How To Install And Enable Bitcoin Core Wallet On Linux
There are many different Bitcoin wallets for Linux, but one of the best wallets available to use is Bitcoin Core. One of the main reasons to go with it is that it’s from Bitcoin officially, so you can trust it. Additionally, it has a lot of cool features that are easy to set up and use. In this article, we’ll go over the many different ways to install and enable Bitcoin Core Wallet. We’ll also go over how to download the Bitcoin blockchain for use, how to encrypt and backup your Core wallet, and more!
Ubuntu
The Bitcoin Core wallet is available for easy installation for Ubuntu users via a PPA. To add the PPA to the system, first, open up a terminal window. Inside the terminal window, write out the following command. This command will add the official Bitcoin core software repository directly to Ubuntu.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin
From here, you’ll need to run the update command. This refreshes all of the software sources for Ubuntu and will allow it to see the new Bitcoin PPA we’ve just added.
sudo apt update
After refreshing the software updates, it’s important to use the upgrade tool to install any pending Ubuntu updates. Do this to ensure that your Bitcoin Core wallet will install on the system correctly.
sudo apt upgrade -y
Now that everything on Ubuntu is up to date, and the PPA is working correctly, install the Bitcoin Core wallet with this command:
sudo apt install bitcoin
Arch Linux
Getting the Bitcoin Core wallet on Arch Linux is possible with the help of the AUR. To install it, you’ll first need to grab the latest version of the Git package with Pacman.
sudo pacman -S git
Now that Git is installed, use it to grab the latest Bitcoin Core pkgbuild file.
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/bitcoin-core.git
Using CD move the terminal into the bitcoin-core folder and start the build process. Keep in mind that the build tool will download most of the required dependencies automatically. However, if some fail to download, you’ll need to grab them manually.
makepkg -si
Source
Bitcoin Core works on pretty much every mainstream Linux distribution, but unfortunately, only Ubuntu has official support. To remedy this, we’ll go over the instructions on how to get the Bitcoin Core wallet working on Linux via the downloadable Tar archive. Start the download process by visiting this website here, and clicking download next to “Linux (tgz)”.
Note: Bitcoin Core has Tar archive downloads for both 32-bit and 64-bit.
Alternatively, use the Wget downloader to directly grab the archive files.
64-bit
wget https://bitcoin.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.16.0/bitcoin-0.16.0-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
32-bit
wget https://bitcoin.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.16.0/bitcoin-0.16.0-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz
With the source file downloaded, use the tar command to extract the contents of the folder.
tar -xvzf bitcoin-0.*.0-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
or
tar -xvzf bitcoin-0.*.0-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz
Using the CD command, move into the newly extracted bitcoin-0.16.0 folder.
cd ~/bitcoin-0.16.0/bin
The above CD command should take the terminal directly to the bin folder, where all executable program files are. From here, we’ll need to update some permissions with chmod.
chmod +x *
Launch the wallet with:
./bitcoin-qt
Set Up Bitcoin Core
Upon the first launch, Bitcoin Core requires the user to go through a setup process, via a wizard tool. Don’t worry, even if you’re new to Bitcoin on Linux, this isn’t too difficult. At the start, the program states that “Bitcoin Core will download and store a copy of the Bitcoin blockchain”. The blockchain for Bitcoin is incredibly large so be sure you’ve got at least 200 GB of storage to spare.
By default, the Bitcoin blockchain goes to ~/.bitcoin. This location is changeable. To change it, click “Use a custom data directory”. When everything looks good, click “OK” to continue.
Let the downloader run and grab the blockchain. When it’s complete, your wallet will be ready to use!
To send a transaction, click “Send”. To receive one, click “Receive”.
Backup Wallet
Need to backup your Bitcoin wallet in Bitcoin Core? Click the “File” button, then select “Backup wallet”. In the file browser dialog, write out the name of your backup (it saves as a .dat file) and click the save button. Soon after, your wallet will be saved!
Encrypt Wallet
Encrypting your Bitcoin wallet is a good idea, as it adds security. To start encrypting, click the “Settings” menu button, look for “Encrypt wallet” and click on it. From there, a menu will appear asking to enter a secure password. Do so, but keep in mind that this password can’t be recovered, so be sure to write your password down on a piece of paper and place it in a home safe (or some other safe location).
Having trouble coming up with a secure password? Consider using the Strongpasswordgenerator.com website.
Enter your password two times and click OK. After that, read the warning and click “YES” once you understand it. After clicking “YES”, Bitcoin Core will restart to apply the changes.
