How to Install FME Desktop on Ubuntu Linux

FME Desktop is a great software for GIS tasks. It can handle many spatial data formats. In other words, FME Desktop is the perfect software if you want to transform or migrate from one format to another. It is very easy to use and supports Windows, Mac and Linux. FME Desktop supports almost any spatial dataset such as shapefile, Mapinfo, DWG, DXF, PostGIS, Oracle spatial, MySQL spatial and much more.

In this article, I am going to show you how to install the latest FME Desktop on Ubuntu. If you are running Ubuntu 18.04, it would be just perfect because I use this Ubuntu version on this tutorial. So, let’s get started.

Download FME Desktop for Ubuntu Linux

Navigate to this link to download the FME Desktop Free Trial version. You will need to register your email in order to download the software. Choose the Ubuntu Linux version from the download list.

Now you should have a file: fme-desktop-2018_2018.1.1.2.18586~ubuntu.18.04_amd64.deb

Install FME Desktop

Open Terminal and install gdebi first if you don’t have it already.

sudo apt install gdebi

Now use this command to install the FME Desktop

sudo gdebi fme-desktop-2018_2018.1.1.2.18586~ubuntu.18.04_amd64.deb

The installation will take sometimes and make sure you are connected to the internet. Now, you should find some entries in your Application menu.

Before we can use the program we need to enter the license number on the first run. This activation number was emailed to your email address when you download the software.