Installing PowerShell on Debian

Article
11/18/2024

All packages are available on our GitHub releases page. Before installing, check the list of Supported versions below. After the package is installed, run pwsh from a terminal. Run pwsh-lts if you installed a preview release.

Note

PowerShell 7.4 is an in-place upgrade that removes previous versions of PowerShell 7. Preview versions of PowerShell can be installed side-by-side with other versions of PowerShell. If you need to run PowerShell 7.4 side-by-side with a previous version, reinstall the previous version using the binary archive method.

Debian uses APT (Advanced Package Tool) as a package manager.

Installation on Debian 10 or 11 via the Package Repository

Microsoft builds and supports a variety of software products for Linux systems and makes them available via Linux packaging clients (apt, dnf, yum, etc). These Linux software packages are hosted on the Linux package repository for Microsoft products, https://packages.microsoft.com, also known as PMC.

Installing PowerShell from PMC is the preferred method of installation.

Note

This script only works for supported versions of Debian.

###################################
# Prerequisites

# Update the list of packages
sudo apt-get update

# Install pre-requisite packages.
sudo apt-get install -y wget

# Get the version of Debian
source /etc/os-release

# Download the Microsoft repository GPG keys
wget -q https://packages.microsoft.com/config/debian/$VERSION_ID/packages-microsoft-prod.deb

# Register the Microsoft repository GPG keys
sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb

# Delete the Microsoft repository GPG keys file
rm packages-microsoft-prod.deb

# Update the list of packages after we added packages.microsoft.com
sudo apt-get update

###################################
# Install PowerShell
sudo apt-get install -y powershell

# Start PowerShell
pwsh

Installation via direct download

PowerShell 7.2 introduced a universal package that makes installation easier. Download the universal package from the releases page onto your Debian machine.

The link to the current version is:

PowerShell 7.4 (LTS) universal package for supported versions of Debian
- https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.4.6/powershell_7.4.6-1.deb_amd64.deb
PowerShell 7.2 (LTS) universal package for supported versions of Debian
- https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.2.24/powershell_7.2.24-1.deb_amd64.deb
PowerShell 7.5-preview universal package for supported versions of Debian
- https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.5.0-rc.1/powershell-preview_7.5.0-rc.1-1.deb_amd64.deb

The following shell script downloads and installs the current release of PowerShell. You can change the URL to download the version of PowerShell that you want to install.

###################################
# Prerequisites

# Update the list of packages
sudo apt-get update

# Install pre-requisite packages.
sudo apt-get install -y wget

# Download the PowerShell package file
wget https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.4.6/powershell_7.4.6-1.deb_amd64.deb

###################################
# Install the PowerShell package
sudo dpkg -i powershell_7.4.6-1.deb_amd64.deb

# Resolve missing dependencies and finish the install (if necessary)
sudo apt-get install -f

# Delete the downloaded package file
rm powershell_7.4.6-1.deb_amd64.deb

# Start PowerShell
pwsh

Uninstall PowerShell

sudo apt-get remove powershell

PowerShell paths

$PSHOME is /opt/microsoft/powershell/7/
The profiles scripts are stored in the following locations:
- AllUsersAllHosts - $PSHOME/profile.ps1
- AllUsersCurrentHost - $PSHOME/Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1
- CurrentUserAllHosts - ~/.config/powershell/profile.ps1
- CurrentUserCurrentHost - ~/.config/powershell/Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1
Modules are stored in the following locations:
- User modules - ~/.local/share/powershell/Modules
- Shared modules - /usr/local/share/powershell/Modules
- Default modules - $PSHOME/Modules
PSReadLine history is recorded in ~/.local/share/powershell/PSReadLine/ConsoleHost_history.txt

PowerShell respects the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.

Supported versions

Microsoft supports PowerShell until PowerShell reaches end-of-support or the version of Debian reaches end-of-life.

Install package files (.deb) are also available from https://packages.microsoft.com/.

Docker images containing PowerShell 7.4 and PowerShell 7.5-preview for x64 are available from the Microsoft Artifact Registry for the following versions of Debian:

Debian 12 (Bookworm) - OS support ends on 2026-06-10

Important

The Docker images are built from official operating system (OS) images provide by the OS distributor. These images may not have the latest security updates. Microsoft recommends that you update the OS packages to the latest version to ensure the latest security updates are applied.

Installation support

Microsoft supports the installation methods in this document. There may be other methods of installation available from other third-party sources. While those tools and methods may work, Microsoft can't support those methods.

Share via