/local/bin/code

Source (install instructions): https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux

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2  
Also make sure that you are root while extracting files and then allow rwx permissions for the extracted files to desired user – Muddassir Nazir Apr 30 '15 at 11:05
    
One issue I am facing is how to add it launcher. Because locking it launcher becomes useless once you close the VS Code. You have to open it from the sym link you created. – Muddassir Nazir Apr 30 '15 at 11:11
    
@mnstalemate see here on how to create a custom launcher askubuntu.com/a/78747/167115 – mchid Apr 30 '15 at 12:28
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This worked for me: code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux -> install the .deb package through Ubuntu software install – dotnetguy Sep 26 '16 at 1:32
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Indeed, instruction have changed → “Install the package through a GUI package manager by double clicking on the package file, or through the command line:” – Frank Nocke Nov 18 '16 at 14:49
up vote 98 down vote

You can use Ubuntu Make to download and install Visual Studio Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-desktop/ubuntu-make
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-make

Then install Visual Studio Code:

umake ide visual-studio-code

Then click on the Visual studio icon that it automatically places on your launcher.

To remove it, delete the installation folder and right click on the launcher to unpin the icon. The installation folder defaults to ~/tools/web/visual-studio-code

References

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1  
Any easy way to upgrade versions? – Adrian Lopez May 1 '15 at 20:16
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I had to do this to get it to work. Downloading, extracting, and trying run it on my Ubuntu 15.04 installation resulted in a couple sandbox errors and it wouldn't start. This does start and added an icon for it. – GregInWI2 May 3 '15 at 13:40
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After it installs this way the upgrade process is handled by Visual Studio Code, so you only need to do this once. – Jorge Castro May 7 '15 at 13:22
    
@JorgeCastro Don't think that's the case. Updates not available under 'Help' is grayed out and the version shown under Help -> About is 0.1.0! Current version is 0.9.2. – Denis Nov 16 '15 at 22:08
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Might just be my setup, but the I had to make a symlink because the default install directory wasn't in my $PATH: ln -s $HOME/.local/share/umake/ide/visual-studio-code/code $HOME/bin/ – Abe Voelker Mar 27 '16 at 0:29
up vote 32 down vote

Now there's a .deb package for Ubuntu and Debian besides the rpm/zip. It is available here and may be installed as usual:

sudo dpkg -i vscode-amd64.deb

Works fine on Xenial. Maybe someone creates a PPA to simplify updates. Or it 'll become part of the official repository.

Update 03/17: Since version 1.10 (February 2017) there is built-in support for official Linux repositories. VS Code now can auto-update on Linux, although you have to install it one time manually.

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6  
this should probably be marked the correct answer as of 2016-06-05 – user25064 Jun 5 '16 at 14:24
    
@user25064 the answer that leveraged ubuntu-make worked totally fine for me 2016-10-11 however the .deb file certainly makes it easier as well. – anon58192932 Oct 11 '16 at 12:24
    
Is there a PPA? Now there's a new release, it'd be so good to get it with apt – Csaba Toth Nov 5 '16 at 16:43
    
see Update - finally VSCode in Linux should be updatable easily – JeffRSon Mar 21 '17 at 8:57
up vote 24 down vote

Visual Studio Code enabled official Linux repositories on February 2017 (v1.10)

sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable main"
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys EB3E94ADBE1229CF
sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install code

You can upgrade / dist-upgrade as usual

sudo apt -y upgrade
sudo apt -y dist-upgrade
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3  
This answer needs more up-votes and need be accepted by question owner. – Diogo Gomes Apr 22 '17 at 18:09
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Your code does not work for me. Please test it and consider following official instructions instead: github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/2973#issuecomment-2805758‌​41 – abuhurayra Apr 23 '17 at 22:33
    
See JeffRSon's answer for a more up-to-date method, similar to (but easier than) this – Dan Nissenbaum Jun 28 '17 at 18:22
    
@terdon let me know if I'm mistaken, but IMO an answer shouldn't be a place to discuss another answer. Also, I actually disagree with your second part, because this one doesn't require a .deb file beforehand (hence why I wrote it after the accepted Cactux's one). – zurfyx Jun 29 '17 at 15:01
    
You're quite right in that the comments of one answer are not the place to discuss another. But a single comment simply pointing out a perceived benefit of another answer isn't harmful and could be helpful. I sometimes leave one under my own answer if I feel that one of the others is better, for example. – terdon♦ Jun 29 '17 at 15:05
up vote 14 down vote

Since they provide a .deb file now I recommend using that instead of the approach below.

