How to Install Krita on Ubuntu 20.04

Krita is a free and open-source professional raster graphics editor designed primarily for digital painting, concept artists, comic book artists, game artists, creating and editing illustrations and for 2D animation.

Simply this application is for everyone who wants to draw and paint. You are free to study, modify, and distribute. It is released under GNU General Public License v3.0 license.

Krita is an cross platform application available for Microsoft Windows, MacOS and Linux. The program contains simulations for all kinds of techniques including watercolor, charcoal and pastel chalk, oil paint. By default there are all kinds of pencils, customizable brushes and pens available to use.

An Spontaneous user interface (UI) that stays out of your way. You can create your own shortcuts for commonly used tools. The dockers and panels can be moved and customized for your specific workflow. Once you have your setup, you can save it as your own workspace.

Customize your brushes with over 9 unique brush engines. Each engine has a large amount of settings to customize your brush.

Each brush engine is made to satisfy a specific need such as the Color Smudge engine, Shape engine, Particle engine, and even a filter engine.

There are tools for perspective, halftone filters, layers and panel templates. The program can process both bitmap and vector files and is compatible with a variety of file formats. In addition to painting, Krita comes with vector, filter, group, and file layers. Combine, order, and flatten layers to help your artwork stay organized.

Key Features of Krita

• Free and Open-Source
• Intuitive user interface
• Dark and light color themes
• Customizable Layout
• Over 100 professionally made beautiful brushes that come preloaded.
• Built-in vector tools help you create comic panels.
• Customize your brushes with over 9 unique brush engines. Each engine has a large amount of settings to customize your brush.
• Easily create seamless textures and patterns
• Import brush and texture packs from other artists to expand your tool set.
• Simple and Powerful 2D Animation
• Drawing Assistants
• Layer Management
• Color Management
• PSD Support
• Python Scripting: Powerful API for creating your own widgets and extending Krita

This article explains three methods of installing Krita on Ubuntu 20.04. Choose the installation method that is most appropriate for your environment.

Method 1: Installing Krita as a Snap Package

The easiest way to install Krita on Ubuntu 20.04 is by using the snap packaging system.

A snap package is a type of universal Linux package that you can enjoy irrespective of the distro. Its an self-contained software packages that include the binary all dependencies needed to run the application.

All you need is the snap service pre-configured, In the case of Ubuntu 20.04, it comes with snap pre-installed.

If snapd package is not already installed then you can install it by running following command.

$ sudo apt install snapd

Note: Snap packages can be installed from either the command-line or via the Ubuntu Software application.

This is actually the Snap version of the Krita. It can be used on any Linux distribution that has Snap support.

Open your terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and type the following command to install the Krita package.

$ sudo snap install krita

At this step, you have successfully installed Krita on Ubuntu 20.04 system.

If you are not comfortable with the command line, open Ubuntu Software, search for “Krita” and install the application.

Type the following command to update Krita package.

$ sudo snap refresh --list

Method 2: Installing Krita via PPA Repository

If you want to install the most recent version of Krita, you can use the PPA repository.

Personal Package Archives (PPA) are software repositories designed for Ubuntu users and are easier to install than other third-party repositories. PPAs are often used to distribute pre-release software so that it can be tested.

Step #1

First of all open the terminal from system application launcher and type the following command to add the Krita PPA to your system.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kritalime/ppa

Step #2

Then, execute the following commands to install Krita package on your Ubuntu system.

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install krita

Once installed, launch it from your system application menu.

Method 3: Installing Krita via AppImage

Before installation let’s understand what is AppImage.

What is AppImage?

We have .deb packages for Debian/Ubuntu based Linux distributions and .rpm for Fedora/SUSE based Linux distributions.

While these packages provide a convenient way of installing software to their respective distribution users, it is not the most convenient for the application developer.

The developers have to create multiple packages for multiple distributions. This is where AppImage comes into picture. AppImage is a universal software package format.

By packaging the software in AppImage, the developer provides just one file to rule them all. End user can use it in most modern Linux distributions.

Step #1

Click on following button to download the latest stable version of Krita AppImage executable file for Linux.

Step #2

The downloaded file name would be something like: krita-4.4.8-x86_64.appimage

By default, the downloaded AppImage file won’t have the execution permission. You will have to change the permission on the file to make it executable and You don’t need root privilege to do that.

Now type the following command to make the AppImage executable.

$ chmod a+x krita-4.4.8-x86_64.appimage

Step #3

Once you have made the AppImage file executable, just double click on it to run it Or run the following command to install through terminal.

$ ./krita-4.4.8-x86_64.appimage

That’s It.

Starting Krita

Krita can be launched from the command line by typing krita or by clicking on the Krita icon (Activities -> Krita).

Krita User Interface:

How to Uninstall Krita from Ubuntu 20.04

For some reason, If you want to uninstall Krita, refer following methods.

Method #1

If you have installed Krita via Snap type the following command:

$ sudo snap remove krita

Method #2

If you have installed the appication via PPA then uninstall by running the below commands.

Step #1

It’s most likely that you added the PPA using add-apt-repository command. You can use the same command to remove the PPA as well. Just give it --remove option in the command.

$ sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:kritalime/ppa

Step #2

As of now we removed the PPA. What about the applications installed using these PPAs? Will they be removed as a result of removing the PPA? The answer is NO.

So this is when ppa-purge comes in picture. It not only disables the PPA but also uninstalls all the programs installed by the PPA or revert them to original version provided by your distribution.

So type the following command to install the ppa-purge package and uninstall the Krita package.

$ sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:kritalime/ppa

Method #3

If you have installed Krita via AppImage:

Since the software is never installed, there is no need of uninstalling it. Just delete the associated AppImage file and your software is removed from the system.

Conclusion

I hope that now you have a good understanding of How to Install Krita on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa.

If anyone does have any questions about what we covered in this guide then feel free to ask in the comment section below and I will do my best to answer those.