How to Install PuTTY on Linux

PuTTY is a free and open-source cross-platform SSH and telnet client that even after being around for over 20 years remains one of the most popular SSH clients being used especially on the Windows platform.

PuTTY is available to install from the default official repositories in most Linux distributions. For instance, you can install PuTTY on Ubuntu and its derivative distros via the universe repository.

Install PuTTy on Ubuntu

First, you’ll have to enable the universe repository so that you can access its packages, update your system to recognize its new access rights, and then run the install command.

$ sudo add-apt-repository universe
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install putty

Install PuTTy on Debian

Just like for Ubuntu, PuTTY is available for Debian and all its distros via aptitude (i.e. using apt-get) as shown.

$ sudo apt-get install putty

Install PuTTy on Arch Linux

Arch Linux and its derivatives can also install PuTTY from the default repositories.

$ sudo pacman -S putty

Install PuTTy on CentOS, Red Hat & Fedora

PuTTY is available to install via the distro’s default package manager.

$ sudo yum install putty
OR
$ sudo dnf install putty

Install PuTTy from Source Code in Linux

It’s possible that you want to get your hands ‘dirty‘ and build the SSH client from scratch yourself. You’re in lucky because it is open-source and the source code is available for free here.

$ tar -xvf putty-0.73.tar.gz
$ cd putty-0.73/
$ ./configure
$ sudo make && sudo make install