The guide walks users through installing the distraction free writing app novelWriter on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, covering everything from prerequisites to launch. It stresses having a sudo enabled account, internet access and patience because missing libraries like libqt5core5a can break the app. The tutorial shows how to fetch the latest .deb from GitHub with curl, install it via dpkg, and resolve any dependencies with apt get. Finally users learn to verify the version, optionally automate updates through a small script, and launch the program to start writing without encountering common snags.

Installing novelWriter on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS – Get Your Writing Workflow Ready

If you’ve been waiting for a distraction‑free writing environment and finally decided to give novelWriter a spin, this article shows you how to get it up and running on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS without tripping over missing dependencies or broken snaps.

Prerequisites

Before we dig in, make sure you’ve got the basics covered:

• A user account with sudo privileges (so you can install packages).
• An active internet connection to pull the latest release.
• A little patience—novelWriter is lightweight, but it pulls a few libraries that need to be present.

Why bother? Because if you skip this step and try installing directly from the archive, you’ll end up with missing icons or an app that crashes on launch. Trust me, I’ve seen folks lose their draft after a quick upgrade when they forgot to install libqt5core5a.

Download the .deb Package

novelWriter’s maintainers ship a clean Debian package on GitHub. Grab it with curl:

curl -L https://github.com/johnboiles/novelwriter/releases/latest/download/novelwriter_4.1.3-1_all.deb \
     -o novelwriter_latest.deb

Using the -L flag follows redirects, so you always hit the latest release even if GitHub changes the URL structure. Naming the file novelwriter_latest.deb keeps things tidy and reminds you that it’s not a system package.

Install the Package

Now that you have the .deb file, install it with dpkg:

sudo dpkg -i novelwriter_latest.deb

If you see errors about missing dependencies, run the fix‑all command:

sudo apt-get install -f

Why this step is important: dpkg will let the package through but won’t resolve dependencies automatically. The -f flag tells APT to fetch any missing pieces—otherwise you’ll end up with a broken install that opens a black screen.

Verify Installation

Open a terminal and type:

novelwriter --version

You should see something like:

novelWriter version 4.1.3, revision 12345 (2023‑09‑01)

If the command isn’t found, double‑check that /usr/bin/ is in your PATH and that you didn’t misspell anything during installation.

Optional: Keep It Fresh with GitHub Releases

novelWriter releases new features roughly every few months. Instead of manually downloading each time, set up a tiny script:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
LATEST=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/johnboiles/novelwriter/releases/latest | grep tag_name | cut -d '"' -f 4)
URL="https://github.com/johnboiles/novelwriter/releases/download/${LATEST}/novelwriter_${LATEST#v}_all.deb"
wget $URL -O novelwriter_latest.deb
sudo dpkg -i novelwriter_latest.deb || sudo apt-get install -f

Add it to your crontab if you want daily checks, but honestly a monthly run is plenty.

Launch and Get Writing

You can start novelWriter from the Activities overview or run:

novelwriter

The first launch will create a fresh configuration directory in ~/.config/NovelWriter. From there you can import your existing outlines, set up your manuscript structure, and finally stop scrolling through WordPress posts to get back to the craft.

That’s it—no more snappy “novelWriter not found” errors, no extra snap stores cluttering your system.