How to install LibreOffice 24.2 on Linux Mint, Ubuntu, MX Linux, Debian…
Last updated on February 21, 2024
This article describes how to install LibreOffice 24.2 on Debian/Ubuntu-based Linux distributions, such as Linux Mint, MX Linux, Ubuntu, and derivatives.
LibreOffice 24.2 was officially released on February 1, 2024
The next release, LibreOffice 24.8, is set to be released in August 2024.
Find more information on LibreOffice 24.2 & 24.8 release dates on the official release plan.
Table of contents
A. Install LibreOffice via ppa
1. Add the LibreOffice PPA
2. Install language packs
3. Install additional packages
4. Uninstall / Downgrade LibreOffice
B. Install LibreOffice manually
1. Remove previous LibreOffice installations
2. Install LibreOffice 24.2 manually
3. Uninstall LibreOffice
A. Install or upgrade LibreOffice via PPA (Ubuntu-based distributions)
Warning: updating LibreOffice via PPA or manually can cause multiple problems. It is recommended to stick with the default LibreOffice version which comes with your Linux distribution.
If you are an advanced Linux user and want to update/upgrade LibreOffice anyway, the “LibreOffice Packaging” team recommends installing or upgrading via ppa over using the *.deb files provided by Document Foundation.
1. Add the LibreOffice “fresh” PPA
This PPA has not yet been updated to LibreOffice 24.2! If you don’t want to wait, use the manual installation method.
The official LibreOffice PPA provides the latest “fresh” version. Run the following commands in Linux Mint or any Ubuntu-based distribution:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppasudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
Some guides recommend using apt full-upgrade instead of apt-upgrade.
The full-upgrade is absolutely fine (and won’t upgrade your Linux distribution!), but in this case does the same as apt upgrade. The apt manual page describes the full-upgrade variant as follows: “full-upgrade performs the function of upgrade but will remove currently installed packages if this is needed to upgrade the system as a whole”.
If you wanted to install (vs. upgrade) LibreOffice, run the command below:sudo apt install libreoffice
2. Install language packs
Language packages in LibreOffice are spread over different packages. The user interface, templates and autotext features are contained in the libreoffice-l10n-* packages.
Spelling dictionaries, hyphenation patterns and thesauri are available in separate packages: hunspell-*, hyphen-*, mythes-* and libreoffice-help-*.
To find LibreOffice language packs for a specific language, replace the asterisk with a two-letters language code (mostly). For example, the corresponding German packages are:
- User interface: libreoffice-l10n-de
- Spelling dictionary: hunspell-de-de-frami
- Hyphenation patterns: hyphen-de
- Thesaurus (synonyms): mythes-de
- Help: libreoffice-help-de
Install all of them with the following command:sudo apt install libreoffice-l10n-de hunspell-de-de-frami hyphen-de mythes-de libreoffice-help-de
For US-English, there is no libreoffice-l10n-en-us package as it is the default language. Spelling, hyphenation, thesaurus (synonyms) and help files still have to be installed:sudo apt install hunspell-en-us hyphen-en-us mythes-en-us libreoffice-help-en-us
For British or Canadian English, replace all us occurrences with gb or ca.
Find the right LibO language packs
How to find the letter code for your language packs? One option is to check the output of the following command:apt search libreoffice-l10n-
Please note that spelling packages may have a different language code! In fact, there are more different spellcheck packages than user interface packages:apt search hunspell-
Here are two examples for installing language packs in French and Spanish:
sudo apt install libreoffice-l10n-fr hunspell-fr-comprehensive hyphen-fr mythes-fr libreoffice-help-fr
sudo apt install libreoffice-l10n-es hunspell-es hyphen-es mythes-es libreoffice-help-es
You may want to install additional icon themes. The new Colibre theme is installed by default. You could install all available icon themes with the following command (not recommended):sudo apt install libreoffice-style*
The themes HiContrast, Industrial and Oxygen do not include SVG variants of the icons and are not actively maintained. Karasa Jaga was introduced as an alternative to Oxygen.sudo apt install libreoffice-style-karasa-jaga
To change the active icon theme, go to:
Tools > Options > View > Icon style
The Sukapura theme by Rizal Muttaqin was introduced with LibreOffice 7.0 and is a default theme for LibreOffice installations on MacOS. Here is what it looks like and how to install it:
sudo apt install libreoffice-style-sukapura
Finally, here are a few more icon themes for LibreOffice worth installing: Breeze, Elementary and Sifr.sudo apt install libreoffice-style-breezesudo apt install libreoffice-style-elementarysudo apt install libreoffice-style-sifr
4. Uninstall / Downgrade LibreOffice
To go back to the default LibreOffice version provided by your Linux distro, you’ll have to remove AND purge the LibreOffice PPA.
The following command only removes the PPA. Your system will no longer receive updates from that PPA, but it doesn’t affect the packages installed from that PPA:sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:libreoffice/ppa
Now purge the PPA to downgrade to the stock LibreOffice version:sudo apt install ppa-purgesudo ppa-purge ppa:libreoffice/ppa
B. Install LibreOffice manually
This installation method is based on the official .deb (or .rpm) packages.
