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Alternate ways to install PowerShell on Linux

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All packages are available on our GitHub releases page. After the package is installed, run pwsh from a terminal. Run pwsh-preview if you installed a preview release.

There are three other ways to install PowerShell on a Linux distribution:

Snap Package

Snaps are application packages that are easy to install, secure, cross‐platform and dependency‐free. Snaps are discoverable and installable from the Snap Store. Snap packages are supported the same as the distribution you're running the package on.

Important

The Snap Store contains PowerShell snap packages for many Linux distributions that are not officially supported by Microsoft. For support, see the list of available Community Support options.

Getting snapd

snapd is required to run snaps. Use these instructions to make sure you have snapd installed.

Installation via Snap

There are two PowerShell for Linux is published to the Snap store: powershell and powershell-preview.

Use the following command to install the latest stable version of PowerShell:

# Install PowerShell
sudo snap install powershell --classic

# Start PowerShell
pwsh

If you don't specify the --channel parameter, Snap installs the latest stable version. To install the latest LTS version, use the following method:

# Install PowerShell
sudo snap install powershell --channel=lts/stable --classic

# Start PowerShell
pwsh

Note

Microsoft only supports the latest/stable and lts/stable channels for the powershell package. Do not install packages from the other channels.

To install a preview version, use the following method:

# Install PowerShell
sudo snap install powershell-preview --classic

# Start PowerShell
pwsh-preview

Note

Microsoft only supports the latest/stable channel for the powershell-preview package. Do not install packages from the other channels.

After installation, Snap will automatically upgrade. You can trigger an upgrade using sudo snap refresh powershell or sudo snap refresh powershell-preview.

Uninstallation

sudo snap remove powershell

or

sudo snap remove powershell-preview

Binary Archives

PowerShell binary tar.gz archives are provided for Linux platforms to enable advanced deployment scenarios.

Note

You can use this method to install any version of PowerShell including the latest:

Dependencies

PowerShell builds portable binaries for all Linux distributions. But, .NET Core runtime requires different dependencies on different distributions, and PowerShell does too.

It's possible that when you install PowerShell, specific dependencies may not be installed, such as when manually installing from the binary archives. The following list details Linux distributions that are supported by Microsoft and have dependencies you may need to install. Check the distribution page for more information:

To deploy PowerShell binaries on Linux distributions that aren't officially supported, you need to install the necessary dependencies for the target OS in separate steps. For example, our Amazon Linux dockerfile installs dependencies first, and then extracts the Linux tar.gz archive.

Installation using a binary archive file

Important

This method can be used to install PowerShell on any version of Linux, including distributions that are not officially supported by Microsoft. Be sure to install any necessary dependencies. For support, see the list of available Community Support options.

The following example shows the steps for installing the x64 binary archive. You must choose the correct binary archive that matches the processor type for your platform.

  • powershell-7.4.6-linux-arm32.tar.gz
  • powershell-7.4.6-linux-arm64.tar.gz
  • powershell-7.4.6-linux-x64.tar.gz

Use the following shell commands to download and install PowerShell from the tar.gz binary archive. Change the URL to match the version of PowerShell you want to install.

# Download the powershell '.tar.gz' archive
curl -L -o /tmp/powershell.tar.gz https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.4.6/powershell-7.4.6-linux-x64.tar.gz

# Create the target folder where powershell will be placed
sudo mkdir -p /opt/microsoft/powershell/7

# Expand powershell to the target folder
sudo tar zxf /tmp/powershell.tar.gz -C /opt/microsoft/powershell/7

# Set execute permissions
sudo chmod +x /opt/microsoft/powershell/7/pwsh

# Create the symbolic link that points to pwsh
sudo ln -s /opt/microsoft/powershell/7/pwsh /usr/bin/pwsh

Uninstalling binary archives

sudo rm -rf /usr/bin/pwsh /opt/microsoft/powershell

Install as a .NET Global tool

If you already have the .NET Core SDK installed, it's easy to install PowerShell as a .NET Global tool.

dotnet tool install --global PowerShell

The dotnet tool installer adds ~/.dotnet/tools to your PATH environment variable. However, the currently running shell does not have the updated PATH. You should be able to start PowerShell from a new shell by typing pwsh.