Ubuntu – How to update Sublime Text 2

sublime-texttext-editor

I have Sublime Text 2 installed and I have it configured to my liking. There is a newer version of Sublime Text 2, but I have put off downloading it since I do not want to lose my configuration.

I was told to just extract the downloaded tar file over the existing files but I am a bit nervous about doing this, since I do not want to lose all of the extensions I have added to Sublime Text nor do I want to lose my configuration, and also I am not sure how to do this.

I have the newer version downloaded and it is in /var/cache/sublime-text-2/Sublime Text 2 Build 2181.tar.bz2
I believe my existing Sublime Text 2 editor is in /usr/lib/sublime-text-2.

Can anyone give me some direction as to how to extract the latest Sublime Text 2 to be found in /var/cache/ and ensure that it is extracted to /usr/lib/sublime-text-2.
Of course the next question is; can I do this without losing the extensions I have added to Sublime Text 2?

Best Answer

SublimeText does not store its settings and plugins (at least those you downloaded using PackageControl) in the same directory as the editor itself (/usr/lib/sublime-text-2 in your case) - the settings are stored in /home/(yourusername)/.config/sublime-text-2/, so they won't be overridden when you install a new version.

But, just in case, you can make a backup copy of your current install before unpacking. Something like this would do:

sudo mv /usr/lib/sublime-text-2 /usr/lib/sublime-text-2.old
sudo tar jxf "/var/cache/sublime-text-2/Sublime Text 2 Build 2181.tar.bz2" /usr/lib

Just to note: installing stuff from tarballs into /usr is very wrong, if you must use system directories use /opt at least. Otherwise SublimeText runs just fine from a location in your home directory. Here I wrote a bit more on the matter: https://askubuntu.com/a/172753/14564

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