How to Install Arduino IDE on Ubuntu

The Arduino software or IDE (Integrated Development Environment) contains a text editor that is generally used for writing, compiling and uploading code in Arduino hardware. It helps to connect and communicate with the Arduino hardware. Arduino IDE can be run on all major operating system platforms like Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. It is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit OS platforms.

In this article, we will walk through the steps for installing the Arduino IDE on Ubuntu. I will use Ubuntu 18.04 LTS for describing the procedure. However, you can use the same procedure for installation in older releases of Ubuntu.

Download Arduino Software

First, you will need to download Arduino IDE package from the Download page of Arduino official website. Make sure to download the right version 32-bit or 64-bit depending upon your operating system. This is the official link of Arduino IDE downloads page:

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

Install Arduino IDE

Now you will need to install the Arduino IDE. To prepare for the installation, navigate to the Downloads folder. You will need to uncompress the downloaded Arduino archived folder. It can be done by launching the Terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T key combinations then running the following command to navigate to Downloads folder:

$ cd /home/username/Downloads

To uncompress the archived folder, run the following command in Terminal:

$ tar –xf [Compressed-filename]

Then run the following command in Terminal to navigate to the Arduino folder that you have just uncompressed:

$ cd [Uncompressed-foldername]

You can type ls –l in Terminal to view the list of files in the Arduino folder and find out the install.sh installation file that we will be going to install.

Now we are prepared for installing Arduino. Run the following command in Terminal as sudo to install Arduino.

$ sudo ./install.sh

Wait for a while until the installation completes.

Verify the Arduino installation

When the installation completes, look for Arduino IDE icon on Desktop. If it is there, your installation is completed. However, in some cases, you may notice a shortcut of Arduino IDE but not a proper icon and when you will try to open; it will not launch the application.

There is a way to get around that by running the below command as sudo in Terminal. It will change the ownership of the Arduino file on the desktop:

$ sudo chown [username] [path/to/file]

After running the above command, you will notice the proper Arduino icon on Desktop as shown in the below image.

You can also verify if the Arduino application has successfully installed, launch it via Desktop icon, Ubuntu Dash menu or from Application Launcher.

That was the simplest method using which you could install Arduino IDE on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Now you can configure and integrate it with your Arduino hardware.