How to install Xdebug on Ubuntu Effortlessly

Tested on: Ubuntu 20 but should work on older versions as well.

Before we set out to install Xdebug on our Ubuntu OS, we need to install a couple packages.

We’ll be using pecl to install Xdebug. So run the following if you don’t have it installed already (please typepecl in your terminal to confirm):

sudo apt -y install php7.3-dev php-pear

Replace php7.3-dev with your php version that your webserver or CGI PM uses.

And finally, run pecl to install xdebug:

sudo pecl install xdebug

If all went well, at the end of your installation, you may see this output:

Build process completed successfully
Installing '/usr/lib/php/20180731/xdebug.so'
install ok: channel://pecl.php.net/xdebug-3.0.2
configuration option "php_ini" is not set to php.ini location
You should add "zend_extension=/usr/lib/php/20180731/xdebug.so" to php.ini

As the last line of this installation suggests, we have to place the path to the xdebug extension that we just installed in our php config file:

sudo vim /etc/php/7.3/apache2/php.ini // again, replace 7.3 with your version

Finally, restart your webserver, or PHP-FPM, depending on what you are using.

That’s all. Hopefully, you’ve been able to install Xdebug successfully. And if you have please give this article a thumbs up, I’ll be delighted.

Peace.