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Michael Gruber
Asked: 2012-08-07 10:27:50 +0800 CST

How do I install Sublime Text 2/3?

  • 772

I installed Sublime Text 2 on 12.04 as per this tutorial.

However I don't have adequate permissions when launching the program from the Unity launcher. For example I cannot install packages, or if I add a folder to the sidebar when I close Sublime and reopen, the folder is no longer listed. If I run sudo sublime in the terminal all changes remain after closing.

I've tried chown-ing the Sublime Text 2 folder in usr/lib sudo chown -R mylogin:mylogin /usr/lib/"Sublime Text 2" but this seemed to have no effect.

software-installation

13 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Install via the Package Manager(apt-get):

    Simply add to your packages:

    For Sublime-Text-2:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/sublime-text-2
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sublime-text

    For Sublime-Text-3:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/sublime-text-3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sublime-text-installer

    Run Sublime-Text on terminal

    subl

    Install Manually via Terminal:

    Download from the Sublime Site:

    32-bit:

    wget http://c758482.r82.cf2.rackcdn.com/Sublime\ Text\ 2.0.2.tar.bz2
tar vxjf Sublime\ Text\ 2.0.2.tar.bz2

    64-bit:

    wget http://c758482.r82.cf2.rackcdn.com/Sublime\ Text\ 2.0.2\ x64.tar.bz2
tar vxjf Sublime\ Text\ 2.0.2\ x64.tar.bz2

    For Both:

    sudo mv Sublime\ Text\ 2 /opt/
sudo ln -s /opt/Sublime\ Text\ 2/sublime_text /usr/bin/sublime

    Source: http://www.tecmint.com/install-sublime-text-editor-in-linux/

    Install Manually via Script:

    Check out this nice script on Github("Install Sublime Text on Fedora.") that you can run, just make sure to edit the "*.tar.bz2" in the script to download the latest version of Sublime Text!

    #!/usr/bin/env bash
# Usage: {script} [ OPTIONS ] TARGET BUILD
# 
#   TARGET      Default target is "/usr/local".
#   BUILD       If not defined tries to get the build into the Sublime Text 3 website.
# 
# OPTIONS
#
#   -h, --help  Displays this help message.
#
# Report bugs to Henrique Moody <[email protected]>
#

set -e

if [[ "${1}" = '-h' ]] || [[ "${1}" = '--help' ]]; then
    sed -E 's/^#\s?(.*)/\1/g' "${0}" |
        sed -nE '/^Usage/,/^Report/p' |
        sed "s/{script}/$(basename "${0}")/g"
    exit
fi

declare URL
declare URL_FORMAT="http://c758482.r82.cf2.rackcdn.com/sublime_text_3_build_%d_x%d.tar.bz2"
declare TARGET="${1:-/usr/local}"
declare BUILD="${2}"
declare BITS

if [[ -z "${BUILD}" ]]; then
    BUILD=$(
        curl -Ls http://www.sublimetext.com/3 |
        grep '<h2>Build' |
        head -n1 |
        sed -E 's#<h2>Build ([0-9]+)</h2>#\1#g'
    )
fi

if [[ "$(uname -m)" = "x86_64" ]]; then
    BITS=64
else
    BITS=32
fi

URL=$(printf "${URL_FORMAT}" "${BUILD}" "${BITS}")

read -p "Do you really want to install Sublime Text 3 (Build ${BUILD}, x${BITS}) on \"${TARGET}\"? [Y/n]: " CONFIRM
CONFIRM=$(echo "${CONFIRM}" | tr [a-z] [A-Z])
if [[ "${CONFIRM}" = 'N' ]] || [[ "${CONFIRM}" = 'NO' ]]; then
    echo "Aborted!"
    exit
fi

echo "Downloading Sublime Text 3"
curl -L "${URL}" | tar -xjC ${TARGET}

echo "Creating shortcut file"
cat ${TARGET}/sublime_text_3/sublime_text.desktop |
    sed "s#/opt#${TARGET}#g" |
    cat > "/usr/share/applications/sublime_text.desktop"

echo "Creating binary file"
cat > ${TARGET}/bin/subl <<SCRIPT
#!/bin/sh
if [ \${1} == \"--help\" ]; then
    ${TARGET}/sublime_text_3/sublime_text --help
else
    ${TARGET}/sublime_text_3/sublime_text \$@ > /dev/null 2>&1 &
fi
SCRIPT

echo "Finish!"

