How to install Hugo?

Extract hugo_0.11_linux_amd64.tar.gz to a directory. In that directory you should find three files:

hugo_0.11_linux_amd64  LICENSE.md  README.md

Make sure either hugo is in your path or provide a path to it. For example, rename the hugo_0.11_linux_amd64 executable file to hugo. Move the hugo executable file to /usr/local/bin.

Run

$ hugo help

Continue to follow the instructions for Using Hugo.

References:

Hugo

Hugo Documentation: Getting Started

The installation page does mention:

Once downloaded it can be run from anywhere. You don’t need to install it into a global location.
Ideally you should install it somewhere in your path for easy use. /usr/local/bin is the most probable location.

As long as:

• you chose the right release for your architecture (linux, Mac or Windows)
• rename the executable to hugo (or make a symlink to it, named hugo)

• your $PATH (or %PATH% on Windows) environment variable references the executable hugo, you can start using it.

  hugo new site /path/to/site
  

Old question, but I figured this could help somebody down the road. I'm on Windows (yes I know this was for Linux) and was running Hugo outside the created directory where hugo.exe lives.

Note that the hugo.exe doesn't have to live in c:\hugo\bin as per the example below

• Download Hugo (64 or 32-bit) from https://github.com/spf13/hugo/releases
• Create a folder on your C:\ called Hugo.
• Create another folder inside of C:\Hugo called bin
• Unzip the file downloaded from the HUGO URL into the bin folder
• Open cmd.exe to add the path to HUGO to the windows PATH environment variables. Type set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Hugo\bin

To verify that hugo is installed globally, under any directory in command prompt type where hugo and it'll tell you where it is (in our case, c:\hugo\bin\hugo.exe)

From there you should be able to run your Hugo sites from any repository on your HD.