Getting Started with Laravel on Ubuntu

November 30, 2016 | programming | php | ubuntu |

I’ve really been digging Laravel lately. Especially due to the wonderful documentation and amazing resources provided by Laracasts. Below are some notes on getting going on a local Ubuntu install. I am running Ubuntu 16.10 and these notes assume a fresh install.

Install PHP 7.0 and additional dependencies

sudo apt install php7.0 php7.0-zip php7.0-mbstring phpunit

Install Composer (Globally)

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Install the Laravel CLI (Globally)

composer global require "laravel/installer"

Add globally installed composer commands to the PATH

Add the following to the end of your ~/.bashrc file

# Add Composer to the PATH
export PATH=$HOME/.config/composer/vendor/bin:$PATH

You can either source the ~/.bashrc file or open a new terminal window.

Verify everything works

You can do this by running laravel new test_project. Then go to the directory where the new test_project is created with cd test_project. Once you are in the new project directory install all local dependencies with composer install and then run it with php artisan serve. I ran into an issue right away that had to do with the APP_KEY. The error manifested itself as:

The only supported ciphers are AES-128-CBC and AES-256-CBC with the correct key lengths.

A great explanation is shown here but the steps to get a fully functional base install going are:

# Copy the .env.example file to .env cp .env.example .env

Generate App Key

php artisan key:generate

Now if you run php artisan serve you will see a fully running Laravel app. Happy Hacking!

Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.

Check out some more stuff to read down below.

Most popular posts this month

Recent Favorite Blog Posts

This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.

AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making from Ludicity
No-One Escapes the Permanent Underclass from Fernando Borretti
Is it ethical to use AI? from charity.wtf
The logical destination of LLMs from Andy Bell
Revised rules of engineering leadership. from Irrational Exuberance
The circus freaks of open source from Drew DeVault's blog
Clanker: A Word For The Machine from Armin Ronacher's Thoughts and Writings
I ran a half-marathon! from gluecko.se

Articles from blogs I follow around the net

I added a blogroll

I realized that it might be nice if you happen to stumble on this website if I had a way to recommend other websites you might enjoy. As it turns out this is a "blogroll", a concept I have never heard of before today but whatever. It'

via matduggan.com July 20, 2026

Long-delayed summer 2026 photos

I’ve been lax in posting my photos here. So here you have about two months’ worth of pictures from around Hveragerði. It’s a lot. I apologise in advance. Since I’m guessing many of you have had a somewhat stressful day like I did, here are a few photos of...

via Baldur Bjarnason's Notes on the Web July 20, 2026

“Try quickly typing 1+2+3. I bet you won’t get 6.”

Earlier this month, I talked about a rotation button in photos that behaved really nicely in iOS, and not so great on the Nothing Phone. Here’s a story of a similar fumble iOS once made that might bring the point home even more. The calculator app has been...

via Unsung July 20, 2026

Generated by openring