How to Install PhantomJS on Ubuntu & Debian

PhantomJS is a headless WebKit scriptable with a JavaScript API. This tutorial will help to install FantomJS on Ubuntu and Debian systems. Essentially there is no installation required. You just need to download the static build of PhantomJS and configure on your system.

Step 1 – Install Required Packages

First, you should install or update system packages to the latest versions. Also, install the required packages needed by PhantomJS to work correctly.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential chrpath libssl-dev libxft-dev
sudo apt-get install libfreetype6 libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig1 libfontconfig1-dev

Step 2 – Install FantomJS

Now download the latest FantomJS from its official website. After downloading the archive file, just extract this to desired system location. You don’t need to install this.

$ wget https://bitbucket.org/ariya/phantomjs/downloads/phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
$ tar xvjf phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2 -C /usr/local/share/

Now simply create a soft link phantomjs binary file to systems bin dirctory as below:

$ sudo ln -sf /usr/local/share/phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64/bin/phantomjs /usr/local/bin

Step 3 – Verify FantomJS Version

After completing installation, let’s verify the installed version of phantomjs.

$ phantomjs --version

2.1.1

You can also find the version details from PhantomJS prompt. To get PhantomJS prompt type “phantomjs” on shell prompt and you will get the prompt. Now type phantom.version to get version details.

$ phantomjs

phantomjs> phantom.version
{
   "major": 2,
   "minor": 1,
   "patch": 1
}
phantomjs>