The way I've done it is as follows. Using a terminal:

  1. Create a directory for the files and change to this directory:

    mkdir msvs && cd msvs

The directory name is arbitrary.

  1. Unpack the zip file in your new folder:

    unzip ../Downloads/VSCode-linux-x64.zip

  2. Run the ide using

    ./VSCode-linux-x64/code &

You can also create a desktop link so that you can start it directly from the desktop or double-click in nautilus.

To create a menu entry:

  1. At the terminal, create a file

    sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/MSVS.desktop

and copy and paste the following:

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Exec=/opt/msvs/code
Name=MSVS
Icon=/opt/msvs/flurry_ios_visual_studio_2012_replacement_icon_by_flakshack-d5nnelp.png
Categories=Development

In my case the executable resides inside /opt/msvs.

sudo cp -R ~/Downloads/VSCode-linux-x64 /opt/msvs

I also downloaded an MS icon for this application from

wget http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/344/9/1/flurry_ios_visual_studio_2012_replacement_icon_by_flakshack-d5nnelp.png

and moved it to /opt/msvs:

sudo mv flurry*png /opt/msvs
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Does simply double-clicking the executable (Code) not work to run it, from Nautilus? (At the moment I can only test this with Nemo and PCManFM.) – Eliah Kagan Apr 29 '15 at 21:13
    
That works too. – Harris Apr 29 '15 at 21:16
2  
This is actually what I was also looking for too. Thank you. BTW: the best icons to use is it's own: Icon=/opt/msvs/resources/app/vso.png. – thednp Sep 11 '15 at 14:46
    
The directory structure has now changed and the path to it's own icon is now: Icon=/opt/msvs/resources/app/resources/linux/code.png – mchid Mar 24 '16 at 4:13
up vote 4 down vote

Visual Studio Code doesn't have to be installed, per se. Instead you can unzip the archive wherever you want it, then run the program by double-clicking the file called code (which is the main executable).

Here's a GUI-oriented procedure for doing so:

  1. Go to the Visual Studio Code site and click Download Code for Linux. (You should probably also review the license terms and privacy policy.)

  2. Make a new folder where you want Visual Studio Code to go. It's best to do this within your home folder (if other users want to use Visual Studio Code, it could be extracted separated for them--then any modifications or configuration changes will be per-user).

    This destination folder should be empty, as the .zip archive provided for download does not have everything in a top-level folder inside. For example, if you put software installed for your own user in ~/opt, you could create a new folder inside there called VSCode-linux-x64.

  3. Right click the downloaded .zip file and click Extract To..., then select the folder you created.

    If you prefer, or if your file browser doesn't show an Extract To... option, you could instead move the .zip file into the destination folder, right-click the icon, and click Extract Here.

  4. To run Visual Studio Code, double-click on the code executable, which is one of the files that was extracted.

    Currently Visual Studio Code is "preview" software, which means it is still being developed and is not yet fully stable. Therefore you might prefer to launch it from a terminal so that you can see possibly useful errors and warnings. To do that, open a Terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T), cd to the directory where you extracted it, and run ./code.

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up vote 3 down vote

Install the snap.

sudo apt install snapd-xdg-open
sudo snap install vscode --classic
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up vote 1 down vote

  • Download the Powerbase installer script for Visual Studio Code

  • Become root

    sudo -i

  • Change to your download directory (probably ~/Downloads/)

    cd /home/*yourusername*/Downloads/

  • Run the installer script. If there are no errors, it will just exit…

    sh ./vscodeinstaller.sh

That’s it. Nothing special about this one and it should work in any Linux distribution. Just open your launcher and start typing Visual Studio Code.

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1  
Why sudo -i, it is enough to start sudo ./vscodeinstaller.sh. Better sudo ~/Downloads/vscodeinstaller.sh – A.B. Apr 30 '15 at 15:35
up vote 1 down vote
  • Install gdebi package installer
  • Download .deb VSCode package from here
  • Install downloaded package using gdebi
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up vote 0 down vote

I can't comment on the correct answer above (using PPA as of February), so I will add another detail here.

Visual Code depends on libgtk2.0-0 which it does not list as a dependency in the meta data. You might come across this problem if you, like me, setup minimal virtualbox installations just to troubleshoot difficult system level problems where you have to hack and slash packages which you don't want to do on your real host.

On minimal hosts, therefore the following is required in addition to what was mentioned above to get Visual Code to run:

sudo apt install libgtk2.0-0
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