Installation of AstroImageJ on a Linux Operating System


This page will help with installing the latest version 5 of AstroImageJ on Linux operating systems. These instructions should work on any Linux distribution. They have been tested most recently with OpenSUSE Leap and Tumbleweed.

AstroImageJ Version 5 requires a new installation of the software, so if you already have installed AIJ prior to version 5, you should delete it by removing its installation directory. Your new AIJ will use your current configuration file, if one exists, and it includes the same workflow along with its new features. However, if you rename a previous installation it can co-exist with the new one. Once installed from the source here, ensure that the user who is responsible for updates has permission to write to the installation directory. With that, simply click on the AIJ toolbar's 'Help' menu to have the most recent updates. In multi-user systems such as Linux, we recommend installing the software in a directory that is owned by one user who is responsible for the updates and who has write permission, while other users may read these files. AstroImageJ does not have to be installed with root ownership.

To search for specific information, receive help from other users, or offer advice please see the AstroImageJ site

AstroImageJ wiki and forum

Follow these steps to install AstroImageJ so that it is available system wide to any user.

  1. Download the latest installation files into a convenient directory.
  2. As root user, e.g with "su" or "sudo"
  3. Continuing as root user, if you already have an AstroImageJ installed in /usr/local change it to a backup name such as AstroImageJ_old using
  4. As root user untar the archives into /usr/local/ and clean up with commands like these
  5. As root user you can check that AstroImageJ has been created in /usr/local with
  6. If you want ownership so that you alone can do the updates, then change the owner of the AstroImageJ directory to your own user name. If you leave it with root ownership, you will have to run as root to do routine updates and this is not recommended. You may assign ownership to any user and run it as another user. This change is for software maintenance.
  7. As root user go to /usr/local/bin, untar the scripts, add a convenient soft link, and clean up
  8. You may return to being a normal user now and try out AstroImageJ. Assuming /usr/local/bin is in your search path
  9. If there is a problem, try using the full path /usr/local/bin/aij to see if the software is working. The command echo $PATH will show the default path for your system. You may need to add /usr/local/bin/ if you are using a system that has only the basic software packages and is not yet set up for customization.


That's it! AIJ should now start up normally for any user on your system. After installation you should allocate the memory your users will need, and check for AstroImageJ updates. Both of these can be done at any time, and the updates will keep your installation current with bug fixes and new features. Since Linux is a multi-user system, if several users are running AIJ simultaneously each of them may need to adjust the memory and cores for their instances accordingly. Each user's instance has that user's own configuration choices.