    Source: https://gist.github.com/henriquemoody/3288681

    This helped me and I hope it helps everyone else as well!

    • 803

  2. Basically, your problem is that you're using a wrong article :) If it was on an SE site I would down-vote it.

    Manually copying stuff which does not come from Ubuntu repositories into /usr is WRONG. This directory is managed by Ubuntu's package manager and messing with it is going to cause you trouble at some point or another - for example, the next time you upgrade your system Sublime will likely be removed without a trace.

    Running the program as root is even wronger, especially in the case of SublimeText which has its own package manager which basically downloads stuff from Internet and lets it run on your computer. A simple typo in a plugin could destroy all data on your machine.

    A proper solution, if you want to install the program system-wide, would be to find/build a .deb file and install it - this way package manager would be aware of the package. Webupd8 maintains a PPA for SublimeText2, so you can just use that.

    However, there's a much lazier solution which I am personally using - just unpack SublimeText somewhere in your home directory, create a bin directory in your home directory and symlink sublime_text executable into that directory:

    mkdir ~/bin
ln -s ~/wherever/sublime/is/sublime_text ~/bin

    After which you'll be able to run Sublime Text by typing sublime_text in the console, from any directory. This does not require root privileges at all and the editor runs just fine.

    The article also does some shell integration, such as registering sublime_text as a default editor and adding an icon, and I was too lazy to do that - however, I'm sure that it can be done without messing with system-wide settings.

    This does not explain, however, the problems with permissions you're having - SublimeText stores all its settings in your home folder anyway, so even if you installed it system-wide it should not have problems. What probably happened is that you started it the first time with superuser privileges (i.e. from the sudo shell), so the editor's config directory (in ~/.config/sublime-text-2) is owned by root now. You need to do something like

    sudo chown -R yourusername:yourusername /home/yourusername/.config/sublime-text-2

    to fix this.

    • 67

  3. Here is how to solve this.

    1) undo all the steps in the linked webpage in reverse order.

    1a) if you didn't save a copy of your original defaults.list then open a terminal and run

    sudo cp /usr/share/applications/defaults.list /usr/share/applications/defaults.list.bak && cat /usr/share/applications/defaults.list.bak | sed "s/sublime\.desktop/gedit.desktop/g" | sudo tee /usr/share/applications/defaults.list

    2) get the version of sublime you want and extract it to the current directory.

    3) in bash cd to the directory where you extracted sublime

    4) mv Sublime\ Text\ 2 ~/.local

    4a) if you want to be able to run sublime from the command line then run mkdir -p ~/bin && ln -s ~/.local/Sublime\ Text\ 2/sublime_text ~/bin/sublime. The default .bashrc will add ~/bin to your $PATH the next time your shell launches.

    5) Make a file called sublime.desktop in ~/.local/share/applications/ and paste the following inside.

    [Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Sublime Text 2
# Only KDE 4 seems to use GenericName, so we reuse the KDE strings.
# From Ubuntu's language-pack-kde-XX-base packages, version 9.04-20090413.
GenericName=Text Editor

Exec=~/.local/Sublime\ Text\ 2/sublime_text
Terminal=false
Icon=~/.local/Sublime Text 2/Icon/48x48/sublime_text.png
Type=Application
Categories=TextEditor;IDE;Development
X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=NewWindow

[NewWindow Shortcut Group]
Name=New Window
Exec=~/.local/Sublime\ Text\ 2/sublime_text -n
TargetEnvironment=Unity

    6) test -e ~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list -a 1$(grep -sc \[Default\ Applications\] ~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list) != 10 || echo "[Default Applications]" >> ~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list; grep gedit.desktop /usr/share/applications/defaults.list | sed "s/gedit\.desktop/sublime.desktop/g" >> ~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list

    7) done.

    It should now be installed locally in your home directory and you should have no more issues with permissions.

