Installation on Linux

The following distribution-specific packages are officially supported, and they provide an easy way of installing and upgrading Powerline. The packages will automatically do most of the configuration for you.

If you’re running a distribution without an official package you’ll have to follow the installation guide below:

  1. Install Python 3.2+ or Python 2.6+ with pip. This step is distribution-specific, so no commands provided.

  2. Install Powerline using the following command:

    pip install --user git+git://github.com/Lokaltog/powerline
    

Note

You need to use the GitHub URI when installing Powerline! This project is currently unavailable on the PyPI due to a naming conflict with an unrelated project.

Note

If you are powerline developer you should be aware that pip install --editable does not currently fully work. If you install powerline this way you will be missing powerline executable and need to symlink it. It will be located in scripts/powerline.

Fonts installation

Fontconfig

This method only works on Linux. It’s the recommended method if your terminal emulator supports it as you don’t have to patch any fonts, and it generally works well with any coding font.

  1. Download the latest version of the symbol font and fontconfig file:

    wget https://github.com/Lokaltog/powerline/raw/develop/font/PowerlineSymbols.otf
    wget https://github.com/Lokaltog/powerline/raw/develop/font/10-powerline-symbols.conf
    
  2. Move the symbol font to a valid X font path. Valid font paths can be listed with xset q:

    mv PowerlineSymbols.otf ~/.fonts/
    
  3. Update font cache for the path you moved the font to (you may need to be root to update the cache for system-wide paths):

    fc-cache -vf ~/.fonts/
    
  4. Install the fontconfig file. For newer versions of fontconfig the config path is ~/.config/fontconfig/conf.d/, for older versions it’s ~/.fonts.conf.d/:

    mv 10-powerline-symbols.conf ~/.config/fontconfig/conf.d/
    

If you can’t see the custom symbols, please close all instances of your terminal emulator. You may need to restart X for the changes to take effect.

If you still can’t see the custom symbols, double-check that you have installed the font to a valid X font path, and that you have installed the fontconfig file to a valid fontconfig path. Alternatively try to install a patched font.

Patched font installation

After downloading font you should do the following:

  1. Move the patched font to a valid X font path. Valid font paths can be listed with xset q:

    mv 'MyFont for Powerline.otf' ~/.fonts/
    
  2. Update font cache for the path you moved the font to (you may need to be root to update the cache for system-wide paths):

    fc-cache -vf ~/.fonts/
    

After installing the patched font you need to update Gvim or your terminal emulator to use the patched font. The correct font usually ends with for Powerline.

If you can’t see the custom symbols, please close all instances of your terminal emulator. You may need to restart X for the changes to take effect.

If you still can’t see the custom symbols, double-check that you have installed the font to a valid X font path.