How to Install Sublime Text 3 on Ubuntu 18.04

Sublime Text is one of the most widely used text and source code editors for web and software development. It is very fast and it comes with lots of powerful features out of the box. You can enhance its functionality by installing new plugins and creating custom settings.

In this tutorial we’ll show you how to install Sublime Text 3 on an Ubuntu 18.04 machine. The same steps should work on any Debian-based distribution.

Prerequisites #

Before continuing with this tutorial, make sure you are logged in as a user with sudo privileges .

Installing Sublime Text on Ubuntu #

To install Sublime Text 3 on your Ubuntu system, follow these steps:

1. Update the apt package list and install the dependencies necessary to fetch packages from https sources:

   Terminal

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common

2. Import the repository’s GPG key using the following curl command :

   Terminal

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

   Add the Sublime Text APT repository to your system’s software repository list by typing:

   Terminal

   sudo add-apt-repository "deb https://www.sublimetext.com/download apt/stable/"

3. Once the repository is enabled, update apt sources and install Sublime Text 3 with the following commands:

   Terminal

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install sublime-text

That’s it. Sublime Text has been installed on your Ubuntu desktop.

Starting Sublime Text #

You can start the Sublime Text editor either from the terminal by typing subl or by clicking on the Sublime icon (Activities -> Sublime):

When you start Sublime Text for the first time, a window like the following one will appear:

Conclusion #

You have successfully installed Sublime Text on your Ubuntu 18.04 machine. Your next step should be to install the Sublime Text Package Control and start customizing your new editor according to your needs.

To find more information about Sublime Text visit the official Sublime Text documentation page.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.

About the authors

Dejan Panovski

Dejan Panovski is the founder of Linuxize, an RHCSA-certified Linux system administrator and DevOps engineer based in Skopje, Macedonia. Author of 800+ Linux tutorials with 20+ years of experience turning complex Linux tasks into clear, reliable guides.

View author page