linux-positron-dev-setup

Scripts to configure a fresh Linux machine for Positron development.

Supports the Debian family (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Pop!_OS, …) and the Fedora family (Fedora, RHEL, CentOS Stream, Rocky, AlmaLinux, …).

Quick start

Run the setup script using wget or curl.

For wget run:

bash -c "$(wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/posit-dev/linux-positron-dev-setup/main/setup.sh)"

For curl run:

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/posit-dev/linux-positron-dev-setup/main/setup.sh)"

This downloads each script in full before running it, so a dropped connection can't leave you executing a half-downloaded script.

That single command detects your distro and installs everything you need for Positron development on Linux. The only things it asks you are personal (your name and email, for git). The scripts are idempotent, so re-running is safe.

What it does

• Refreshes the apt package index.

• Optionally upgrades installed packages within the current release (keeping the box on the same Debian/Ubuntu version).

• Installs all package dependencies.

• Optionally switches your login shell to Zsh (the default shell on macOS), and, if you do, optionally installs oh-my-zsh on top of it.

• Installs Node.js via fnm and sets it as the default.

• Installs Python via pyenv and sets it as the global version.

• Generates an ed25519 SSH key (if you don't already have one), shows it, copies it to your clipboard (if a clipboard tool is available), and points you at GitHub to register it.

• Configures your git identity, prompting for your name and email (pre-filling anything that's already set).

• Sets up Positron under a folder you choose under ~/, asking whether you're a Positron core developer:

  • Core developers get a Y/n prompt to clone each of the core repos (positron, positron-codicons, positron-builds, positron-website, positron-wiki).
  • Community contributors are pointed to GitHub to fork Positron, then have their fork cloned with the canonical repo added as an upstream remote, and are shown links to Positron and its contributing guide to get started.

  Existing checkouts are left alone.

• Optionally installs Visual Studio Code.

• Optionally installs and enables the OpenSSH server so the machine accepts incoming SSH connections (e.g. for VS Code Remote - SSH).

• If you're using Zsh with oh-my-zsh, sets a custom shell prompt.

Configuration

Override these with environment variables if you need to:

Variable	Default	What it controls
SETUP_BASE_URL	…/posit-dev/linux-positron-dev-setup/main	Where setup.sh fetches sibling scripts.
SETUP_POSITRON_URL	git@github.com:posit-dev/positron.git	Where Positron is cloned from.