How To Install WinSCP on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install WinSCP on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, WinSCP is a popular, free and open-source FTP client program that is available only for Microsoft Windows. Most people prefer WinSCP because of its simple and powerful interface. It is mainly used as an FTP client to transfer files between a local and a remote computer, and also supports secure FTP (sFTP). Please visit the official WinSCP website to gather more information.

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 the WinSCP on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install WinSCP on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa

Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt commands in the terminal.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2. Installing Wine.

Now we run the command below to install Wine on the Ubuntu system:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Then, download the Wine package repository and add the repository key:

wget -qO - https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-add-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ focal main'

Now that the repository is added, run the commands to install it:

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable

For additional resources on installing Wine, read the post below:

• How to install Wine on Ubuntu Linux √

Step 3. Installing WinSCP on Ubuntu 20.04.

Now we download the WinSCP package from its download site. Next, open your terminal and browse to the Downloads folder and execute the installer:

cd ~/Downloads
wine WinSCP-*-Setup.exe

Then, choose Install for all users (recommended) and continue:

Select the Recommended typical install that will automatically configure the destination folder to setup WinSCP and all other components:

At last steps, click on the Install button to complete the installation process as shown below:

Step 4. Accessing WinSCP on Ubuntu.

Once the installation is completed. Go to All Applications and search for “WinSCP” on Ubuntu Linux. As you find it, simply double-click on it to run.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed WinSCP. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the WinSCP on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official WinSCP website.