VSCodium is an open-source clone of Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code. This is a perfect application for those users who have used Visual Studio before but are looking for an open-source alternative right now. This community-driven project is completely free of any telemetry which Microsoft collects in Visual Studio Code.
It is cross-platform and therefore available on Windows, Linux, and macOS as well. But, in this article, I will show you the installation process of this application only on GNU/Linux-based distributions.
Installing VSCodium
Depending upon your distribution, open a Terminal and follow the mentioned commands :
On Debian and Ubuntu-based distributions
First, make sure that you have all the dependencies installed on your distribution :
1 | sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl apt-transport-https gnupg2 |
Now, you will have to import the GPG keys into the repository, just copy-paste the following command:
1 2 3 | wget -qO - https://gitlab.com/paulcarroty/vscodium-deb-rpm-repo/raw/master/pub.gpg \ | gpg --dearmor \ | sudo dd of=/usr/share/keyrings/vscodium-archive-keyring.gpg |
Finally, add the repository to your package manager’s config file:
1 2 | echo 'deb [ signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/vscodium-archive-keyring.gpg ] https://download.vscodium.com/debs vscodium main' \ | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscodium.list |
Finally, update your repositories and install the application:
1 | sudo apt update && sudo apt install codium |
On Fedora Workstation
Open a Terminal window and type the following commands to import the GPG keys:
1 | sudo rpmkeys --import https://gitlab.com/paulcarroty/vscodium-deb-rpm-repo/-/raw/master/pub.gpg |
Now, add the repository to dnf’s config file by typing:
1 | printf "[gitlab.com_paulcarroty_vscodium_repo]\nname=download.vscodium.com\nbaseurl=https://download.vscodium.com/rpms/\nenabled=1\ngpgcheck=1\nrepo_gpgcheck=1\ngpgkey=https://gitlab.com/paulcarroty/vscodium-deb-rpm-repo/-/raw/master/pub.gpg\nmetadata_expire=1h" | sudo tee -a /etc/yum.repos.d/vscodium.repo |
Finally, install the application by typing:
1 | sudo dnf install codium |
On Arch Linux
Since this package is available in the Arch User Repository, you can install it with your favorite AUR helper by typing the following command :
1 2 3 4 5 | # For yay users :yay -S vscodium-bin# For paru users :paru -S vscodium-bin |
Summary
Note that VSCodium is not a fork of Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code, it is just a Binary replication of vscode (under MIT license) without any telemetries and proprietary blobs. Still, it is a perfect alternative to VS code without losing any of its features, I can’t see why you should not use this application.
