On Ubuntu and various other Linux platforms, you can also use the snap package (installation instructions for snap).
On the terminal, type:
$ sudo snap install --edge inkscape
If you already have the standard snap version of Inkscape installed, you can switch to the development version with:
$ sudo snap refresh --edge inkscape
You can then go back to the stable version with almost the same command:
$ sudo snap refresh --stable inkscape
Note that the Inkscape snap package comes with a couple of restrictions. Some of these can be solved, and some are unavoidable due to the safety level of the packaging format:
- custom markers and custom filters cannot be saved to the file where Inkscape is looking for them (which is
/usr/share/inkscape/markers/markers.svg
and/usr/share/inkscape/filters/filters.svg
) in all Inkscape versions older than 1.0. This behavior cannot be changed. - extensions that depend on programs that are not linked with the Inkscape snap do not work (i.e. export as Gimp XCF, PDFLatex, ...). To work around this restriction you can do:
sudo snap remove inkscape
sudo snap install --classic --edge inkscape
The --classic parameter will, though, also disable the security advantages that snap has over a normal, package based install or over the other binary install options for Linux. - by default, only files that are saved in the user's home directory are accessible to Inkscape
- external devices, like plotters or cutters, will not be found by Inkscape (see here for solution or install with
--classic
parameter, see above) - Inkscape might not integrate well with your desktop theme, but will use its own default gtk theme.
- fonts that you have installed globally on your system are not available (workaround: copy the font files into
~/.local/share/fonts
)