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 and Ubuntu-based systems
Many Linux distributions are based on Ubuntu and share its repositories. Besides official variants (Kubuntu, Lubuntu and Xubuntu), there are non official distros such as Linux Mint, Voyager and others. The installation options below should be compatible to these systems.

Official Ubuntu repository
FreeCAD is available from Ubuntu repositories and can be installed via the Software Center or with this command in a terminal:

But chances are this stable version will be outdated, and not have the latest features. To get the last release version, please use the PPA.

Stable PPA with GUI
To install FreeCAD using the PPA, from the graphical interface, please follow those instructions. The FreeCAD community provides a PPA repository on Launchpad with the latest stable FreeCAD version.

You need to add to your system's Software Sources the following PPA. To do that navigate to Ubuntu Software Centre > Edit > Software Sources > Other Software. Click on add and copy and past the code below:

Refresh your software sources, if asked. Now, you can find and install the last stable FreeCAD version on the Ubuntu Software Center.

For more information on PPA, click here: Definition of PPA (Personal Package Archive) on help.ubuntu.com .

Stable PPA with console
Type, or copy-paste, these commands in a console to add the PPA:

For the "stable" PPA

Don't forget to retrieve the updated the package lists:

Update synchronizes your list of available packages with the servers.

Then, install FreeCAD along with the documentation:

Upgrade downloads and installs the newest packages version of the installed programs. It will be applied to all the softwares installed on your computer.

Execute this command to open the stable version of FreeCAD:

Daily PPA with console
If you want to install the last unstable version of FreeCAD, please use the PPA named "freecad-daily" PPA repository on Launchpad. This way you can access the bleeding edge of FreeCAD development. This PPA is automatically compiled daily from the official FreeCAD's master branch repository. It will usually contain numerous bug fixes and feature updates.

For the daily PPA:

Execute this command to open the daily build of FreeCAD:

Debian 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:

OpenSUSE
FreeCAD is typically installed with:

Gentoo
FreeCAD can be built/installed simply by issuing:

Fedora
FreeCAD has been included in the official Fedora packages since Fedora 20. It can be installed from the command line with:

On older Fedora releases, that was:

The gui packages managers can also be used. Search for " freecad ".

The official release package version tends to be well behind the FreeCAD releases. Package: freecad shows the versions included in the Fedora repositories over time and versions.

More current versions can be obtained by downloading one of the .AppImage releases from the github repository. These work fine on Fedora.

If you want to keep up with the absolute latest daily builds, FreeCAD is also available on copr. To install the build from there, in a terminal session, enter:

That leaves the copr repository active, so

or equivalent, will update to the latest FreeCAD build, along with updates from any of the other active repos. If you want something a bit more stable, you can disable @freecad/nightly again after the initial install. The copr repository only keeps the builds from past 2 weeks. This is not a solution if you want to pick a specific older version.

Instructions are also available on compile FreeCAD yourself, including a script specifically for Fedora. With a minor change, to checkout the specific commit from git, any version since about FreeCAD 0.15 can be built on any distribution since Fedora 21.

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:

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.