For a Linux beginner like me, it can be challenging to install some apps if the instructions are not super clear. In the case of BorgBackup, a backup tool I heard only good things about, it can add difficulty that you are confronted with a bunch of options on how to install, and in my case, I wasn’t familiar with all of them.
When you go to the install page of the current latest stable version 1.4 (when you read this, the latest stable might be a newer version), you are presented with the different ways to install:
- Distribution Package
- Standalone Binary
- From Source
I would have opted in for the distribution package, which is what is in your Linux distribution’s repository ready to install. But I am on Ubuntu 24.04, and as a table on the BorgBackup install page thankfully shows, is an outdated beta version of BorgBackup 2.0. According to the devs, you shouldn’t use even the latest beta version of BorgBackup 2.0 on production and go with the latest stable version instead.
So, I went for the Standalone Binary. Installing it from source is not the most beginner-friendly way, because you have to manage dependencies to Python versions and such things. The Standalone Binary is, as the associated Readme file states, a single executable file, like a .exe on Windows. So this is what I did step by step:
- I went to https://github.com/borgbackup/borg/releases, where I found version 1.4.2 as the latest stable version at this point in time, and a list with associated assets like this:
I want the Linux version, I have an x86 CPU (AMD in my case but it could be Intel as well), so borg-linux-glibc235-x86_64-gh is the right version for me (you could also go with the compressed version, which has the .tgz suffix). Note: The “glibc235” part stands for the version of the GNU C Library it was compiled with. It is important that the glibc version on your system is the same or a higher version. I found this way to check it in the terminal, there might be other and somehow better options:ldd --version
As a result I got this:
So I’m good with version 2.39.
2. Next step is to download the version from Github. To do that, we switch to our Downloads folder first by entering this into the Terminal:
cd ~/Downloads
Then we download the file using the “wget” command and the address we get from Github via right-clicking on the link of the version we have identified (again, there might be a newer version, and you might have an ARM CPU or things like that). This is how the command looks in my case:
wget https://github.com/borgbackup/borg/releases/download/1.4.2/borg-linux-glibc235-x86_64-gh
3. Rename the binary is not necessary, but it simplifies things. It is easier to type just “borg” instead of “borg-linux-glibc235-x86_64-gh”, isn’t it? To rename it, you can use this command (still staying in your Downloads folder):
mv borg-linux-glibc235-x86_64-gh borg
4. Then we move it to the system location where applications usually reside. You can run standalone binaries from everywhere, but keeping that folder structure helps to avoid chaos. This command moves it to the usr/local/bin directory:
sudo mv borg /usr/local/bin/borg
sudo (“superuser do”) is required because you change a system folder, and that also needs your password.
5. To actually run borg, you need to make the binary executable using this command:
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/borg
To check if everything worked, type in:
borg --version
If you get the version number back (“1.4.2” in my case), all went well. If there is an error message, I suggest you go back to the start and check if you did every step correctly.