Install on Linux

About the Release Channels

Stable releases are the official tagged KiCad versions. Every year, a new major release (the first version number) comes out, bringing new features and bug fixes, but also usually bringing file format changes that prevent downgrading. In other words, once you update to 7.x and start modifying a project, you will no longer be able to open that project in any 6.x version.

The last number in the version is the patch (bugfix) release version. We encourage users to update to the latest bugfix releases regularly.

Testing builds are nightly builds from the stable release branch. They contain changes that will become the next bugfix release (for example, when the current stable release is 7.0.0, the testing releases contain fixes that will eventually become 7.0.1). Testing releases install on top of (replace) the stable releases.

Nightly builds are built from the development branch that will become the next stable KiCad release. They contain new features as well as bug fixes, but may also contain more bugs than the other channels. Nightly builds can be installed alongside stable/testing builds on most platforms.

Please read Nightly Builds and Release Candidates for important information about the risks and drawbacks of using nightly builds.

Officially-supported Platforms

Ubuntu

KiCad operates PPAs that can be used to install KiCad along with its required dependencies. We recommend that users install from these PPAs rather than the base Ubuntu repository as the latter is usually outdated.

There are many distributions based on Ubuntu that can make use of these PPAs, but only the official Ubuntu flavors from Canonical are supported by the KiCad team. Linux Mint users: see the Linux Mint section below.

8.0.2 Stable Release

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-8.0-releases
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad

Testing Builds

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-8.0-nightly
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad

If you install the testing build, you may need to force a downgrade to switch back to the stable release after uninstalling the testing PPA. To do so, run sudo apt install kicad=<version>, where <version> is the full name of the release version you want to install.

To find the full name of the latest release version, assuming you have already installed the stable release PPA as described above, run the command apt-cache policy kicad. This will return a version such as 8.0.1-1~ubuntu22.04.1 from the kicad-8.0-releases PPA.

Nightly Builds

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-dev-nightly
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad-nightly

Fedora

Stable Release

Rawhide

Fedora 40

Fedora 39

To install the version available in your Fedora release:

dnf install kicad kicad-packages3d kicad-doc

Additionally, there are three Copr repositories for KiCad, providing alternate versions as discussed below.

Enabling multiple copr repositories is fine, but please note that if you choose to enable both the testing copr and the stable copr, they will effectively be combined, meaning that an update will come from the one that has the newer build. Usually this will be the testing copr.

The nightly copr is independent of the other two.

Stable Builds

To install the latest stable build from Copr:

dnf install dnf-plugins-core
dnf copr enable @kicad/kicad-stable
dnf install kicad kicad-packages3d kicad-doc

Testing Builds

To install the latest testing build of the stable branch from Copr:

dnf install dnf-plugins-core
dnf copr enable @kicad/kicad-testing
dnf install kicad kicad-packages3d kicad-doc

Nightly Builds

To install the latest nightly build of the development branch from Copr:

dnf install dnf-plugins-core
dnf copr enable @kicad/kicad
dnf install kicad-nightly kicad-nightly-packages3d

FlatPak

FlatPak is a software distribution system that allows us to provide up-to-date versions of KiCad on many Linux distributions. FlatPak is officially supported by KiCad and is our recommended way to install the latest version of KiCad on any distribution other than Ubuntu and Fedora, if it is not available through your distribution’s package manager.

Stable Release org.kicad

Or install from the terminal:

flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.kicad.KiCad.flatpakref

Switching between Flathub’s stable and beta branches

If KiCad is installed via both branchen, run the desired version explicitly by:

flatpak run org.kicad.KiCad//stable
flatpak run org.kicad.KiCad//beta

If you want to switch which version your desktop environment shows in menus, use flatpak make-current.

Debian

Stable Release

Bookworm (via Backports)

Sid

sudo apt install kicad

Other Platforms

The following platforms are not officially supported by the KiCad team, but may be supported by the community of users on that platform. Bugs encountered on these platforms must be reproduced on a supported platform before the KiCad core team will investigate them. See the System Requirements page for more details.

Arch Linux

Stable Release

sudo pacman -Syu kicad
sudo pacman -Syu --asdeps kicad-library kicad-library-3d

Nightly Builds

Available from AUR at aur/kicad-nightly

FreeBSD

Stable Release

pkg install kicad

Gentoo

Stable Release

emerge sci-electronics/kicad

openSUSE

Stable Release

zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/electronics/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/electronics.repo
zypper refresh
zypper install kicad

Linux Mint

Linux Mint users can use the Ubuntu PPAs to install KiCad. It is important to note that Linux Mint is different enough from Ubuntu that it is not a supported platform, and may have bugs that do not appear in Ubuntu. In particular, the Cinnamon desktop environment is known to have several UI bugs that affect KiCad.

8.0.2 Stable Release

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-8.0-releases
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad

Testing Builds

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-8.0-nightly
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad

Nightly Builds

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-dev-nightly
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad-nightly