How to install LibreCAD on Linux
Do you need a good CAD application on your Linux workstation? Try out LibreCAD. It’s a 100% free and open-source app that is a great drop-in-replacement for Linux users looking to create CAD apps. Here’s how to set up LibreCAD on your Linux system.
Ubuntu installation instructions
To install LibreCAD on Ubuntu, start by opening up a terminal window. You can open up a terminal window on Ubuntu by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T on the keyboard. Or, search for “Terminal” in the app menu and launch it that way.
With the terminal window open, use the apt install command to set up the “librecad” and “librecad-data” packages.
sudo apt install librecad librecad-data
Upon entering the command above, Ubuntu will ask you for a password. Using the keyboard, enter your user account password. Then, press the Y key to confirm that you wish to install the software on your computer.
Debian installation instructions
If you are using Debian 11, 10, or Sid, you will be able to install LibreCAD on your system. To start, open up a terminal window. You can open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T on the keyboard. Or, search for “Terminal” in the app menu.
Once the terminal window is open, you can install the LibreCAD application using the apt-get install command to set up the “librecad” and “librecad-data” packages.
sudo apt-get install librecad librecad-data
When you enter the command above, Debian will ask you for your password. Using the keyword, enter your account password. After entering your account password, press the Y key to confirm you wish to install LibreCAD on your Debian system.
Arch Linux installation instructions
The LibreCAD app is available on Arch Linux to all users via the “Community” software repository. Ensure you have this software repo enabled in your Pacman configuration file. Then, open up a terminal window.
Inside of the terminal window, use the pacman -S command to install the “librecad” package.
sudo pacman -S librecad
Once you enter the command above, Arch Linux will ask you for a password. Using your keyboard, enter your user account password. When you’ve entered your password the Arch Linux package manager will ask if you wish to install the software. Press the Enter key to continue and install the software.
Fedora installation instructions
If you’re a Fedora Linux user, you will be able to install LibreCAD through the official software repository. To start, open up a terminal window. You can open up a terminal by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T on the keyboard, or by searching for “terminal” in the app menu.
Once the terminal window is open, use the dnf install command to install the “librecad” package.
sudo dnf install librecad
When the command above is entered, Fedora will ask you for a password. Use the keyboard to enter your user account password. After entering a password, Fedora will collect all of the dependencies for LibreCAD. Then, ask you to press the Y key to continue. Do so to install the LibreCAD app on Fedora.
OpenSUSE installation instructions
To install LibreCAD on OpenSUSE, start by opening up a terminal window. You can open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T on the keyboard. Alternatively, search for the “terminal” app in the app menu and launch it that way.
Once the terminal window is open, use the zypper in command to install the “librecad” package.
sudo zypper in librecad
After entering the command above, OpenSUSE will ask you to enter your password. Using the keyboard, enter your user account password. Then, press the Y key to confirm you wish to install LibreCAD on your OpenSUSE system.
Flatpak installation instructions
To install LibreCAD as a Flatpak package, you must first enable the Flatpak runtime. To enable the runtime, install the “flatpak” package on your computer. If you need help setting up the runtime, please check out our Flatpak setup guide.
After enabling the Flatpak runtime on your computer, you must enable the Flathub app store. This app store will allow you to install many different apps, including the LibreCAD application. To enable the Flathub app store, enter the following command in a terminal window.
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
Once the Flathub app store is enabled, you can quickly install the LibreCAD app using the command below.
flatpak install flathub org.librecad.librecad
AppImage installation instructions
If you wish to use AppImage for LibreCAD, do the following. First, use the wget command to download the software to your computer. This command will place LibreCAD in your home folder.
wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/librecad/files/Linux/LibreCAD-2.2.0-x86_64.AppImage/download -O LibreCAD-2.2.0-x86_64.AppImage
After downloading the software, you must update the permissions to make it executable.
sudo chmod +x LibreCAD-2.2.0-x86_64.AppImage
Finally, you can start up the app using the following command.
./LibreCAD-2.2.0-x86_64.AppImage
