Install on Unix

The installation of FreeCAD on the most well-known linux systems has been now endorsed by the community, and FreeCAD should be directly available via the package manager available on your distribution. The FreeCAD team also provides a couple of "official" packages when new releases are made, and a couple of experimental PPA repositories for testing bleeding-edge features.

Once you've got FreeCAD installed, it's time to get started!

Ubuntu
FreeCAD is available from Ubuntu repositories and can be installed via the software center or with this command in a terminal: sudo apt-get install freecad But chances are this version will be outdated, and not have the latest features.

Alternatively, the FreeCAD community provides a PPA repository with the latest stable FreeCAD version.

Adding the PPA and installing FreeCAD from the GUI
Add to your system's Software Sources the following PPA (read What are PPAs and how do I use them? if you don't know how):

ppa:freecad-maintainers/freecad-stable

When a dialog window asks you to refresh your software sources, click OK.

Now you can install FreeCAD and FreeCAD documentation through the Ubuntu Software Center, or your package manager of choice.

Adding the PPA and installing FreeCAD from the console
Type (or copy-paste) these commands in a console to add the PPA and install FreeCAD along with the documentation:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freecad-maintainers/freecad-stable

Then: sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get install freecad freecad-doc

Unstable version of FreeCAD
If you want to be on the bleeding edge of FreeCAD development, there is a different PPA repository providing daily builds.

Debian, Mint and other debian-based systems
Since Debian Lenny, FreeCAD is available directly from the Debian software repositories and can be installed via synaptic or simply with: sudo apt-get install freecad

OpenSUSE
FreeCAD is typically installed with: zypper install FreeCAD

Gentoo
FreeCAD can be built/installed simply by issuing: emerge freecad

Other
If you find out that your system features FreeCAD but is not documented in this page, please tell us on the forum!

Many alternative, non-official FreeCAD packages are available on the net, for example for systems like slackware or fedora. A search on the net can quickly give you some results.

Manual install on .deb based systems
If for some reason you cannot use one of the above methods, you can always download one of the .deb packages available on the Download page.

Once you downloaded the .deb corresponding to your system version, if you have the Gdebi package installed (usually it is), you just need to navigate to where you downloaded the file, and double-click on it. The necessary dependencies will be taken care of automatically by your system package manager. Alternatively you can also install it from the terminal, navigating to where you downloaded the file, and type:

sudo dpkg -i Name_of_your_FreeCAD_package.deb

changing Name_of_your_FreeCAD_package.deb by the name of the file you downloaded.

After you installed FreeCAD, a startup icon will be added in the "Graphic" section of your Start Menu.

Installing on other Linux/Unix systems
Unfortnately, at the moment, no precompiled package is available for other Linux/Unix systems,so you will need to compile FreeCAD yourself.

Installing Windows Version on Linux
See the Install on Windows page.