Scott Hanselman

How to install Visual Studio Code on a Raspberry Pi 4 in minutes

February 19, 2020 Comment on this post [3] Posted in Hardware | Open Source
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Four years ago I wrote how to BUILD (literally compile) Visual Studio Code for a Raspberry Pi ARM machine. Just a few months later in November, community member Jay Rodgers released his labor of love - nightly builds of VS Code for Chromebooks and Raspberry Pi.

If you want to get unofficial builds of Visual Studio Code running on a Raspberry Pi (I know you have one!) you should use his instructions. He has done a lot of work to make this very simple. Head over to http://code.headmelted.com/ and make it happen for yourself, now!

Jay says:

I've maintained the project for a few years now and it has expanded from providing binaries for Pi to providing support and tools to get VS Code running on low-end ARM devices that might not otherwise support it like Chromebooks (which make up about 60% of the devices in schools now).

The project has really taken off among educators (beyond what I would have thought), not least because they're restricted to the devices provided and it gives them a route to teach coding to students on these computers that might not otherwise be there.

Again, Jay is doing this out of love for the community and the work that makes it happen is hosted at https://github.com/headmelted/codebuilds. I'd encourage you to head over there right now and give him a STAR.

There's so many community members out there doing "thankless" work. Thank them. Thank them with a thank you email, a donation, or just your kindness when you file an issue and complain about all the free work they do for you.

I just picked up a Raspberry Pi 4 from Amazon, and I was able to get a community build of VS Code running on it easily!

Open a terminal, run "sudo -s" and then this script (again, the script is open source):

. <( wget -O - https://code.headmelted.com/installers/apt.sh )

Jay has done the work! That's just the apt instructions, but he's got Chrome OS, APT, YUM, and a manual option over at http://code.headmelted.com/!

Thank you for making this so much easier for us all.

Visual Studio Code on a Raspberry Pi 4

Love Raspberry Pis? Here's some fun stuff you can do with the Raspberry that you bought, the one you meant to do fun stuff with, and the one in your junk drawer. DO IT!

Enjoy!


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About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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February 22, 2020 15:32
Does Visual Studio Code works well on Raspbery Pi in terms of performance? I wonder if there is perceivable difference between running VS Code on Pi and regular desktop computer?
February 26, 2020 22:33
This is great but it’s not possible to debug locally.

Are there any plans to get the debugger working?
February 28, 2020 12:38

This was really interesting to read! I love the range of post, there is really something for everyone. Thank you for sharing your suggestions too, great post!

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.