In the advancing world of technology, Shells offer the most affordable virtual desktop for Linux Mint. Developers are sought out in every paradigm, from small businesses to big companies in search for solutions and development. To write and edit code, you can use anything you want. Some prefer lightweight IDEs while others prefer full-pledged IDEs. It all comes down to the developer’s taste. In this article, we will discuss how to set up a developer environment in one of the most popular Linux distributions, Linux Mint.

Sublime Text

Sublime Text is very popular with developers because it’s free, lightweight, and supports coding in various programming and markup languages such as Python, C, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and many other popular languages and technologies used for web development.

To install Sublime Text in Linux Mint, you need to open up the Terminal and type the following:

apt update (add photo below)

apt install sublime text (add photo below)

Successful installation shows the following result: (add photo below)

Now, you can use Sublime Text in Linux Mint. (add photo below)

Visual Code Studio

Visual Code Studio is a free IDE developed by Microsoft. It’s one of the developer’s favorite IDEs if you want to set up a developer environment in Mint. 

The platform provides a lot of features such as for coding language and syntax, VSCode provides syntax highlighting, code folding, auto code completion, configurable snippets, refactoring, keyboard shortcuts, bracket matching, debugging support, etc. VSCode enables programmers to code applications in many languages such as C, C++, CSS, HTML, JSON, F#, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Swift, etc., along with the capability to change and apply different themes for enhancing overall user experience.

The easiest way to install Visual Code Studio in Mint is to go to https://code.visualstudio.com/Download and download the .deb package (64 bit) and install the package through the graphical software center. (add photos)

You can also install using the Terminal (command line) after you’ve downloaded the .deb package (64 bit). 

In the Terminal window, change the directory to where the .deb package is downloaded. (Note: <file> is the file name of your .deb package. You can see it when you locate your downloaded package.)

cd <file directory>

sudo dpkg -i <file>.deb

Installing the .deb package will automatically install the apt repository and signing key to enable auto-updating using the system's package manager.

Then update the package cache and install the package using:

sudo apt-get update

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Now that we learn how to install the two most popular text editors for developers, we are now closer to the finish line. Before anything else, we need to check if everything is up-to-date. In the terminal, type in the following commands:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

Next, go to Edit -> Profile Preferences -> Title and Command, and check off “Run command as a login shell” (add photo below)

Next, we need to set up a group. In the Terminal, type in the following commands: 

sudo groupadd npm

sudo usermod -a -G npm,staff $USER

Now, it’s time to install the essentials. In the Terminal, type in the following commands:

sudo apt-get -y install curl postgresql libpq-dev default-jre build-essential phantomjs

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo -E bash -

sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Next, we need to set up the file permissions. In order to set it up, type in the following commands:

sudo chown root:staff /usr/bin

sudo chmod 0775 /usr/bin

sudo chown -R root:npm /usr/lib/node_modules

sudo chmod 0775 /usr/lib/node_modules

Now, it’s time to install Ruby Version Manager (RVM). Type in the following commands:

gpg --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 409B6B1796C275462A1703113804BB82D39DC0E3

curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash

echo "[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && source "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" # Load RVM into a shell session *as a function*"

rvm install 2.6.1

rvm use 2.6.1 --default

To get and setup Ruby gems,

echo "gem: --no-ri --no-rdoc" > $HOME/.gemrc

gem update --system

gem in

Next, we need to setup your Shells virtual computer with Github. Use the following commands:

Ssh-keygen

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

git config --global user.email "[email protected]"

git config --global user.name "Your Name"

Lastly, here’s how you add dotfiles:

curl "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/flatiron-school/dotfiles/master/irbrc" -o "$HOME/.irbrc"

curl "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/flatiron-school/dotfiles/master/ubuntu-gitignore" -o "$HOME/.gitignore"

curl "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/flatiron-school/dotfiles/master/linux_bash_profile" -o "$HOME/.bash_profile"

curl "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/flatiron-school/dotfiles/master/linux_gitconfig" -o "$HOME/.gitconfig"

xed $HOME/.gitconfig