Installing & Upgrading Anki on Linux

Requirements

The packaged version requires a recent 64 bit Intel/AMD Linux with glibc, and common libraries like libwayland-client and systemd. If you are on a different architecture, or a barebones Linux distro, you will not be able to use the packaged version, but you may be able to use the Python wheels instead.

On recent Ubuntu installations, please use the following before installing:

sudo apt install libxcb-xinerama0

If Anki fails to start after installing, you may be missing other libraries.

Anki's build system only supports glibc, so musl-based distros are not currently supported.

Installing

To install Anki:

  1. Download Anki from https://apps.ankiweb.net to your Downloads folder. See the next section for how to choose between -qt5 and -qt6.
  2. If zstd is not already installed on your system, you'll need to install it (eg sudo apt install zstd).
  3. Open a terminal and run the following commands, replacing the filename as appropriate.
tar xaf Downloads/anki-2.1.XX-linux-qt6.tar.zst
cd anki-2.1.XX-linux-qt6
sudo ./install.sh

On some Linux systems, you may need to use tar xaf --use-compress-program=unzstd.

  1. You can then start Anki by typing 'anki' and hitting enter. If you encounter any issues, please see the links on the left.

Qt5 vs. Qt6

Recent Anki versions come in separate Qt5 and Qt6 variants. The Qt6 version is recommended for most users.

Advantages of the Qt6 version:

  • Compatibility with recent glibc versions (fixes blank screens on recent distros).
  • Better HiDPI support.
  • Better Wayland support.
  • Various bugfixes, including things like better support for less common languages.
  • Security updates. Support for the Qt5 library was discontinued in Nov 2020, meaning that any security flaws discovered since then will remain unfixed.

Disadvantages of the Qt6 version include:

  • Some add-ons currently only work with the Qt5 version.

Upgrading

If you were running Anki from a .deb/.rpm/etc in the past, please make sure to remove the system version before installing the package provided here.

If you're upgrading from a previous package, simply repeat the installation steps to upgrade to the latest version. Your user data will be preserved.

If you wish to downgrade to a previous version, please make sure you downgrade first.

Add-on Compatibility

Some add-ons have not been updated to support the latest Anki release yet. If an add-on you depend on has not been ported to the latest release yet, you may have more luck with 2.1.44 from the releases page.

Problems

If you encounter any issues when installing or starting Anki, please see the following links on the left.