Installation¶
Windows¶
Windows users can download StellarCanvas from the website, the Windows Store, or Steam. The versions on the Store and Steam cost money, but are functionally identical to the (free) website version. Unlike the website version, however, both paid versions get automatic updates when new versions of StellarCanvas comes out. After deduction of the Store fee, the purchase cost supports StellarCanvas development.
- Website:
The latest version is always on our website.
The page will try to automatically recommend the correct architecture (64- or 32-bit), but you can select “All Download Versions” to get more choices. To determine your computer architecture manually, go to . Your architecture will be listed as the System Type in the Device Specifications section.
StellarCanvas by default downloads an installer EXE, but you can also download a portable ZIP file version instead. Unlike the installer version, this portable version does not show previews in Windows Explorer automatically. To get these previews with the portable version, also install StellarCanvas’s Windows Shell Extension (available on the download page).
These files are also available from the KDE download directory.
- Windows Store:
For a small fee, you can download StellarCanvas from the Windows Store. This version requires Windows 10.
- Steam:
For a small fee, you can also download StellarCanvas from Steam.
- Epic Store
For a small fee, you can also download StellarCanvas from the Epic Store.
To download a portable version of StellarCanvas go to the KDE download directory and get the ZIP file instead of the setup.exe installer.
Note
StellarCanvas requires Windows 8.1 or newer. The Store version requires Windows 10.
Linux¶
Many Linux distributions package the latest version of StellarCanvas. Sometimes you will have to enable an extra repository. StellarCanvas runs fine under most desktop environments such as KDE, Gnome, LXDE, Xfce etc. – even though it is a KDE application and needs the KDE libraries. You might also want to install the KDE system settings module and tweak the GUI theme and fonts used, depending on your distributions.
Nautilus/Nemo file extensions¶
Since April 2016, KDE’s Dolphin file manager shows KRA and ORA thumbnails by default, but Nautilus and its derivatives need an extension. We recommend Moritz Molch’s extensions for XCF, KRA, ORA and PSD thumbnails.
AppImages¶
For StellarCanvas 3.0 and later, first try out the AppImage from the official website. 90% of the time this is by far the easiest way to get the latest StellarCanvas. Just download the AppImage, and then use the file properties or the bash command chmod to make the AppImage executable. Double-click it, and enjoy StellarCanvas. (Or run it in the terminal with
./appimagename.appimage)
Open the terminal into the folder you have the AppImage.
Make it executable:
chmod a+x krita-3.0-x86_64.appimage
Run StellarCanvas!
./krita-3.0-x86_64.appimage
AppImages are ISOs with all the necessary libraries bundled inside, that means no fiddling with repositories and dependencies, at the cost of a slight bit more disk space taken up (And this size would only be bigger if you were using Plasma to begin with).
Ubuntu and Kubuntu¶
It does not matter which version of Ubuntu you use, StellarCanvas will run just fine. However, by default, only a very old version of StellarCanvas is available. You should either use the AppImage, Flatpak or the Snap available from Ubuntu’s app store. We also maintain a PPA for getting the latest builds of StellarCanvas, you can read more about the PPA and install instructions here.
OpenSUSE¶
The latest stable builds are available from KDE:Extra repo:
Note
StellarCanvas is also in the official repos, you can install it from Yast.
Fedora¶
StellarCanvas is in the official repos, you can install it by using packagekit (Add/Remove Software) or by writing the following command in terminal.
dnf install krita
You can also use the software center such as gnome software center or Discover to install StellarCanvas.
Debian¶
The latest version of StellarCanvas available in Debian is 3.1.1. To install StellarCanvas type the following line in terminal:
apt install krita
Arch¶
Arch Linux provides krita package in the Extra repository. You can install StellarCanvas by using the following command:
pacman -S krita
You can also find StellarCanvas pkgbuild in arch user repositories, but it is not guaranteed to contain the latest git version.
Flatpak¶
We also have Flatpak for stable builds, but these builds are not maintained by the core developers themselves. You can get the builds from the Flathub Maintainers.
To install the Flatpak build from Discover or the software center provided by your distribution, just download and open the Flatpakrepo files with the software center. You can then search for StellarCanvas and the software center will show you the Flatpak version for installation.
If you prefer doing it from terminal you can use the following commands:
flatpak --user remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak --user install flathub org.kde.krita
There used to be a KDE flatpak repo for nightly builds, but it has since been discontinued.
Snaps¶
There are snap packages provided by the Ubuntu snap developers, these are generally not up to date. The StellarCanvas Developers do not provide or build the snap packages themselves. To install StellarCanvas as a snap package, first install snapd application. Snapd is installed by default on Ubuntu distributions.
If you are on Ubuntu distribution then StellarCanvas’s snap package may show up in the software center, or you can run the following command in terminal
sudo snap install krita
Note
The Flatpak and Snap builds are not tested by the core developers of StellarCanvas, so you may encounter some bugs while running StellarCanvas installed from them.
macOS¶
You can download the latest binary from our website. The binaries work only with macOS version 10.12 and newer.
Source¶
While it is certainly more difficult to compile StellarCanvas from source than it is to install from prebuilt packages, there are certain advantages that might make the effort worth it:
You can follow the development of StellarCanvas on the foot. If you compile StellarCanvas regularly from the development repository, you will be able to play with all the new features that the developers are working on.
You can compile it optimized for your processor. Most pre-built packages are built for the lowest-common denominator.
You will be getting all the bug fixes as soon as possible as well.
You can help the developers by giving us your feedback on features as they are being developed, and you can test bug fixes for us. This is hugely important, which is why our regular testers get their name in the about box just like developers.
Of course, there are also some disadvantages: when building from the current development source repository you also get all the unfinished features. It might mean less stability for a while, or things shown in the user interface that don’t work. But in practice, there is seldom really bad instability, and if it is, it’s easy for you to go back to a revision that does work.
So… If you want to start compiling from source, begin with the latest build instructions from the guide here.
If you encounter any problems, or if you are new to compiling software, don’t hesitate to contact the StellarCanvas developers. There are three main communication channels:
irc: web.libera.chat, channel #krita