Installing PowerShell on Debian

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/v7.4.2/powershell_7.4.2-1.deb_amd64.deb
• PowerShell 7.3 (stable) universal package for supported versions of Debian
  • https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.3.12/powershell_7.3.12-1.deb_amd64.deb
• PowerShell 7.2 (LTS) universal package for supported versions of Debian
  • https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.2.19/powershell_7.2.19-1.deb_amd64.deb

The following shell script downloads and installs the current preview 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/v7.4.2/powershell_7.4.2-1.deb_amd64.deb

###################################
# Install the PowerShell package
sudo dpkg -i powershell_7.4.2-1.deb_amd64.deb

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

# Delete the downloaded package file
rm powershell_7.4.2-1.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

The following table is a list of currently supported PowerShell releases and the versions of Debian they're supported on. These versions remain supported until either the version of PowerShell reaches end-of-support or the version of Debian reaches end-of-life.

• The icon indicates that the version of the OS or PowerShell is still supported
• The icon indicates the version of PowerShell is no longer supported on that version of the OS
• The icon indicates that we haven't finished testing PowerShell on that OS
• The icon indicates that the version of the OS or PowerShell isn't supported
• When both the version of the OS and the version of PowerShell have a icon, that combination is supported

Debian	7.2 (LTS-previous)	7.3	7.4 (LTS-current)
12 (Bookworm)
11 (Bullseye)
10 (Buster)

PowerShell is supported on Debian for the following processor architectures.

Debian	7.2 (LTS-current)	7.3	7.4 (LTS-current)
Version 9+	x64	x64	x64

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.