# Upgrading from 24 -\> 25 on Linux

**URL:** <https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/upgrading-from-24-25-on-linux/66986>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [October 12, 2025, 11:53am UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/upgrading-from-24-25-on-linux/66986 "2025-10-12T11:53:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Toni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8797f3/32.png) [@Toni](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/Toni)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2025, 11:53am UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/upgrading-from-24-25-on-linux/66986/1 "2025-10-12T11:53:54Z")

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Today, I wanted to upgrade my Anki version on my Debian 12.x machine from 24.x to 25.latest. So I downloaded the latest 25 tarball, anki-launcher-25.09-linux.tar.zst. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the program itself, but just a set of programs, most notably the launcher, which then greeted me with a menu, including “1) Latest Anki”. When I try to use that, it fails in a number of ways:

```auto
Anki Launcher

1) Latest Anki (press Enter)
2) Choose a version

5) Allow betas: off
6) Cache downloads: on
7) Download mirror: off

8) Uninstall
> 1

Checking for updates...
Unable to check for Anki versions. Please check your internet connection.

Error: Failed to run (1): /.../share/anki/uv.amd64 run --no-project --no-config --managed-python --with pip-system-certs,requests[socks] --python 3.13.5 /.../share/anki/versions.py: Fatal Python error: Failed to import encodings module
Python runtime state: core initialized
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'encodings'

Current thread 0x00007f027e759740 (most recent call first):
  <no Python frame>

Press enter to close...

```

I have a number of problems with this:

1. I have `uv` already, so I would prefer to use that.
2. ‘uv’ obviously wants a virtualenv, which it doesn’t create, or install system-wide, which I don’t want.
3. It’s trying to download a new Python from [python.org](http://python.org), which somehow (thankfully) fails, instead of using my system Python 3.11.2, which, according to the documentation, should work.
4. Trying to run `uv` with different options to force it to use the system python did not work, either.
5. And, last but not least, of course I’m online - this is the same machine I’m writing this bug report on, so checking for new Anki releases fails (see above).

In summary, Anki 25 does not get installed.

Where do I go from here, please?

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**Author:** ![tatsumoto](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/tatsumoto/32/5411_2.png) [@tatsumoto](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/tatsumoto)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2025, 9:16pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/upgrading-from-24-25-on-linux/66986/2 "2025-10-13T21:16:22Z")

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> [@Toni](#):
>
> Where do I go from here, please?

Have you tried pipx? See [Setting up Anki](https://tatsumoto.neocities.org/blog/setting-up-anki#installation)

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/anki2/original/1X/8f1279ababc5879d54e4838989f606cfe55af8c7.jpeg) [@system](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/system)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 9:16pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/upgrading-from-24-25-on-linux/66986/3 "2025-11-12T21:16:23Z")

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