How to install the PhotoFlare image editor on Linux
PhotoFlare is an impressive image editor for Linux. It supports quick cropping, flip/rotating, scaling, image filters, batch processing, and many more excellent features. In this guide, we’ll show you how to get it working on your Linux system.
Ubuntu installation instructions
The developers of PhotoFlare make the app available for all Ubuntu Linux users via a PPA. This PPA has versions for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, as well as newer versions. If you’d like to get the app working on your Ubuntu Linux PC, start by opening up a terminal window. To open up a terminal window, press Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. Then, from there, use the add-apt-repository command below to add the PhotoFlare PPA to the system.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:photoflare/photoflare-stable
After adding the PPA to your Ubuntu PC, it is time to update Ubuntu’s software sources. Using the update command, refresh the software sources.
sudo apt update
Once the update command finishes, the installation of PhotoFlare on Ubuntu can begin. Using the apt install command, get the latest release of PhotoFlare on your Ubuntu PC.
sudo apt install photoflare
Debian installation instructions
Although the developers of the PhotoFlare program do not explicitly support Debian with a standalone DEB package available on their website, it doesn’t matter, as the Ubuntu PPA packages work on Debian, and can be downloaded. To start the installation process, launch a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. Then, use the wget download command to grab it from the PPA repository.
wget https://launchpad.net/~photoflare/+archive/ubuntu/photoflare-stable/+files/photoflare_1.6.3-0+784~ubuntu18.04.1_amd64.deb
Once the PhotoFlare DEB package is done downloading to your Debian Linux PC, it is time to install the PhotoFlare package. Using the dpkg command, load in the DEB package to the system. Keep in mind that when dpkg runs, errors may occur.
sudo dpkg -i photoflare_1.6.3-0+784~ubuntu18.04.1_amd64.deb
After installing the PhotoFlare DEB package on your Debian PC, you will need to correct any of the errors that appeared in the terminal prompt. These errors are dependency issues and must be fixed for PhotoFlare to run correctly. Using the apt-get install -f command, correct the problem.
sudo apt-get install -f
When all dependency issues are taken care of, PhotoFlare is ready to use on your Debian Linux system!
Arch Linux installation instructions
PhotoFlare does not support Arch Linux in an official capacity. There is no package in any of the official software repositories. However, they do link to an Arch Linux User Repository package, which the user can build by hand to enjoy the PhotoFlare app. Here’s how to get it going.
First, open up a terminal window. Then, use the Pacman command to install both the “Git” and “Base-devel” packages on your Arch Linux PC. These two packages are essential for interacting with the AUR.
sudo pacman -S git base-devel
Once the two packages are set up on your Linux PC, use the git clone command to download the Trizen AUR helper. This program makes building AUR apps much easier, as all dependency installations are automated.
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/trizen.git
Install the Trizen app on your Arch Linux PC with the makepkg command.
cd trizen
makepkg -sri
Finally, once the Trizen program is set up on your Arch Linux PC, the PhotoFlare installation process can begin. Using the trizen command, download and install the program.
trizen -S photoflare-git
Fedora installation instructions
Unfortunately, there isn’t an official RPM package available to Fedora Linux users to install PhotoFlare. However, it is still possible to install the program on the system, thanks to the Alien package conversion tool.
To start the installation process, open up a terminal on the Fedora desktop by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. Then, use the dnf install command to load up Alien.
sudo dnf install alien
With Alien installed, use the wget command to download the latest DEB release of PhotoFlare from the Ubuntu PPA.
wget https://launchpad.net/~photoflare/+archive/ubuntu/photoflare-stable/+files/photoflare_1.6.3-0+784~ubuntu19.10.1_amd64.deb
After the download is complete, you must install all of the required dependencies that PhotoFlare will need to run on your Fedora Linux PC. Enter the dnf install command below to get them working.
sudo dnf install GraphicsMagick GraphicsMagick-c++ libwmf-lite
When you’ve finished installing all of the dependencies, it’s time to convert the PhotoFlare DEB to an RPM. Using the alien -rvc command, begin the conversion process.
sudo alien -rvc photoflare_1.6.3-0+784~ubuntu19.10.1_amd64.deb
The output of the Alien conversion process should be photoflare-1.6.3-1.x86_64.rpm or something similar.
Once the package is done converting, use the rpm command to install the app. Be sure to use the –force command, as the PhotoFlare RPM conflicts with the “filesystem” package. This conflict isn’t a problem. It is just a bug with Alien.
sudo rpm -Uvh --nodeps photoflare-1.6.3-1.x86_64.rpm --force
OpenSUSE installation instructions
On OpenSUSE Linux, it may be possible to convert the DEB package to an RPM like in Fedora. However, the dependencies needed to run the app on OpenSUSE are not known, so try at your own risk by following this guide here.
Alternatively, if you’re not interested in messing with Alien on OpenSUSE, follow the Flatpak installation instructions to get PhotoFlare working.
Flatpak installation instructions
The PhotoFlare app is in the Flathub app store. So, if you’re using a Linux distribution not covered in this guide, you’ll still be able to use PhotoFlare! To start the installation, follow our tutorial to learn how to enable Flatpak on your Linux PC. Then, open up a terminal and enter the commands below to get PhotoFlare.
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo flatpak install flathub io.photoflare.photoflare
There has been an Arch community package since last June: https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/photoflare/