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[Documentation] Installation instructions for release #3404
Description
Issue Description
I cannot install lua-language-server from release. I'm going to assume it's a skill issue.
Looking at the documentation, I find that there's some missing instruction on it.
I followed these step:
- Download the latest release:
lua-language-server-3.18.2-linux-x64.tar.gz - Unzip it
- Copy to the bin directory:
cp -v lua-language-server ~/.local/bin - Launch it:
lua-language-server, but I get the error:
lua-language-server: (main.lua):85: cannot open /home/myuser/.local/main.lua: No such file or directory
stack traceback:
[C]: in function 'assert'
(main.lua):85: in main chunk
(bootstrap.lua):17: in main chunk
[C]: in ?
So I tried to copy the file and I get a stack overflow error:
$ lua-language-server
lua-language-server: /home/myuser/.local/main.lua:50: stack overflow
stack traceback:
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:50: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
... (skipping 166641 levels)
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
/home/myuser/.local/main.lua:85: in main chunk
(main.lua):85: in main chunk
(bootstrap.lua):17: in main chunk
[C]: in ?
What did I miss and what's the correct way to install from releases ?
Activity
tomlau10 commentedon Apr 26, 2026
IIUC the
lua-language-serverexecutable is just the underlying modded lua interpreter, while the logic are within all those lua scripts.I don't think you can just copy the binary to make it work 🤔
My best suggestion is to symlink the
lua-language-serveradd it to~/.local/binplease see tested in windows wsl2 ubuntu section in this reply: #3122 (comment)
carsakiller commentedon Apr 26, 2026
Like Tom said, the language server uses a mix of compiled C++ for the interpreter, and Lua for all the language-server specific logic. The Lua files cannot be separated from the binary as they are expected to be found in current working directory - as seen in the repository.
There is a tip in the website's install instructions that discusses symlinking if you'd like to have an entrypoint elsewhere.
[-][Documentation] Installation instructions[/-][+][Documentation] Installation instructions for release[/+]HarimbolaSantatra commentedon Apr 26, 2026
Using a symlink worked! Thanks!
ln -s /path/to/lua-language-server ~/.local/bin