I just managed to install Anki 2.1.49 on my chromebook.
To log in, I read it have to click the sync button and indeed a login window pops up.
Now it reads:
Your Anki client does not support the new timezone handling yet. Please switch to the legacy handling in the computer version’s Preferences screen.
There’s no such thing in the Preferences screen in 2.1.49
In reddit, David writes “I’ve implemented it and it’s in 2.15 alpha.” But that seems to be for ankidroid smartphones not on linux.
Any more ideas? 
Thy
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doesn’t that command just install the package (I downloaded from the anki download page) that’s in my download folder?
No. As I have explained in the other thread, that command downloads an unofficial package from some other repository.
To install the official package, you have to follow the instructions here: Install & Upgrade - Anki Manual
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I followed those instructions and copy-pasted this:
tar xjf Downloads/anki-2.1.49-linux.tar.bz2
and this is the error I get: cf screenshot
I understand it didn’t want to change the tar from the download folder to the linux folder, so I did that manually and entered that last line of code in the terminal:
sudo ./install.sh
and then get another error cf screenshot
Thy
using the linux vm on a chromebook and using the terminal is some pretty advanced stuff imo. Especially on the terminal you need some very basic skills then you can achieve a lot by just googling the error messages you get.
executing install.sh can’t work because the file is not in the folder. It’s not in the folder because unpacking the compressed anki file didn’t work in the prior command - the tar command gave you an error. You are working with relative paths so it’s important that your current working dir is the right one:
when using the terminal in linux you must know:
echo $PWD - shows your current working dir
ls -al - shows all files and dirs and their properties in the current directory
cd dir to change to dir
cd … go one level up.
if anki.tar.bz2 is in your current folder you may not prepend with the folder Downloads/.
as far as i know chromebooks miss some useful software that you can get from the bundled debian linux distro. I’m pretty sure that there’ll be situations with other software than anki where dealing with the command line will make your life much easier so it might be a good time investment to learn a few things about the cli in linux. For linux googling error messages often leads you to useful stackexchange answers (whereas googling windows error messages often leads you to fake support forums that try to sell you some cleaner software …).
offtopic background: you’ve heard a lot about repositories and that it’s not a good idea to install anki from the debian repo. Think of the debian repostories as some form of “debian app store”. in linux you often use the terminal/shell/commandline instead of using a mouse. To interact with this “store” in the linux distro bundled with your chromebook you use the command “apt”. In Linux for over 20 years the main way to install software is to download it from these repos.
the problem is that anki is very dated in virtually all distro repositories that’s why you need this manual approach.
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using the linux vm on a chromebook and using the terminal is some pretty advanced stuff imo.
Ah? I’ve just googled how to remove a program in linux and got this key combination:
press “Ctrl + Alt + T” to open a Terminal window.
that opens
“Welcome to crosh, the Chrome developer shell”
and that is different from Terminal
crosh doesn’t understand eg the command
dpkg -- list
which the Terminal does understand.
Especially on the terminal you need some very basic skills then you can achieve a lot by just googling the error messages you get.
yes-that’s what I’m doing
executing install.sh can’t work because the file is not in the folder. It’s not in the folder because unpacking the compressed anki file didn’t work in the prior command - the tar command gave you an error. You are working with relative paths so it’s important that your current working dir is the right one:
when using the terminal in linux you must know:
echo $PWD - shows your current working dir
ls -al - shows all files and dirs and their properties in the current directory
cd dir to change to dir
cd … go one level up.
Ah yes. Thy. I’m going to remember these shortcuts. Indeed there is no Downloads folder nor a Linux files folder. So what the chromebook’s ‘Files’ program shows is not to be found in the Linux terminal.
cf the screenshot - indeed there is an anki 2.1.15+dfsg-3
yet the tar I downloaded is
tar xjf Downloads/anki-2.1.49-linux.tar.bz2
I see it using the chrome programm 'Files"
but I don’t see the folder downloads nor Linux files nor the tar anywhere using that command ls -al
how is that possible?
if anki.tar.bz2 is in your current folder you may not prepend with the folder Downloads/.
Ah yes it is as you can see again in the above screenshot.
