How to install Balsamiq Mockups on Ubuntu 13.04

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You can install Balsamiq Mockup on Linux / Ubuntu but Balasmiq don’t provide good instructions. I have no idea why they don’t spend a little time and write documentation properly. Anyhow, here is how I installed Balsamiq on my Ubuntu 13.04 laptop.

If you are looking for Instructions for installing Balsamuq Mockups for Ubuntu 13.10 – please visit this post

Step 1 – Download Adobe Air – http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/latest/AdobeAIRInstaller.bin.

wget http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/latest/AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Step 2: Make the installer excutable.

chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Step 3: Try running the installer.

sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Step 4: If your computer is 64bit then you will get this error: 

"error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

So, you will need to install the 32bit libs:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs-gtk

Step 5: Try running the installer again

sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Step 6: You might get this error: 

Sorry, an error has occurred. Adobe AIR could not be installed. Install either Gnome Keyring or KDE KWallet before installing Adobe AIR.

To fix this run the following command:

locate libgnome-keyring.so

I got (but you might get something different).

/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

You will need to pass reference to these libs when running the installer.

sudo LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

If this works for you then goto Step 7. If this doesn’t work then you could make symbolic links to the libs. For 64bit:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

For 32 bit:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

Finally – try running the installer again.

sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Then remove the symbolic links:

sudo rm /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo rm /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

Step 7 – Download Balsamiq

wget http://builds.balsamiq.com/b/mockups-desktop/MockupsForDesktop64bit.deb

Step 8 – Install Balasmiq

sudo dpkg -i MockupsForDesktop64bit.deb

Step 9 – Make a cup of tea and some mockups

32 thoughts on “How to install Balsamiq Mockups on Ubuntu 13.04”

  2. Thanks a lot, works like a charm on Xunbuntu 13.04 32bits.

    Step 7, for 32bits:

    wget http://builds.balsamiq.com/b/mockups-desktop/MockupsForDesktop32bit.deb

    There a free licence of Balsamiq available for the *Ubuntu developers* community :

    Organization name: Canonical UX
    Serial Key: eNrzzU/OLi0odswsqnFOzMvPy0xOzFEIjagxNDIxMQASBiBQ41xjaAgAQYUNaw==

    “Feel free to blog about this. We are very proud to be able to help out the open
    source community.” (source: http://www.mail-archive.com/launchpad-users@lists.launchpad.net/msg01068.html)

    FYI, there is a balsamiq free alternative runable on Ubuntu, called PENCIL: http://cheateinstein.com/category-design/pencil-better-alternative-for-balsamiq-mockups-on-ubuntu/

    Reply

    • I’m not sure I quite understand you questions. A a bmml file is the file format for Balsamiq Mockups. Just download and save the bmml files onto your computer (anywhere) and in the load Balsamiq. Then simply -> File -> Open.

      Reply

  13. I am developing WireframeSketcher wireframing tool and we pay a lot of attention to Ubuntu support. It’s a Java app with GTK UI bindings so it feels much more like a native app. It can be easily installed from the deb package or directly from Software Center. If don’t want to fiddle with AIR then consider WireframeSketcher as an alternative.

    Reply
  20. Pingback: How to install Balsamiq Mockups on Ubuntu 13.10 | Random Hacks

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