Complete Guide: Installing & Optimizing VS Code on Ubuntu Linux

Visual Studio Code is the industry-standard code editor for developers worldwide. On Ubuntu and Debian-based Linux distributions, installing it via Microsoft's official APT repository guarantees automatic background updates and optimal system performance.

Step 1: Install Prerequisites

sudo apt update
sudo apt install software-properties-common apt-transport-https wget curl gpg -y

Step 2: Import Microsoft GPG Key & APT Repository

wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | gpg --dearmor > packages.microsoft.gpg
sudo install -D -o root -g root -m 644 packages.microsoft.gpg /etc/apt/keyrings/packages.microsoft.gpg
echo "deb [arch=amd64,arm64,armhf signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/packages.microsoft.gpg] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/code stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list
rm -f packages.microsoft.gpg

Step 3: Install Visual Studio Code

sudo apt update
sudo apt install code -y

Now launch VS Code directly from your terminal with:

code .