How To Install Erlang on Debian 10

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Erlang on Debian 10. For those of you who didn’t know, Erlang is a programming language used to build massively scalable soft real-time systems with requirements for high availability. The Erlang runtime system has built-in support for concurrency, distribution, and fault tolerance.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of Erlang on a Debian 10 (Buster).

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Debian 10 (Buster).
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Erlang on Debian 10 Buster

Step 1. Before we install any software, it’s important to make sure your system is up to date by running the following apt commands in the terminal:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2. Installing Erlang on Debian 10.

Download the Erlang repository package from its official website and install it on your system:

wget https://packages.erlang-solutions.com/erlang-solutions_2.0_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i erlang-solutions_2.0_all.deb

Now, you can install the Erlang package on your system using the following command:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install erlang

Step 3. Test Erlang with Hello World Program.

Now we test by writing a simple Hello World Erlang code:

nano helloworld.erl

Add the following file:

% Test to display Hello World Erlang Code
-module(hellotest).
-import(io,[fwrite/1]).
-export([helloworld/0]).
helloworld() ->
fwrite("Hai Guys.. , Erlang World!\n").

Save and close, after that execute using the following command:

root@idroot.us:~$ erl
Erlang/OTP 23 [erts-11.1] [source] [64-bit] [smp:6:6] [ds:4:4:16] [async-threads:2]
Eshell V11.1 (abort with ^G)
1> c(hellotest).
{ok,hellotest}
2> hellotest01,helloworld().
** exception error: undefined shell command helloworld/0
3> hellotest01:helloworld().
Hai Guys.. , Erlang World!
ok

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Erlang. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Erlang on Debian 10 Buster. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Erlang website.