How to install the PhpStorm IDE on Linux
PhpStorm is the “Lightning Smart” PHP IDE created by JetBrains, available to developers on Linux, MacOS, and Windows. It’s not a free application, and users must purchase a license key to use it to its full potential. Still, as far as paid PHP development software goes, it’s one of the best.
The app supports the Linux platform pretty well through various technologies. On their official website, they advertise that the app is distributed via a Snap package. However, that’s not the only way to install the PhpStorm IDE on Linux, as there’s an Arch Linux AUR package available, and users can also download a standalone TarGZ archive to run the program. In this guide, we’ll go over all the various ways you can get the PhpStorm IDE tool up and running on Linux.
Note: to run PhpStorm on Linux the Java Runtime Environment must be installed! For more information, follow these directions.
Generic Binary installation instructions
The Generic Binary installation process on Linux starts by downloading the stand-alone TarGZ file from the Jetbrains website. Head over to the official JetBrains website. Once you’ve made it to the JetBrains site, look at the top of the page for “Tools” and hover over it with the mouse to reveal a selection menu. Inside of the selection menu, locate “PhpStorm” and click on it to go to the PhpStorm download page.
On the PhpStorm download page, locate the “Download Now” button and click it. It should automatically start the download for the Linux TarGZ archive file to the “Downloads” directory in your home folder (~) on Linux.
Once your web browser is done downloading the latest TarGZ PhpStorm archive, open up a terminal window. You’ll be able to quickly open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. Then, with the terminal window open, use the CD command to move the terminal session from the home directory to “Downloads.”
cd ~/Downloads
Inside of the “Downloads” directory, use the tar command to extract the contents of the PhpStorm TarGZ archive.
tar xvf PhpStorm*.tar.gz
Let the files decompress from the archive. When the extraction process is complete, the tar command will create a sub-folder in the “Downloads” directory with the label of “PhpStorm”, followed by various numbers indicating the release version.
With everything extracted, minimize the terminal window and follow the instructions below to learn about how to install Java on Linux.
Installthe Java Runtime Environment on your Linux
PhpStorm needs the Java Runtime Environment to work correctly on a Linux system. The Java requirement makes sense, as a lot of JetBrains tools are built with Java, and that allows it to be cross-platform.
Installing the Java Runtime Environment is very different depending on what Linux distribution you are using. For best results with PhpStorm, consider getting OpenJDK. That said, the Oracle Java release works also.
Unsure about how to set up Java on your Linux PC? Head over to our in-depth tutorial all about setting up the Java Runtime Environment on Linux.
Running PhpStorm
The PhpStorm app, when downloaded via TarGZ, doesn’t have to be built or installed to the system. Instead, the program can quickly be run with the included “phpstorm.sh” script.
sh ~/Downloads/PhpStorm*/bin/phpstorm.sh
Arch Linux installation instructions
PhpStorm is on Arch Linux via the Arch Linux User Repository. To install it on your system, start by setting up the Java Runtime Environment. Then, after getting Java set up, open a terminal window, and use the Pacman package manager to install both Git and Base-devel.
sudo pacman -S git base-devel
With the Base-devel and Git packages set up on Arch, use the git clone command to download the latest AUR package of the PhpStorm IDE from the internet.
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/phpstorm.git
Let the PhpStorm package download from the AUR software repository. When the downloading process is complete, move your terminal window into the newly created “phpstorm” directory with the CD command.
cd phpstorm
Inside of the “phpstorm” folder, use the makepkg command to build and install the PhpStorm IDE on your Arch Linux PC.
makepkg -sri
Keep in mind that when installing PhpStorm from the AUR on Arch Linux that problems can occur. If something happens, be sure to check with the comments on the PhpStorm AUR page for support.
Snap package installation instructions
The PhpStorm IDE application is up on the Ubuntu Snap store, so if you’re running a Linux distribution that supports Snap, the installation just got super easy! To start out the installation process, enable the Snap runtime on your system by following this guide. Then, once Snaps are enabled, open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard and enter the snap install command below to get PhpStorm!
sudo snap install phpstorm
