Installing Cursor on Linux Mint

I wanted to try out Cursor so tonight I downloaded the app image. I had never installed from an app image before and it took me a few tries to get it right. This post specifically explains how to install Cursor on Linux Mint, but I assume you could use it to install from other app images.

Install Cursor on Linux Mint

1. Download the app image from the website

2. Install dependencies

   sudo apt-get install libfuse2

   Copy

3. Make it executable

   cd ~/Downloads
   chmod +x cursor-*.AppImage

   Copy

   Replace cursor-*.AppImage with the actual file name.

4. Move the executable to a permanent location

   sudo mv cursor-*.AppImage /opt/cursor.appimage

   Copy

At this point you should be able to run cursor with /opt/cursor.appimage. If not, try starting a new terminal session.

Setting up a menu option

If you want to set up an entry for this in your start menu, you can do the following.

1. Create a .desktop file

   sudo nano /usr/share/applications/cursor.desktop

   Copy

2. Add these contents

   [Desktop Entry]
   Name=Cursor
   Exec=/opt/cursor.appimage
   Icon=/opt/cursor.png
   Type=Application
   Categories=Development;

   Copy

   Save and exit with Ctrl + X then Ctrl + Y.

3. Retrieve the icon from the AppImage

   cd /opt
   sudo ./cursor.appimage --appimage-extract

   Copy

   This creates a directory squashfs-root. Grab the icon it contains with

   sudo mv squashfs-root/cursor.png .

   Copy

   But the cursor.png is a symlink to the actual icon, so you can't delete the squashfs-root directory. Another option is to copy the icon itself to the current directory.

   sudo mv squashfs-root/usr/share/icons/512x512/apps/cursor.png .

   Copy

   Then delete the squashfs-root directory.

4. Run sudo update-desktop-database.