How to install VSCode on Linux Ubuntu and Mint

Dive into this comprehensive guide on “How to install VSCode on Linux Ubuntu” and “How to install VSCode on Linux Mint”. We’ll walk you through the straightforward steps to install Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code, commonly known as VSCode, on these popular Linux distributions. Whether you’re using Ubuntu, Mint, or any other Debian-based Linux distribution, we’ve got you covered with the official packages for a seamless installation experience.

What is VSCode, the Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code, or simply VSCode, is a mild source code editor that provides comprehensive support and easy understanding for editing, navigation and code clearance.

Based on a rich extensibility model and mild integration with existing tools. VSCODE is free and based on open source for Linux, Windows and MacOS.

VS Code comes with integrated support for JavaScript, TypeScript and Node.js, has a rich ecosystem of extensions (plugins) for other programming languages, such as C++, C#, Java, Python, PHP, Go; and runtimes like .Net and Unity.

You can easily install VSCode extensions to add new interface languages, programming languages, themes, debugers and for connect to additional services such as databases or APIs.

In this tutorial I will show you how to install Visual Studio Code (VSCODE) on Linux Mint or Ubuntu.

Installing VSCode on Linux Mint or Linux Ubuntu

A VSCode installation package is supplied for use in Debian based systems, like Linux Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Kali Linux, etc.

You can check the latest packages on the VSCode download page. If you want to use the wget command line to get the .deb package directly, first install WGET as below.

Install the WGET if not present.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install wget

However, we will use an APT package of the Microsoft repository to install and keep up to date our Visual Studio Code editor.

1. Add the repository and the key to Visual Studio Code

The APT repository key is required to validate the signed packages to be installed.

Add the key to the system using the commands below:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | gpg --dearmor > microsoft.gpg
sudo install -o root -g root -m 644 microsoft.gpg /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/

2. Add the APT repository to Linux

With the APT key imported to the system, proceed to add the contents of the repository.

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list'

The contents are recorded in the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list.

3. Update the APT and install the vscode

Run the update of the APT package catalog and then install Visual Studio Code:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install code

After waiting for the installation to finish you can run the editor by calling it directly on the command line, or through the system menu:

code

If you want to execute Visual Studio Code with a specific folder opened in IDE, browse it through the command line console at the terminal, and run the code command with a point (.):