Installing RemObjects Earth on Linux

Earth is the Linux version of our Elements. It is distributed as a Flatpak bundle that is fully self-contained: it ships its own .NET runtime and a complete copy of the Elements compiler, so there is nothing else to install to start building and running Elements projects.

Earth is currently in very early internal beta.

Earth runs on any reasonably modern Linux desktop with Flatpak and a GTK 4 environment (GNOME, KDE, and most others).

Prerequisites

  • Flatpak. Most distributions ship it pre-installed. If not, install it via your package manager — on Ubuntu/Debian:
sudo apt install flatpak

(See flatpak.org/setup for other distributions.)

  • No Flathub setup needed. Earth's bundle depends on the shared GNOME runtime (downloaded once from Flathub), but the bundle carries the repository information itself — so flatpak install will offer to add Flathub and fetch the runtime automatically (see below). You don't need to run flatpak remote-add yourself.

  • The right bundle for your CPU. Earth is published as two bundles — pick the one matching your architecture:

    • RemObjects Earth ... x86_64.flatpak — Intel/AMD 64-bit
    • RemObjects Earth ... arm64.flatpak — ARM 64-bit (e.g. a Raspberry Pi, or a Linux VM on Apple Silicon)

Installing Earth

Download the .flatpak bundle for your architecture, then install it (no sudo needed — a per-user install is recommended):

flatpak install --user "/path/to/Earth.flatpack"

The first install also needs the shared GNOME runtime. If it isn't already present, flatpak locates it on Flathub (using the repository baked into the bundle), adds the Flathub remote for you if necessary, and prompts something like:

Required runtime for com.remobjects.earth … found in remote flathub. Do you want to install it? [Y/n]:

Answer y — it's a one-time download (a few hundred MB) that later updates and other Flatpak apps reuse.

Note thatif your environment is locked down so flatpak cannot add remotes on its own (or you install non-interactively with -y), you can add Flathub once beforehand:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Also Note that the bundle is a single self-contained file: the Elements compiler and .NET runtime are baked in, so Earth can compile and run projects offline, without a separate Elements or .NET installation.

Running Earth

From a terminal:

flatpak run com.remobjects.earth

Or launch it from your desktop's application launcher — open the applications overview ("Show Applications" in GNOME, the equivalent in your desktop) and search for RemObjects Earth.

Note that on some desktops a freshly-installed Flatpak app only appears in the launcher after you log out and back in once, so the desktop re-scans the installed applications.

Keeping Earth in your Dock / Favorites

Once installed, Earth registers a normal desktop entry, so you can pin it like any other app:

  • GNOME / Ubuntu: open the applications overview, find RemObjects Earth, right-click it, and choose Pin to Dash (Ubuntu) or Add to Favorites (vanilla GNOME). It will then stay in the dock/dash across restarts.
  • KDE Plasma: find Earth in the application launcher, right-click, and choose Pin to Task Manager (or drag it onto the panel).
  • Other desktops offer an equivalent "add to panel / favorites" action from the app launcher's context menu.

Building for Other Platforms

Earth can build for all Elements target platforms. Some targets need their own SDKs installed on your system, exactly as they do for Fire and Water:

  • Java JDK — required for Java and Android targets.
  • Android SDK — required for Android targets.

The .NET (Echoes) and Island-based Linux targets work out of the box with the compiler bundled in the Flatpak.

Updating and Removing Earth

  • Update to a newer bundle by installing it the same way (or flatpak update com.remobjects.earth if you distribute through a repository). No need to uninstall first.
  • Uninstall with:
flatpak uninstall com.remobjects.earth