Homebrew on Linux

The Homebrew package manager may be used on Linux and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2. Homebrew was formerly referred to as Linuxbrew when running on Linux or WSL. Homebrew does not use any libraries provided by your host system, except glibc and gcc if they are new enough. Homebrew can install its own current versions of glibc and gcc for older distributions of Linux.

Features, installation instructions and requirements are described below. Terminology (e.g. the difference between a Cellar, Tap, Cask and so forth) is explained in the documentation.

Features

Install software not packaged by your host distribution
Install up-to-date versions of software when your host distribution is old
Use the same package manager to manage your macOS, Linux, and Windows systems

Install

Instructions for the best, supported install of Homebrew on Linux are on the homepage.

The installation script installs Homebrew to /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew using sudo. Homebrew does not use sudo after installation. Using /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew allows the use of most binary packages (bottles) which will not work when installing in e.g. your personal home directory.

Technically, you can install Homebrew wherever you want. However, you shouldn't install outside the default, supported, best prefix. Many things will need to be built from source outside the default prefix. Building from source is slow, energy-inefficient, buggy and unsupported. The main reason Homebrew just works is because we use bottles (binary packages) and most of these require using the default prefix. If you decide to use another prefix: don't open any issues, even if you think they are unrelated to your prefix choice. They will be closed without response.

The prefix /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew was chosen so that users without admin access can ask an admin to create a linuxbrew role account and still benefit from precompiled binaries. If you do not have admin privileges, consider asking your admin staff to create a linuxbrew role account for you with home directory set to /home/linuxbrew.

Follow the Next steps instructions to add Homebrew to your PATH and to your bash shell rcfile, either ~/.bashrc for bash or ~/.zshrc for zsh.

test -d ~/.linuxbrew && eval "$(~/.linuxbrew/bin/brew shellenv)"
test -d /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew && eval "$(/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/brew shellenv)"
echo "eval \"\$($(brew --prefix)/bin/brew shellenv)\"" >> ~/.bashrc

You're done! Try installing a package:

brew install hello

If you're using an older distribution of Linux, installing your first package will also install a recent version of glibc and gcc. Use brew doctor to troubleshoot common issues.

Note

Please note that unlike macOS, Homebrew does not use a sandbox when building on Linux, so formulae may install outside the Homebrew prefix.

Requirements

Linux 3.2 or newer
Glibc 2.13 or newer
64-bit x86_64 CPU

To install build tools, paste at a terminal prompt:

Debian or Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install build-essential procps curl file git

Fedora, CentOS, or Red Hat

sudo yum groupinstall 'Development Tools'
sudo yum install procps-ng curl file git

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S base-devel procps-ng curl file git

ARM (unsupported)

Homebrew can run on 32-bit ARM (Raspberry Pi and others) and 64-bit ARM (AArch64), but as they lack binary packages (bottles) they are unsupported. Pull requests are welcome to improve the experience on ARM platforms.

You may need to install your own Ruby using your system package manager, a PPA, or rbenv/ruby-build as we no longer distribute a Homebrew Portable Ruby for ARM.

32-bit x86 (incompatible)

Homebrew does not run at all on 32-bit x86 platforms.

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 1

Due to known issues with WSL 1, you may experience issues running various executables installed by Homebrew. We recommend you switch to WSL 2 instead.

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