Install on Unix

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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 Personal Package Archive (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 derivatives like Linux Mint, Voyager and others. The installation options below should be compatible with these systems.

Official Ubuntu repository

FreeCAD is available from the Ubuntu Universe repository, and can be installed via the Software Center or from the terminal:

sudo apt install freecad

Note: the Ubuntu Universe package may be outdated as the packaging may lag behind the latest stable source code. In this case, it is suggested to install the package from the -stable PPA below. In addition, installing the -daily package can be done to test the development branch.

Stable PPA through the graphical interface

To install FreeCAD using the personal package archive (PPA) maintained by the FreeCAD project, please follow these instructions. The repository is called freecad-stable on Launchpad.

• Navigate to Ubuntu Software → Software & Updates → Software Sources → Other Software
• Click on And, then copy and paste the following line

ppa:freecad-maintainers/freecad-stable

• Add the source, close the dialog, and reload your software sources, if asked.

Now you can find and install the last stable FreeCAD version from the Ubuntu Software Center.

Stable PPA through the console

• Add the PPA to your software sources:

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

• Retrieve the updated package lists:

sudo apt update

• Then install FreeCAD along with its offline documentation:

sudo apt install freecad freecad-doc

Note: due to packaging problems, in certain versions of Ubuntu the freecad-doc package has collided with the installation of FreeCAD or one of its dependencies; if this is the case, remove the freecad-doc package, and only install the freecad package. If the freecad-doc package doesn't exist, then ignore it.

Once you have the stable PPA added to your sources, the freecad package will install this PPA version over the one provided by the Ubuntu Universe repository. You can see the available versions with apt-cache.

apt-cache policy freecad

freecad:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2:0.18.4+dfsg1~201911060029~ubuntu18.04.1
  Version table:
     2:0.18.4+dfsg1~201911060029~ubuntu18.04.1 500
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/freecad-maintainers/freecad-stable/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages
     0.16.6712+dfsg1-1ubuntu2 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 Packages
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ apt-cache policy freecad-doc

Run the stable (PPA) version of FreeCAD:

freecad

Daily PPA through the console

As FreeCAD is in constant development, you may wish to install the daily package to keep with the latest improvements and bug fixes. The repository is called freecad-daily on Launchpad.

This version is compiled daily from the official master repository. Please beware that although it will contain new features and bug fixes, it may also have newer bugs, and be unstable.

Add the daily PPA to your software sources, update the package lists, and install the daily package:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freecad-maintainers/freecad-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install freecad-daily

Every day you can update to the latest daily:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install freecad-daily

Note: in some cases new code or dependencies added to FreeCAD will cause packaging errors; if this happens, a daily package may not be generated until the maintainers manually fix the problems. If you wish to continue testing the latest code, you should get the source code and compile FreeCAD directly; for instructions see compiling.

Run the daily (PPA) version of FreeCAD:

freecad-daily

Note: it is possible to install both the -stable and -daily packages in the same system. This is useful if you wish to work with a stable version, and still be able to test the latest features in development. Notice that the executable for the daily version is freecad-daily, but for the stable version it is just 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:

sudo apt-get install freecad

OpenSUSE

A vast release program for FreeCAD package builds are offered.

For installing of stable releases, please visit for a survey:

Survey of stable repositories on openSUSE

Generally for selecting the correct openSUSE distribution needed it is necessary to click on the particular view button.

The stable package version of FreeCAD could be found under:

Stable repositories on openSUSE

The correct openSUSE distribution version must be selected in the lower part of the web page.

FreeCAD is typically installed with YAST (abbr. Yet another Setup Tool) the Linux operating system setup and configuration tool, or in any terminal (root rights required) with:

zypper install FreeCAD

This procedure only covers the installation of officially released stable FreeCAD program versions, depending on the installed links to the program package repositories of your OS.

To check out the latest development releases (unstable) you have to visit:

Unstable repositories on openSUSE

It is recommended to grab the binary packages directly. Then select the correct distribution for your installed openSUSE OS.

Gentoo

FreeCAD can be built/installed simply by issuing:

emerge freecad

Fedora

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

sudo dnf install freecad

On older Fedora releases, that was:

sudo yum install freecad

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:

sudo dnf copr enable @freecad/nightly
sudo dnf install freecad

That leaves the copr repository active, so

sudo dnf upgrade

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 builds from the 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.

Arch

Installing FreeCAD on Arch Linux and derivatives (ex. Manjaro):

pacman -S 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.
Ubuntu 32/64bit AppImage 64bit

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

Many common Linux distros now include a precompiled FreeCAD as part of the standard packages. This is often out of date, but is a place to start. Check the standard package managers for your system. One of the following (partial) list of commands could install the official version of FreeCAD for your distro from the terminal. These probably need administrator privileges.

apt-get install freecad
dnf install freecad
emerge freecad
slackpkg install freecad
yum install freecad
zypper install freecad

The package name is case sensitive, so try `FreeCAD` as well as `freecad`. If that does not work for you, either because your package manager does not have a precompiled FreeCAD version available, or because the available version is too old for your needs, you can try downloading one of the .AppImage releases from the github repository. These tend to work on most 64 bit Linux distributions, without any special installation. Just make sure the downloaded file is marked as executable, then run it.

If that still is not good enough, and you can not locate another source of a precompiled package for your situation, you will need to compile FreeCAD yourself.

Installing Windows Version on Linux

See the Install on Windows page.

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