1. Remove bundled LibreOffice
LibreOffice 24.2 can be installed alongside older LibreOffice versions, but conflicts may occur.
To remove prior installations of LibreOffice:sudo apt remove libreoffice-common
If you also want to remove LibreOffice configuration files, use the purge switch:sudo apt purge libreoffice-common
Note that you could also use remove --purge, which is is equivalent to the purge command.
Remove unused dependencies:sudo apt autoremove
2. Install LibreOffice manually
Step 1 of 3 – Download compressed packages
Download LibreOffice 24.2 from the official download page:
www.libreoffice.org/download/
This how-to supposes that the downloaded file (and language packs) is saved in the “Downloads” directory situated in your home directory.
Download as many language packs as you need.
Step 2 of 3 – Extract the .deb packages
The downloaded files are compressed and have a .tar.gz filename extension. In case you want to learn more on these extensions, please follow these links: tar, gzip. To extract these juicy archives, open the “Downloads” directory. Look for a file named:
LibreOffice_24.2.0_Linux_x86-64_deb.tar.gz
Then, right-click on the file name and select “extract here”. Repeat the extraction process for all language packs. The .tar.gz archive(s) can now be deleted.
Step 3 of 3 – Install .deb packages
Open a terminal.
Change the current directory to the location of the .deb packages:cd ~/Downloads/LibreOffice_24.2.x.x_Linux_x86-64_deb/DEBS
(You don’t need to write everything: use Tab ↹ to autocomplete the command line, or copy and paste with the middle-click mouse button)
Finally, install all .deb packages:sudo dpkg -i *.deb
In case you’re installing language packs, repeat the cd and dpkg steps for each language pack.
You’re done! No need to restart, LibreOffice is ready to be used.
If you have problems launching LibreOffice, try out the following command:libreoffice24.2
or/opt/libreoffice24.2/program/soffice
If you’re installing a development release (Beta) of LO 24.8 you can launch it with the following command:lodev24.8
3. Uninstall LibreOffice
If you want to remove LibreOffice, use the following command:sudo apt purge libreoffice24.2*
Alternatively, or for any other version, use:sudo apt purge libreoffice?
If you want to remove a development (beta) version of LibreOffice, use the following command:sudo apt remove lodev*
By Johannes Eva, January 2011 – February 2024
Read also:
How to install Firefox on any Linux distribution (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, …)
How to set default programs on Linux Mint or Ubuntu
Too many spelling or grammatical errors?
The author of this article is French and German, and obviously not a native English speaker. Any correction will be gladly accepted. Please send an email to 
29 thoughts on “How to Install Firefox on Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Debian or any other Linux distribution”
I was wanting to update Firefox on my Ubuntu Trusty (14.04). I finally came across this article and … tahdah. Now I have Firefox 83 installed and working perfectly. Thank you so much for this article. One question – can I also install the latest Thunderbird in the same manner?
And please folks, no comments like – just upgrade to the newest Ubuntu. Trusty works perfect. I have Apache installed and it works perfect also. So why should I update/upgrade to a newer version when I have perfection now. You know the old saying – If it works don’t fix it.
Thank you John! Yes, Thunderbird can be installed/upgraded the same way 🙂
Hello, I’m French.
It’s hard to me to understand English so when it’s electronic language, it’s very very hard. But I tried (even if I doesn’t understand, even while translating). And when I tried, I succeed to extract the file (yeeaah!) but I can’t move Firefox to
/opt, it says “no such file or directory” like Kurman (an other user). But how am I doing now ? I search a lot of solutions and nothing works. Netflix doesn’t want to work with my old Firefox (the 66.0.3 version). Am I going to get there someday? After Netflix, it will be some important things…Please, help me. (Once I could watch Netflix…)
Thanks for the article!
You may have to create the
/optdirectory first:sudo mkdir /optGood luck!
Note: When the default version of Firefox is upgraded by the system, the symlink
/usr/bin/firefoxis overwritten and you will either have re-create it or just lock the currently installed version in Synaptic to prevent that from happening altogether:Great article. In the case of Firefox newer is better. Every update since Quantum debuted has brought it closer to perfection. Oh, I think it may be ‘inexperienced’, rather than ‘unexperienced’. Regardless, the advice is sound.
It’s always best for newbies to practice caution. Then again, it took a few self inflicted system meltdowns to really start getting the hang of this Linux thing.
Thank you for your comment and for the correction!
If I just remove the old Firefox folder in
/opt, what about my favorites settings? Am I gonna lost it all?@Rafael: no, you won’t loose your Firefox settings. These are stored in your profile folder. On Linux, you profile folder is in your home directory, in the
.mozilla/firefoxsub-folder. You may need to show hidden files and folders (use Ctrl + H or the “View” menu) to navigate to the profile folder.If you only have one profile, its folder has “default” in the name. The complete path of the Firefox profile folder will be something like:
/home/user_name/.mozilla/firefox/random_string.defaultThis folder allows for an awful lot of flexibility, for example you can:
Is easier get it there: https://packages.debian.org/sid/amd64/firefox/download
Thank you, this is indeed useful. Installing Firefox from .deb packages is also a viable option. Keep in mind that the recommendation is the same as when installing from the tar.gz archive: “it is strongly suggested to use a package manager like aptitude or synaptic to download and install packages, instead of doing so manually via this website.”
