View source for Installing Joomla on Debian Linux

=== Get Joomla! Source ===
Now it is time to download the Joomla! sources. Currently you will find download links on the [https://downloads.joomla.org/us/ Joomla Downloads] page. For version 1.5.11, you may do the following from command line, assuming your current working directory is your home folder ''/home/user'':
<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
$ wget http://joomlacode.org/gf/download/frsrelease/10209/40306/Joomla_1.5.11-Stable-Full_Package.tar.bz2
$ cd /var/www
$ su
# mkdir -m 0755 joomla
# cd joomla
# tar -xvjf /home/user/Joomla_1.5.11-Stable-Full_Package.tar.bz2
</syntaxhighlight>

for 1.7 use this wget line:
 wget http://joomlacode.org/gf/download/frsrelease/15278/66553/Joomla_1.7.0-Stable-Full_Package.tar.bz2
Check http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/ for an updated package.

Here is the first time we see this hash mark (#) shell prompt. We call ''su'' without any options, because we want to issue root commands more than only one time. Calling ''su'' that way will prompt us for the super user's password and then change the actual shell environment, respectively $UID and $EUID.