Install Atom text editor in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Atom is a free and open-source source code editor. It was first released on February 26, 2014. It is a cross-platform application. Furthermore, at the time of writing the article – the latest stable release is 1.53.0. In this article, we would discuss how to install Atom text editor in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS release.

Since the package isn’t available through standard Ubuntu repository. Therefore, we would discuss two methods. Choose any –

  1. Install Atom text editor through snap or,
  2. through deb package available on its official website.

We will discuss each of the above two methods mentioned in the following sections separately.

Note: Following operations would require you to have superuser privileges. In case you don’t have one, then contact your System Administrator for assistance.

Install Atom text editor in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS through snap

A. First we have to install snap (a package management system), if it isn’t installed as default. If its already there, then we may skip this part & move to B.

Since the package – snapd is available through standard Ubuntu repository. Therefore, we need to update the repository first to make the latest version of package available. Hence, issue the following in terminal –

sudo apt update

To install the package – snapd itself –

sudo apt install snapd

For more information on Snap.

B. With snap installed, issue the following in terminal to install Atom text editor

sudo snap install atom --classic

Launch the application through the terminal –

atom

If, for some reason, we choose to remove the application. Then –

sudo snap remove atom

Install Atom text editor in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS through deb package

Since the package isn’t available through standard Ubuntu repository. Therefore, to install it we need to have a deb package file. For that, visit the official website of Atom text editor. A simple Google Search – “Atom text editor” would help.

On the homepage of the official website. Click on Download .deb button. It would download the package file – atom-amd64.deb, around 118 MBs in size.

Next, head to the directory where the package file was downloaded. Use cd command-line utility –

cd /path/to/downloaded/package

We will use dpkg (Debian package manager) to install the downloaded package file –

sudo dpkg -i atom-amd64.deb

where,

-i option – installs the package.

At this point, we may encounter an error –

Errors were encountered while processing:
atom

That is due to dependency issues. To fix that, run the following in terminal –

sudo apt install -f

where,

-f fixed the broken packages.

Finally, launch the application from our Systems’ main menu.

In conclusion, we have discussed how to install Atom text editor in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS release.

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