Make friends with the terminal!
Sure, it’s been quite some time since 2015: Users must extract from the “tar” archive and use a password-enabled (root) terminal (or sudo) to perform the subsequent file actions. Simply invoking a file manager and then copying/pasting won’t work.
The reason Debian users end up here:
Note that Debian’s repository version of Firefox still is named “firefox-esr,” not simply “firefox” (Before, it was “iceweasel” – a legality, still in effect with firefox-esr): Debian proves perhaps the most conservative distro in the Linux realm. As was noted in an old saying: “They wear both a belt and suspenders!”
The problem is that institutions performing secure transactions (say, global financial corporations) – along with many still-perplexed users (who generally aren’t bare novices) – dislike legacy browser versions. Debian purists dislike the corporate bent of Mozilla’s Firefox development. (After all, it’s firefox.com, not firefox.org.)
Thank you. Simple, clear and helpful. Works for me on Linux Mint (64 Bit)
I’ve extracted the file but I can’t move it to
/opt, it says no such file or directory.Kumar, you’re probably in the wrong directory when running the
movecommand – or using the wrong file name. Using the TAB key to autocomplete the file name helps to know if you’re right: if it autocompletes the file or directory names, it’s right, else it’s wrong. Of course, listing files with thelscommand also shows if you have extracted the archive correctly.For future reference,
tar xf filewill deal with the compression without having to specify it.Pingback: Install the latest FireFox in CentOS 7 - UncleNinja
Pingback: Upgrade Firefox di Linux Mint | Catatan dan Wiki Personal
FF 45 in Mint does not open groups of tabs anymore. So that seems broken.
I went back to a former version. The repository only offered FF 28… But this one still works.
The Tab Groups (Panorama) feature has been discontinued. There are Firefox add-ons with similar features, check the official announcement from Mozilla:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tab-groups-removal
I have other problem 🙂 I unpacked firefox (did same with thunderbird), created symbolic links and everything, but still, when I run firefox or thunderbird, it said it is not default browser/email client and I can’t turn it off. It is not really functional problem, but it is reaaaaaally annoying 🙂 in preffered applications is set firefox and thunderbird (the original mint firefox and thunderbird don’t have this problem), is there any way (and I am sure there is) how to set unzipped TB and FF as default? BTW I am using common profiles for windows and for mint 17.3 in both applications. THX 🙂
I figured out something, I turned off check for default application in settings (during start of application, it ignored it 🙂 ) I hope it will work
I really do try to like Linux… but I just can’t understand why I can’t just UPDATE my firefox in one click? The version is there – why do I need to start entering commands and copying folders for something as trivial as that?
Well, in fact this tutorial is for advanced users, most of which are installing Firefox on their own on custom Linux systems. Or trying Firefox Beta/Aurora or other special versions of Firefox.
In your case you’re probably using mainstream distributions such are Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian, OpenSuse, Fedora, … The package manager of your distro will take care of updating Firefox by itself, when when the new Ffox version has been tested for compatibility with your distro, so that it doesn’t break anything. On Ubuntu or Linux Mint, for example, it takes just a few days after the official release.
Please do NOT use this guide to update Firefox by hand if you’re just a “normal” user or a Linux beginner. Just apply the normal updates (as you should always do) for your distribution and you’ll get the new Firefox version. I’ll try to make a version of this guide for beginners and normal users soon, as it seems to be really confusing. Sorry for that.
You state here, and I’ve seen in other places, that Debian-based package managers will release firefox updates “just a few days after the official release”. That has not been my experience. I run Linux Mint 17.3, and as of today (4/30/2016), my firefox from the package manager is version 42.0. The following version (43.0) was released 4.5 months ago on December 15th, and version 46.0 was released this week. What am I missing?
I also run Mint 17.3, the Firefox version is 45 and it should be updated to 46 very soon. I can’t explain why you’re stuck with an older version. I suppose you ran
sudo apt-get update? If nothing else works, I would suggest to install the newest Firefox version manually as described in this guide.Update: The update to Firefox 46 just showed up in the update manager. It took 4 days to the Linux Mint team to check and distribute the update, which is fine.
Pingback: How to install Firefox 43 on Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Fedora - Free Networking Tutorials, Free System Administration Tutorials and Free Security Tutorials
How do I upgrade the current installation with the tar.b2? I’m on Ubuntu-Mate-15.10 & it doesn’t appear to be in the /opt directory.
Ubuntu will take care of Firefox upgrades automatically, you don’t have to do it manually. It may take a few days after the official release for the Firefox upgrade to show on, because the Ubuntu folks have to test the new release with Ubuntu.
There is no Firefox install in
/optby default, as this is where admins/users are supposed to install optional software. If you did not install anything in/optmanually, nothing show up there, which is normal.Hope this helps!