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Installing Hugo and Blowfish on Debian/Ubuntu

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Sudhakar Balakrishnan
Author
Sudhakar Balakrishnan
Engineer at heart, leader by choice.
Table of Contents

Building & Deploying a Hugo + Blowfish Website on Debian/Ubuntu (Complete Developer Workflow)
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A step-by-step guide for developers who want to build a Hugo site using the Blowfish theme — starting locally on Ubuntu/Debian, then deploying to a VPS running Nginx or Apache.

This article covers:

  • Installing Hugo correctly on Debian/Ubuntu
  • Creating a Hugo project
  • Adding Blowfish using Git submodules
  • Configuring your theme and site metadata
  • Local development workflow
  • Deployment approaches (zip + SCP, public folder only, or remote sync)
  • Nginx/Apache setup for serving the final site

📘 Official References
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1. Installing Hugo on Ubuntu/Debian
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⚠️ Debian/Ubuntu Repositories Contain an Old Version
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Debian & Ubuntu apt repositories frequently ship outdated Hugo versions. Example:

sudo apt install hugo

This often installs a version without “extended” SASS support, breaking many modern themes (including Blowfish).

✔️ Recommended: Install Hugo via Snap
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Snap provides the newest “extended” version reliably.

sudo snap install hugo --channel=extended

Check version:

hugo version

You should see something like:

hugo v0.135.0+extended

2. Create Your Hugo Site Locally
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Choose any folder in your home directory:

hugo new site blogs
cd blogs

Initialize Git (optional but recommended):

git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial Hugo site"

If using GitHub:

git remote add origin https://github.com/USERNAME/REPO.git
git push -u origin main

3. Install the Blowfish Theme
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There are three possible ways to install themes in Hugo:

A — Copy theme folder directly (bad for updates)
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B — Git clone theme into /themes (works but messy)
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C — Git submodule (recommended)
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✔️ Best method: Git submodule

git submodule add -b main https://github.com/nunocoracao/blowfish.git themes/blowfish

This keeps Blowfish locked to a version and easy to update later:

git submodule update --remote --merge

4. Configure Blowfish Theme Files
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Follow the official Blowfish installation guide: https://blowfish.page/docs/installation/#set-up-theme-configuration-files

Copy Blowfish example config files:

cp themes/blowfish/config/_default/* config/_default/

This gives you:

  • config.toml
  • params.toml
  • menus.toml
  • languages.toml

Now edit these files to match your site.

5. Basic Theme Settings to Adjust
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Open:

config/_default/params.toml

Change:

Site title & description
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title = "My Blogs"
description = "Developer Blog Built with Hugo + Blowfish"

Color scheme
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colorScheme = "noir"
defaultAppearance = "dark"
autoSwitchAppearance = false

Disable placeholder favicons & use your own
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Drop favicon files into:

static/
  favicon.ico
  favicon-16x16.png
  favicon-32x32.png
  apple-touch-icon.png
  android-chrome-512x512.png

Blowfish automatically picks them up.

6. Create First Content Pages
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Example:

hugo new posts/my-first-post.md

Or make an “About” page using a leaf bundle:

content/about/
  index.md
  feature.jpg

Front matter example:

---
title: "About Me"
description: "Developer & Engineer"
showHero: false
---

7. Run Local Development Server
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Use the two most important Hugo development flags:

  • --disableFastRender ensures all changes rebuild
  • --ignoreCache prevents stale assets

Run:

hugo server --disableFastRender --ignoreCache

Open browser: http://localhost:1313/

Verify:

  • Menus
  • Site title & metadata
  • Favicon
  • Theme colors
  • Blog posts
  • About page
  • Images + leaf bundles

Continue editing until satisfied.

8. Preparing for Deployment
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You have three deployment options:

Option 1 — Zip Full Repo & SCP to Server
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On your laptop:

cd ..
zip -r blogs.zip blogs/
scp blogs.zip user@yourvps:/var/www/

On VPS:

unzip blogs.zip
cd blogs

Install Hugo (snap or binary), then:

hugo --minify

Static website appears in:

public/

Option 2 — Only Upload the Generated public/ Folder
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On local machine:

hugo --minify

Upload to server:

scp -r public/ user@yourvps:/var/www/YOURDOMAIN/

This is the lightest deployment method.

Option 3 — Remote Sync (VS Code SFTP, rsync, or WinSCP)
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Example with VSCode SFTP extension:

  • Edit locally
  • Press Upload
  • Server receives public/ folder
  • No need to install Hugo on server

Or use rsync:

rsync -avz public/ user@yourvps:/var/www/YOURDOMAIN/

9. Configure Nginx (Recommended) #

Create a new site block:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/blogs.example.com

Insert:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name blogs.example.com;

    root /var/www/blogs.example.com/public;
    index index.html;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

Enable site:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/blogs.example.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Add HTTPS (optional but recommended):

sudo certbot --nginx -d blogs.example.com

10. Apache Alternative
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Create site config:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/blogs.example.com.conf

Add:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName blogs.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/blogs.example.com/public

    <Directory /var/www/blogs.example.com/public>
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Enable:

sudo a2ensite blogs.example.com
sudo systemctl reload apache2

11. Final Test on Server
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Visit:

https://blogs.example.com

Verify:

  • Pages load
  • CSS/JS applied correctly
  • Icons display
  • Images + leaf bundles render properly
  • No 404 issues

If everything looks good — your Hugo + Blowfish site is fully deployed!

🎉 Conclusion
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You have now:

✔ Installed Hugo the correct way (Snap extended version) ✔ Created a new Hugo project ✔ Added Blowfish cleanly using Git submodules ✔ Configured site + theme + metadata ✔ Built a local workflow ✔ Deployed the site to a VPS using SCP or rsync ✔ Served it via Nginx or Apache

From here, you can continue adding:

  • Posts
  • Content pages
  • Taxonomies
  • Custom layouts
  • Assets

Blowfish is extremely flexible — explore the rest of the docs to unlock more features: https://blowfish.page/docs/

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