Let me try that command
sudo ./install.sh
ah… bummer doesn’t install that anki tar
dpkg -i anki-2.1.49-linux.tar.bz2
returns dpkg: error: requested operation requires superuser privilege
pffff
as far as i know chromebooks miss some useful software that you can get from the bundled debian linux distro. I’m pretty sure that there’ll be situations with other software than anki where dealing with the command line will make your life much easier so it might be a good time investment to learn a few things about the cli in linux. For linux googling error messages often leads you to useful stackexchange answers (whereas googling windows error messages often leads you to fake support forums that try to sell you some cleaner software …).
ah ok thy
offtopic background: you’ve heard a lot about repositories and that it’s not a good idea to install anki from the debian repo. Think of the debian repostories as some form of “debian app store”. in linux you often use the terminal/shell/commandline instead of using a mouse. To interact with this “store” in the linux distro bundled with your chromebook you use the command “apt”. In Linux for over 20 years the main way to install software is to download it from these repos.
the problem is that anki is very dated in virtually all distro repositories that’s why you need this manual approach.
ok thy
Jeeee man 
What a rabbit hole Well any guidance is appreciated
on the command line in win, linux, mac when you enter a directory or file name that has spaces like Linux files you must surround them with quotes like this cd "Linux files".
with ls -al you show all contents of a folder. If there’s no Audio folder shown it makes no sense to try to change to a directory subfolder named “Audio” with cd Audio.
In your case. I would do cd .. multiple times to go to an upper level of your file hierarchy. Then I’d search for files with the name “anki”. if you google find file in linux you should get something like find . -type f -iname '*anki*'. The point after find means that find should work on your current working dir and in subfolders. So if you are in a subfolder parents will not be searched. That’s why some prior cd .. should help. Though when you are too far up, you might get error messages about missing permissions.
Also most file systems in unix land (except for MacOS) are case sensitive. So searching for anki won’t help you if the file is named Anki. There are workarounds like telling the find command to do an case-insensitive search with -iname. Having case-sensitive file systems sounds dumb for an end-user but it makes sense to not break a 40 year history etc.
Did I mention that command line basics help? It’s not black magic, it you’re a bit older it’s just like using DOS (just much easier). it often helps to type something like find --help or for extensive docs to type man find.
Chromebooks are fundamentally locked down and not about user freedom. That’s good in many cases because it’s much harder to install a virus by accident and just use them as a non-technical user. But it means that it’s more complicated under the hood. If you want something bore than basic stuff or something unusual there’s a steep learning curve.
As far as I understand the linux part is isolated partially. So when you open a command line input window Crosh/chrome shell this might not have direct access to your linux files and linux programs might not have full access to your chrome files …
“dpkg” won’t help you. dpkg is a program to manage programs that you have or installed from a special file type (as far as I know you only use it to manage .deb files). You want a recent anki version and that is distributed in the tar format which won’t be handled by dpkg. You have the same problems in MS Windows: Software can come as .exe, .msi, .msix, … and there are different tools to manage them …
So if dpkg shows you an anki version you know that you have the wrong one - and indeed it shows you the very, very dated version 2.1.15 from the debian repo(“app store” equivalent).
many people don’t have a very precise use of the terms “shell” or “terminal” or “command line interface” and sometimes software creator’s (like google - the creator of chromeos) use a generic terms to refer to a specific program they make. That might sound complicated but it’s common: E.g. on your iphone you have an apple program called “calendar”. But there are also other programs that are calender apps …
btw: I assume your chromebook uses intel or amd cpus otherwise the version you donwloaded shouldn’t run because each cpu architecture needs their own binaries. It’s the same on MacOS: you can’t just install an ios app onto your intel-mac.
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another point: when you want to remove a program you must know how you installed it:
- installed from the debian repo → use apt
- installed a .deb manually with dpkg → use dpkg to uninstall
- installed manually by using a custom install script (
sudo install.sh) → you must manually uninstall it, some people who provide install.sh scripts also provice uninstall.sh scripts …
That’s the same in windows: If you manually copy files into the C:\Program Files you can’t remove these files from the windows settings. And when you google “uninstall software in Windows” no one will tell you that you have to remove manually installed files manually …
If you wonder why the anki creator didn’t just create packages for the linux repos: Linux is about freedom and there’s not one “linux repo” but there are at least 5-10 relevant ones in different versions. This would be a lot of work for just 2% of your users … The linux community has thought a lot about this problem and a new distro-independent approach that may or may not succeed in the long run is to use so-called flatpaks which may or may not make life easier on chromebooks …
My prior post was unclear: dpkg/apt don’t help you to get the most recent anki version installed, but to remove the old wanted 2.1.15 you must use them. If you ran “sudo apt install anki” to install the old anki version I’d remove it with “sudo apt remove anki” ( though this actually doesn’t remove everything, see command line - What is the correct way to completely remove an application? - Ask Ubuntu . But these are details).
Thx
I did everything you wrote and found where my anki tar is:
./home/svenaerts228/anki-2.1.49-linux.tar.bz2
I changed drive and I am now in ./home/svenaerts228
Yaaaaaaaah I googled some more and I have anki-2.1.49 running and synched !
Thy all people
But that is not something a normal person can figure out.
Don’t we have to document what we did for other chromebook users?
When I go back to Install & Upgrade - Anki Manual
and read the instructions:
tar xjf Downloads/anki-2.1.XX-linux.tar.bz2
cd anki-2.1.XX-linux
sudo ./install.sh
that is what I’ve done indeed. Why did it take me so long?
Because I was not in the right folder and couldn’t see that. There is no Downloads folder.
I followed your instructions and did cd .. multiple times to go to an upper level of your file hierarchy. Then I’d search for files with the name “anki”, using the commando
find . -type f -iname '*anki*' .
then cd to the folder name (as per install instructions on the anki manual etc).
Hope this will help someone else with a chromebook.
What a strange anki logo: it doesn’t have the typical blue tilted star. Is that normal?
The AnkiDroid logo is if I would use my chromebook as a huge smartphone …
Glad you figured it out!
True, that seems like someone has mistaken Anki for something else.
It’s quite normal for Linux distros to offer their own icons for the most popular applications, though.
You did not. Actually Install & Upgrade - Anki Manual tells you as step one to download the file to the download folder which you did not do.
I’m not saying it’s your fault. It’s just that I guess it’s hard to write an easy to follow documentation when it comes to the commad line for people who have never used it. In step 2 another sentence could be included like “Assuming you have downloaded the file to your Downloads folder in your home directory and assuming your current working directory is your home directory then type the following commands” sounds horrible.
If you know a little bit about the command line the anki manual is perfectly clear …
chromebooks with the ability to run a downloaded anki are probaby still rare. Older chromebooks don’t support it, ARM chromebooks don’t support it, Chromebooks with restrictive school or company policies don’t support, if your intel/amd chromebook is too cheap/weak it should be a horrible experience. so maybe you don’t want to have section chromebooks in your manual because then people might get the wrong idea that it always works on all recent chromebooks?
Damien is open to improving the documentation. I recently proposed adding two sentences to the FAQs and they were merged in about 48 hours. So maybe you have a good idea for a brief but better formulation that other people like in this thread?
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I feel like I’m still learning too much.
Thy
Hi new to linux. So, this is a from my new chromebook;
in the background you see I’m on the Anki manual and copy the install code
black box= terminal with code pasted into
left of the black box you see the file manger showing the correct name of the tar has been used
… so why is anki not working?
Ah: it returns
tar (child): Downloads/anki-2.1.49-linux.tar.bz2: Cannot open: No such file or directory
I tried just double clicking the tar. But that’s not helping either. Then it sais the extention doesn’t have .apkg or .colpkg
Thy
What you’ve downloaded here is the packaged build for Linux.
I have no experience with Chrome OS, but I assume you want to install the Android app, since you’ve posted this in the AnkiDroid category. If that’s the case, download it from the Google Play Store.
If you really want Anki Desktop
In that case, you’ll need to adjust the path to the .tar.bz2 package in your commands. I can see it’s not actually located in the “Downloads” folder, but in “Linux Files”.
Perhaps your OS allows you to open a terminal within the folder via a right-click context menu entry. Then you’d be in the correct location automatically - which means you can just use the file name directly.
Hi K,
thy for guiding me.
- Yes, I really want to install anki desktop in linux on my chromebook that came with a 128GB SSD. It’s made to run both linux and the google operating system.
- that tar is both in the downloads folder as in the linux folder so I don’t understand why the command returns an error, do you :
Thx
ah it’s installing:
I just entered in the terminal:
sudo apt install anki
This command has installed a third-party packaged version of Anki via your system’s package manager (Advanced Packaging Tool by Debian), which might or might not come with bugs and visual glitches.
You haven’t actually installed the package you downloaded from anki’s website.
It seems like the path to the downloads folder is a bit different on ChromeBooks - you might even have to enable access beforehand:
I recommend to familiarize yourself with terminal navigation and your OS, and then try to cd to the directory that contains the official package. The commands should work as long as your terminal got access to the folder and it’s the correct path.
(I mean, you can just copy the file somewhere you know the path to and install it from there.)
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