How to install Sublime Text 4 on Ubuntu

Sublime Text is a source code editor that is cross-platform in nature. Hence, it comes equipped and supports a handful of programming and markup languages. Plugins, which are often community-built and administered under free-software licenses enable users to augment the functionality of the system. Please see Shell Scripting: How to Automate a Process in Linux, How to get Windows PC specific Model information, and How to Install and Uninstall Yarn on Ubuntu Linux.

Additionally, Sublime Text has a Python API to assist with plugins. If you’re an Ubuntu user looking to install Sublime Text 4 on your system, you’re in the right place. Let’s walk you through the installation process.

Please find other guides from here: Practical use of SELinux in production: How to locate directory file context and restore it with SELinux, and What are the differences between dnf and apt package managers?

Reasons to Install Sublime Text 4 on Ubuntu

Here are some amazing reasons why you should use Sublime Text 4

Sublime text 4 has some amazing new features that are not in the previous editions and some of them are:

GPU rendering: Sublime text can now use your GPU to render the UI on Linux, Mac, and Windows. What’s more, this allows for a smooth user interface up to 8K resolutions while utilizing less power than previously.

Tab multi-select: UI and built-in functions help upgrade file tabs to make split views simple. Furthermore, to make code navigation even easier and more intuitive, these functions improved the sidebar, tab bar, Goto Anything, Goto Definition, auto complete, and other features.

Refreshed UI: The Default and Adaptive themes encompass new tab styles and passive pane dimming. Themes and color schemes also supports Auto dark-mode switching. Besides, custom title bars are now available in the Adaptive theme for Windows and Linux.

Superpowered Syntax Definitions: The syntax highlighting engine became significantly improved with new capabilities such as supporting non-deterministic grammars, multi-line constructions, lazy embeds, and syntactic inheritance. In addition, the amount of memory became lowered, and load times are now quicker than they have ever been.

Other Features of Sublime Text

Apple Silicon and Linux ARM64: Sublime Text on Mac now supports Apple Silicon Processors. Moreover, for devices like the Raspberry Pi, Linux ARM64 versions are also available.

Context-Aware Auto Complete: The autocomplete engine undergoes modification to provide smart completions based on a project’s current code. Furthermore, suggestions are also accompanied with information about their category and links to definitions.

Typescript, JSX and TSX Support:Sublime Text now includes one of the most popular new programming languages as standard. Thus, within the contemporary JavaScript environment, use all of Sublime Text’s clever syntax-based capabilities.

Updated Python API: The Sublime Text API upgrades to Python 3.8 while maintaining backwards compatibility with Sublime Text 3 packages. In addition, the API improves, with new capabilities that make plugins like LSP operate even better.

Installing Sublime Text 4 on Ubuntu

In this guide, I will walk you through how to install sublime text 4 on Ubuntu

Installation

Process 1: Retrieve GPG Key and install it. Start by adding the Sublime Text GPG key to your terminal.

$ wget -qO - https://download.sublimetext.com/sublimehq-pub.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Simply type your sudo password and hit Enter when asked.

Possible error messages & how to troubleshoot

gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found. In case you get this in the process of installation, this error means that the file you tried to decrypt/verify was not valid OpenPGP data. I ran three commands below that helped me move forward

• apt install -y ca-certificates.
• apt update
• apt upgrade

The error messages disappeared after running the commands above as I was prompted for my root password to proceed with the task

Process 2:

Ensure apt is set up to work with https sources: Install the apt-transport-https package after adding the GPG key. This guarantees that Sublime Text’s metadata and packages may be accessed safely through the HTTPS protocol.

$sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https

Possible error message & solution

apt-transport-https is already the newest version (1.6.14).
apt-transport-https set to manually installed.
You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.

Select the stable channel instead of the dev one and add it

$ echo "deb https://download.sublimetext.com/ apt/stable/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sublime-text.list

Process 3

Update apt sources and install Sublime Text

$sudo apt-get update
$sudo apt-get install sublime-text

Next thing to do is to click the application manager

And finally, search for Sublime Text in the application manager

Summary

Sublime Text 4 is worth installing with the impressive new features that it has. We can do that by retrieving GPG Key and installing it. In addition, we ensured apt is set up to work with HTTPS sources. Finally, we updated apt sources and installed Sublime Text. Congratulations! Now you can install Sublime Text 4 on Ubuntu.