How To Install Krita On Linux

New to Linux and in need of a good painting tool? Check out Krita! It’s completely free, open source and has dozens of features to satisfy artists of all types.

Krita is part of the KDE project and has support for pretty much every Linux distribution out there. To install Krita, open up a terminal and follow the instructions that correspond to your Linux distribution.

Ubuntu

Krita is in the official software repositories on Ubuntu, and users can quickly install it with the following command in a terminal.

sudo apt install krita

The version of Krita in the Ubuntu software sources is relatively recent, but it’s not the absolute latest. If you’re looking for a more recent version, you’ll need to update it with the official Krita PPA. To do this, use the following command.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kritalime/ppa

After adding the new Krita software PPA, run the update command.

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sudo apt update

Running the update command will see the new Krita PPA and detect that a newer version of the software is available. To switch over to the latest version of the software on Ubuntu, run the upgrade command.

sudo apt upgrade -y

Debian

Debian has the Krita graphic design tool ready for installation on nearly every version. To install it, open up a terminal and use the Apt-get package management tool to get it working.

sudo apt-get install krita

Installing the Krita tool on Debian will get you out of a pinch. However, due to the nature of how Debian works, you’ll likely be using an older version of the software. To get around this, consider following this tutorial to enable Debian Backports. Using Backports will let you get a newer version of Krita on your Debian setup.

Don’t want to go through the trouble of enabling Debian Backports? Consider continuing through the tutorial and following either the Flatpak or AppImage instructions to get a more recent version of Krita.

Arch Linux

Arch Linux users can easily install Krita, though before doing so you’ll need to enable the “Extra” software repository. To enable it, launch a terminal and open up your Pacman configuration file in the Nano text editor.

sudo nano /etc/pacman.conf

In the Pacman editor, scroll through the file until you see “[Extra],” and remove all “#” symbols in front of it.

After enabling the Extra software repository, re-sync Pacman, and install any updates.

sudo pacman -Syyu

With Extra set up, install Krita to your Arch Linux PC.

sudo pacman -S krita

Fedora

Using a reasonably new version of Krita on Fedora Linux requires no extra setup. To install it, open up a terminal and use the DNF package tool.

sudo dnf install krita -y

OpenSUSE

Like Fedora, OpenSUSE users looking to install the Krita painting/sketch program don’t need to follow any steps to enable third-party software repos. Open up a terminal and use the Zypper packaging tool to get the app working.

sudo zypper install krita

Flatpak

The Krita application is available on Flathub, which means that users who don’t have access to the program through traditional means still can install it.

Getting Krita working with Flatpak is quite straightforward. First, learn how to set up Flatpak on your Linux PC. When that’s taken care of, open up a terminal and use the command-line to install Krita.

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

flatpak install flathub org.kde.krita

Generic Linux Instructions Via AppImage

Many Linux distributions offer support for Flatpak and Snap packages to make up for lack of software in their official software sources. However, not all distros have support for these packaging formats.

If your Linux distribution doesn’t have support for Flatpak, you’ll have to go the AppImage route instead.

To install Krita via AppImage, open up a terminal window and use the wget tool to download it.

mkdir -p ~/AppImages

cd ~/AppImages
wget https://download.kde.org/stable/krita/4.1.1/krita-4.1.1-x86_64.appimage

Now that the Krita AppImage is done downloading, it’s time to update its system permissions. Changing the permissions will allow the AppImage to run as a program on your Linux PC.

sudo chmod +x krita-4.1.1-x86_64.appimage

Run Krita from the terminal with:

./krita-4.1.1-x86_64.appimage

Updating Krita AppImage

The Krita AppImage doesn’t update automatically. Instead, if you want to upgrade to a newer version of Krita, follow the steps below.

Step 1: Open up a terminal and delete the Krita app image on your Linux PC.

cd ~/AppImages

rm krita-4.1.1-x86_64.appimage

Step 2: Go to the official website, click on “AppImage” and download the new release.

Step 3: Move the terminal into the ~/Downloads folder with CD.

cd ~/Downloads

Step 4: Change the new file’s permissions, move it into the ~/AppImages folder and launch it.

sudo chmod +x krita-*-x86_64.appimage

mv krita-*-x86_64.appimage ~/AppImages

./krita-*-x86_64.appimage