So you want to install Sublime Text on Ubuntu, Linux Mint, or aother Ubuntu-based Linux distro – well, you’ve come to the right guide.
Sublime Text is a closed-source, cross-platform text editor with a big following amongst web and software developers. It’s fast, has an expansive, powerful set of features, and can be easily expanded with plugins available from its community.
Sublime Text is available for Linux, as well as Windows & macOS, but it’s not available to install from the Ubuntu repos.
So to install Sublime Text on Ubuntu you will need to add the official Sublime Text repository. This supports Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and later.
Installing Sublime Text on Ubuntu
The Sublime Text website offers download for Windows, macOS and Linux, with a Deb installer provided for Ubuntu. However, the Deb installer does not support automatic updates, which means you won’t get any bug fixes, new features, or performance improvements.
You can install Sublime Text on Ubuntu and get automatic updates to new versions by adding the Sublime Text repository.
Step 1: Download the security key for the Sublime text editor repository. This step is important as it ensures any packages you download from the linked repo are what they say they are, with no nasty surprises:
wget -qO - https://download.sublimetext.com/sublimehq-pub.gpg | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/sublimehq-archive.gpg > /dev/null
Step 2: Add the Sublime Text stable repository:
echo "deb https://download.sublimetext.com/ apt/stable/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sublime-text.list
Step 3: Install Sublime Text:
sudo apt update && sudo apt install sublime-text
That’s all you need to do!
After the install is complete you can go ahead and open Sublime Text from your desktop app launcher of choice.
Sublime Text is a proprietary text editor. While you can download Sublime Text for free you are supposed to buy a license if you plan to use it full-time. A Sublime Text license costs $80.
However, the editor’s evaluation period is unlimited, with no functional limitations. The trial period does not expire, which means you can use Sublime Text for free, for as long as you like. But keep in mind that buying a license supports its continued existence, which benefits you in the long term.
Happy coding!