    • 21

  4. You can also also download the Debian package for your particular architecture from the sublime website

    and then run the following;

    cd download_path
sudo dpkg -i package.deb

    for example if my download for a 64 bit architecture is in the Downloads directory and is called sublime-text_build-3080_amd64.deb then I will run

    cd ~/Downloads
sudo dpkg -i sublime-text_build-3080_amd64.deb

    In my case it was sublime text 3, you can get for your sublime text 2 also

    • 7

  5. I think @Alex L. is completely right. I recommend never editting your /usr fs, add-on commercial software should be installed in either /opt for multi-user or ~/opt for single user (see Linux Filesystem Hierarchy especially /opt and /home). Here are just a few more additions to make it really nice.

    1. You don't have to move your app to .local or /local; I usually just leave them in ~/opt (n.b.: the tilde is your home directory or $HOME).

      user@machine:~$ cd ~/Downloads
user@machine:~/Downloads$ cd wget http://c758482.r82.cf2.rackcdn.com/Sublime%20Text%202.0.1.tar.bz2
user@machine:~/Downloads$ cd ..
user@machine:~$ tar -C ~/opt -xf "~/Downloads/Sublime Text 2"

    2. Make a symlink to sublime_text in ~/bin, but call it sublime; see step 4a in Alex L.'s answer above.

      user@machine:~$ ln -s ~/opt/Sublime\ Text\ 2/sublime_text ~/bin/sublime

    3. Same as Alex L.'s step 5, make a file called sublime.desktop in ~/.local/share/applications/ but add %f after sublime in the Exec field so that you can open it from Nautilus, as described in this post. Also don't escape spaces for the Icon field and use the full path, no tilde. Replace <user> with your username.

      [Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Sublime Text 2
GenericName=Text Editor
Exec=/home/<user>/bin/sublime %f
Terminal=false
Icon=/home/<user>/Sublime Text 2/Icon/48x48/sublime_text.png
Type=Application
Categories=Development;IDE;TextEditor
X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=NewWindow

[NewWindow Shortcut Group]
Name=New Window
Exec=/home/<user>/bin/sublime -n
TargetEnvironment=Unity

    4. You shouldn't have to log off, but if it doesn't show up in your dash, right away maybe you do. Then look for a file to open in Nautilus, right-click and select Open With Other Applicaton ... then Show other applications button at the bottom, find Sublime Text 2 in the list, select it and hit Select. Your file should open in Sublime Text 2, and from now on for files of that type you will see Sublime Text 2 already listed as an option. You can also set it as the default from Nautilus by right-clicking, selecting Properties then Open With and finally Set as default button after highlighting Sublime Text 2. Of course you could have used Add to select Sublime Text 2 to open the file type from the Properties window as well.

    • 6

  6. Type the following commands in the terminal, for Sublime Text 2 :

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/sublime-text-2
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sublime-text

    For Sublime Text 3 :

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/sublime-text-3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sublime-text-installer
    • 5

    1. Download the deb package from the official site.

    2. Install the package by $sudo dpkg -i path_to_the_file.deb

    3. Start the program from /opt/sublime_text/sublime_text

    • 4

  8. As mentioned by Leonard Kakande, you can install it from official repository. It works for Sublime Text 3 only, though.

    Run the following commands in your terminal:

    (1) Install the GPG key:

    wget -qO - https://download.sublimetext.com/sublimehq-pub.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

    (2) Select the channel to use:

    Stable

    echo "deb https://download.sublimetext.com/ apt/stable/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sublime-text.list

    Dev

    echo "deb https://download.sublimetext.com/ apt/dev/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sublime-text.list

    (3) Update apt sources and install Sublime Text

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sublime-text
    • 3

  9. Installing Snap on Ubuntu

    sudo apt install snapd

    Installing Sublime text

    sudo snap install sublime-text --classic

    Note: snapd is only works for ubuntu 16.04 or later versions

    • 3

  10. I recently made this for your convenience: https://github.com/TCattd/sublime-text-linux-installer

    A Sublime Text 2 and Sublime Text 3 bash script installer. Just download one of the scripts, ST2 or ST2.

    For ST2 is: st2install

    Put ir in your home folder. Then form a terminal (and in the same home folder) run:

    sudo bash st2install

    That will take care of all.

    You can upgrade with that very same script too, in case a new ST2 version pop out. Same apply for installing/upgrading ST3.

    And both versions, using those installers, can live together without conflicts.

    Hope it helps ;)

    • 2