How To Install Adobe Brackets On Linux

Are you a Linux web developer looking for a better way to write code? Consider checking out Adobe Brackets. It’s a next-generation text editor for web developers. Adobe Brackets is an open source project that allows developers to manage web projects easily. It supports many web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavasScript.

SPOILER ALERT: Scroll down and watch the video tutorial at the end of this article.

The text editor is 100% free (which is rare for Adobe) and is officially available for Ubuntu and Debian variants.

Ubuntu/Debian Instructions

The primary way Adobe would like Linux users to develop with Brackets is with Ubuntu and Debian. Going this route is understandable, as these two operating systems make up the vast majority of the Linux userbase. Officially, there is no way install the software via a PPA, or even a simple Debian-style software repository. Instead, the folks at Adobe would like users to download and install it via a Debian package file manually.

To install Brackets, head over to the official software release page, and download the correct package (depending on your CPU architecture). Officially, Adobe supports both 32-bit and 64-bit CPUs. Once downloaded, open up the file manager, click on “Downloads” and look for the Adobe Brackets DEB package file.

Double-click on the DEB to open it with the Debian GUI package tool, or the Ubuntu software center. Click the “install” button, and enter your password if prompted.

Alternatively, open up a terminal window and use the CD command to navigate to ~/Downloads. Once there, use the dpkg tool to install the package to the system.

cd ~/Downloads

sudo dpkg -i Brackets.Release.*.64-bit.deb

Lastly, fix any dependency issues that may arise with apt install -f.

sudo apt install -f

Want to uninstall Adobe Brackets from your system? Search the Ubuntu software center, or the Debian Synaptic Package tool for “Adobe Brackets,” and click the uninstall button. Another option for removing the software is to run the following commands.

sudo apt remove brackets

sudo apt-get remove brackets

Arch Linux Instructions

Arch users looking to develop with Adobe Brackets will need to install the software via the AUR, as Adobe has no interest in creating an official package for it. Start off the installation by using the Pacman tool to install the “git” package. Git is required to interact with the AUR if you’re not using an AUR helping tool.

sudo Pacman -S git

With the “git” package on the system, it’s time to grab the latest version of the Adobe Brackets PKGBUILD archive.

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/brackets-bin.git

Using the CD command, navigate to the Adobe Brackets folder.

cd brackets-bin

Lastly, use the makepkg command to generate, and install an Arch package. Keep in mind that the dependencies that don’t install with -si will need to be installed manually. Find them here.

makepkg -si

Note: Brackets uses Google Chrome to execute the “Live Preview” feature. Chrome is required, so you’ll need to install the AUR package to use that feature. Once installed, run this command to fix any errors that may occur.

sudo ln -s /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome /bin/google-chrome

Uninstall Adobe Brackets from Arch with Pacman -R.

sudo pacman -R brackets-bin

Fedora Instructions

Adobe doesn’t officially support Fedora, but that doesn’t matter because users can install it anyways, thanks to a few dedicated users. To install, enable the Copr repository.

sudo dnf copr enable mosquito/brackets

Once activated, install the Brackets package.

sudo dnf install brackets

Keep in mind that this Copr repo is only currently working on Fedora 26. It is very likely that it will still work with later versions of Fedora.

If for some reason Adobe Brackets doesn’t install on your version of Fedora, consider heading over to the builds page, and downloading the RPM file instead.

Building From Source

Installing Brackets via the source code is doable, although a bit rocky. Sometimes builds may fail, so try this at your own risk. To build the software, you’ll need to install Grunt, as well as NodeJS, Git, Python, Make and other tools normally used for compilation of software. If you’re not sure exactly what to install, it’s probably best you consider switching to one of the operating systems listed above to use Adobe Brackets.

Start the building process by creating a folder. This folder will house all of the information required to build the software.

Note: having issues building? Check out the issues page.

mkdir ~/src

Use the CD command to enter the src folder.

cd ~/src

Using git, clone the latest release.

git clone https://github.com/adobe/brackets.git

git clone https://github.com/adobe/brackets-shell.git

Build by using CD, then Grunt.

Note: sometimes Grunt may fail. If this happens, try building with the force flag.

grunt build --force.

Brackets-Shell

cd brackets-shell

grunt setup

grunt build

Brackets

cd brackets

grunt setup

grunt build

When Grunt finishes the build process successfully, Brackets should be available to use. Look for the Binary in the Brackets build folder, as it may not have installed on your PC directly.

Uninstalling a program build from source is a little more difficult than just removing a package, but deleting ~/src should be enough. Alternatively, try: