How to install MyPaint on Ubuntu 20.04

There are many drawing and image-editing applications out there, but MyPaint is specially designed for those who want to concentrate on drawing, plain and simple, leaving advanced graphic-editing tools.

MyPaint is a free and open-source simple yet powerful tool for digital painting. It features a lot of options to tweak in order to make the perfect digital brush stroke. It’s an cross-platform application available for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux and Unix-like operating systems.

It takes up very little space on your hard drive, and barely consumes any memory when you run it. I’m not much of a digital artist but I observed quite a few options to adjust the brush, the colors, and an option to add a scratchpad panel.

Key Features of MyPaint

• Infinite canvas
• Easy-to-use tool for digital painters
• Extensive graphic tablet support
• Lots of options to tweak your brush and drawing
• Realistic paint-like pigment model
• Layer management support
• Brush settings stored with each stroke on the canvas
• Distraction-free fullscreen mode
• Speed, simplicity, and expressiveness
• 15 bit Rec 709 linear RGB colorspace

This article explains two methods of installing MyPaint on Ubuntu 20.04.

Choose the installation method that is most appropriate for your environment.

Method 1: Installing MyPaint from Ubuntu apt repository

MyPaint is included in Ubuntu 20.04. Follow the step by step guide to install the application.

Step #1

Type the following command to update the apt sources.

$ sudo apt update

Step #2

Now execute this command to install the MyPaint package.

$ sudo apt install -y mypaint

With the help of && you can write both the commands in a single line. Something like this:

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y mypaint

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

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

Method 2: Installing MyPaint 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 MyPaint AppImage executable file for Linux.

Step #2

The downloaded file name would be something like: MyPaint-v2.0.1.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 u+x MyPaint-v2.0.1.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.

$ ./MyPaint-v2.0.1.AppImage

That’s It.

Starting MyPaint

MyPaint can be launched from the command line by typing mypaint or In the Activities search bar type “MyPaint” and click on the icon.

MyPaint User Interface:

How to Uninstall MyPaint from Ubuntu 20.04

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

Method #1

If you have installed MyPaint from default ubuntu apt respository then uninstall by running the below command:

$ sudo apt remove mypaint

Method #2

If you have installed the application via AppImage:

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

Conclusion

I hope that now you have a good understanding of How to install MyPaint 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.