Install Notepadqq on Linux, an Alternative to Notepad++

As we all know, Notepad++ is a very common and popular text editor on Microsoft Windows. Although Notepad++ is open source and licensed under GPL, it uses pure Win32 API. So compiling it on Linux is very hard. Notepadqq is a free and open source alternative to Notepad++.  Today we’re going to look at how to install Notepadqq on Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Elementary OS and Arch Linux.

Install Notepadqq on Ubuntu 14.04/15.10/16.04/Linux Mint/Elementary OS

For Ubuntu-based Linux distributions, we can install it from PPA. First, use add-apt-repository utility to add PPA.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:notepadqq-team/notepadqq

Then update local package index.

sudo apt-get update

Install Notepadqq．

sudo apt-get install notepadqq

Now you can launch it from Unity Dash or application menu.

Install Notepadqq on Debian 8 Jessie

We can also install Notepadqq on Debian 8 Jessie from the same PPA. But as we all know, Debian does not support adding PPA using the add-apt-repository command. So we have to add the PPA manually.

First create a separate source list file under /etc/apt/source.list.d/ directory with nano editor or your favorite editor.

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/notepadqq.list

Add these two lines in the file.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/notepadqq-team/notepadqq/ubuntu trusty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/notepadqq-team/notepadqq/ubuntu trusty main

Notice that the codename is trusty (Ubuntu 14.04) because most of the time packages made for trusty can be safely installed on Debian 8 as well and generally you don’t have to worry about dependency problem.

Save and close the file. Now import the GPG key of Notepadqq to Debian by using apt-key command.

sudo apt-key adv --recv-key --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 63DE9CD4

Then update local package index.

sudo apt-get update

Install Notepadqq.

sudo apt-get install notepadqq

For those of you who are curious, when adding PPA using add-apt-repository command on Ubuntu-based distributions, there will be a separate source list file created under /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ directory. All PPA repositories are stored in those separate source list files. You can check them out with ls command:

ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

Install Notepadqq on Arch Linux

You can easily install Notepadqq from AUR with Yaourt package manager.

yaourt notepadqq

Check out the following post if you are not familiar with Yourt package manager.

How To Use Yaourt Package Manager to install AUR Packages

How to Remove Notepadqq

If for any reason you don’t like this notepad++ alternative for Linux, use the following commands to remove it from your system.

Ubuntu-based distributions

sudo apt-get remove notepadqq

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:notepadqq-team/notepadqq

The second command is for removing the Notepadqq PPA.

Debian 8

sudo apt-get remove notepadqq

sudo rm /etc/apt/souces.list.d/notepadqq.list

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -R notepadqq

That’s it! Enjoy!