Install CadSoft EAGLE on Linux

How to install and create desktop entry for CadSoft EAGLE on Linux Ubuntu

EAGLE is a complete EDA software with schematic capture and printed circuit board design. It has a free version that can be used for personal and non-commercial purposes to design circuit boards smaller than 100 x 80 mm and with no more than two copper layers. Another advantage of EAGLE is that it runs on all major operating systems.

The Linux version is supplied as an architecture dependent self extracting run archive. It can be installed on most distros by executing the downloaded file. There is however one small issue. The installer does not create a desktop entry for the main EAGLE executable. Therefore you have to navigate to the folder where it is installed each time you want to launch it.

Besides showing how to install it (on Ubuntu), this article will give you a simple desktop entry file that will bring a shortcut to EAGLE in your distro application menu. Note that you will have to change version numbers accordingly, because EAGLE is updated frequently.

This is the official download page for EAGLE. You must choose the right version for your system architecture. To download it, right click and choose Save Link As. After the download finishes, navigate to the download folder and open a terminal there (you can right click and choose Open in Terminal). You have to decide whether you will install EAGLE with administrator rights or as a normal user. If you run the installer with sudo, it will install in /opt/eagle-x.x.x folder. Otherwise it will install in your user folder. Here are the commands:

chmod a+x eagle-lin*.run
[sudo] ./eagle-lin*.run

Wait for the archive to decompress and you should see the installation Welcome screen. If some shared library is missing you'll see the error message in the terminal.

EAGLE Setup initial window

Click Next, read and accept the license and you will get to the install directory screen. The below screenshot is for an administrator install where the file has been executed with sudo.

EAGLE Setup installation directory

Click Next again to start copying files. Once is finished, choose to run EAGLE as freeware or install a license if you own one.

Now, if you want to launch EAGLE, you have to go to /opt/eagle-7.5.0/bin (or /home/user/eagle-7.5.0/bin) and double click eagle executable. If you want to find it in Dash or other application menus, open a text editor and paste this inside:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=EAGLE 7.5.0
GenericName=Schematic capture and PCB designer
Comment=Complete EDA suite
Exec=/opt/eagle-7.5.0/bin/eagle %U
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Icon=/opt/eagle-7.5.0/bin/eagleicon50.png
Categories=Electronics;Utility;Science;
MimeType=application/xml

Adjust paths if needed. If you installed as normal user, replace /opt folder with /home/yourname. Save this as, let's say eagledesktop in any folder you want and open a terminal in that folder. If you have EAGLE installed in your home folder, you should also add the desktop entry in the current user folder. So, move it like this:

mv eagledesktop ~/.local/share/applications/eagle.desktop

If you installed EAGLE system wide, you should make a system wide desktop entry like this:

sudo mv eagledesktop /usr/share/applications/eagle.desktop

Outdated. If you want an automated script that does all this, including the download, here it is:

For 64 bit Linux:

#!/bin/bash

wget http://web.cadsoft.de/ftp/eagle/program/7.5/eagle-lin64-7.5.0.run
chmod a+x ./eagle-lin64-7.5.0.run
./eagle-lin64-7.5.0.run /opt
printf "[Desktop Entry]\nName=EAGLE 7.5.0\nGenericName=Schematic capture and PCB designer\nComment=Complete EDA suite\nExec=/opt/eagle-7.5.0/bin/eagle %%U\nTerminal=false\nType=Application\nStartupNotify=true\nIcon=/opt/eagle-7.5.0/bin/eagleicon50.png\nCategories=Electronics;Utility;Science;\nMimeType=application/xml" | tee eagle.desktop
mv eagle.desktop /usr/share/applications/eagle.desktop
rm ./eagle-lin64-7.5.0.run
/opt/eagle-7.5.0/bin/eagle

For 32 bit Linux:

#!/bin/bash

wget http://web.cadsoft.de/ftp/eagle/program/7.5/eagle-lin32-7.5.0.run
chmod a+x ./eagle-lin32-7.5.0.run
./eagle-lin32-7.5.0.run /opt
printf "[Desktop Entry]\nName=EAGLE 7.5.0\nGenericName=Schematic capture and PCB designer\nComment=Complete EDA suite\nExec=/opt/eagle-7.5.0/bin/eagle %%U\nTerminal=false\nType=Application\nStartupNotify=true\nIcon=/opt/eagle-7.5.0/bin/eagleicon50.png\nCategories=Electronics;Utility;Science;\nMimeType=application/xml" | tee eagle.desktop
mv eagle.desktop /usr/share/applications/eagle.desktop
rm ./eagle-lin32-7.5.0.run
/opt/eagle-7.5.0/bin/eagle

Paste this into a text editor and save as install.sh. Then open a terminal in the directory you saved it and run:

chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh

After it finishes, it must launch EAGLE as root to select a licensing method. Now, you can start EAGLE from Dash or other app menus (without root).