Get Debian WSL Set Up For Web Development

Quick guide to getting Debian WSL set up for web development.

You can install Debian from the Windows Store and get started straight away with using it, but there’s a few things missing.

For me one of the first things I like to do is get set up with my preferred shell Zsh with Oh My Zsh. I’ve documented My Zsh Setup previously if you’re interested in that.

Installing Zsh is a sudo apt command:

sudo apt install zsh

Installing Oh My Zsh with the recommended curl command gives an error though, the Oh My Zsh install command is this:

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

That gives an error in Debian:

-bash: curl: command not found

So, I can install the curl package with sudo apt install curl then I’d be on my way, but then I get prompted again for more missing packages.

There’s a collection of packages in build-essential that will get you set up with the basics for web development.

I’ll install that along with git and curl, the -y flag is to agree to installing the packages, you can omit that if you want to choose what to install, I use it to skip having to agree to the prompts.

sudo apt install build-essential git curl wget -y

Now if I run the curl command again to install Oh My Zsh, it works!

That’s it! Real quick note for myself and the next time I come up against this! 😊