If you use Linux and take the Cisco “Introduction to Packet Tracer” course, you’ll need to install the Packet Tracer application on your computer. The trouble is, Cisco doesn’t do a great job teaching users how to get the app working. In this guide, we’ll show you how to set up How to install Cisco Packet Tracer on Linux.
Enroll in the “Introduction to Packet Tracer” course
To download the Cisco Packet Tracer app on your Linux system, you’ll first need to enroll in the “Introduction to Packet Tracer” course. Sadly, there is no other way to make the download available. However, the good news is that the course is entirely free.
To enroll in the course, start by heading over to the “Introduction to Packet Tracer” course page. Once on the page, locate the “Sign up today!” button, and click on it with the mouse.
When you select the “Sign up today!” button with the mouse, a form will appear on the screen. In this form, fill out your email, first and last name, communication preferences, etc.
After filling out the form, scroll to the bottom of the page. On the bottom of the page, find the “Submit” button and click on it with the mouse to submit it to Cisco.
Create an account
So, you’ve signed up for the “Introduction to Packet Tracer” course. Next, you must create a Cisco account. To do this, fill out your email, first and last name, country or region, etc. You’ll also need to create a password.
Once you’ve filled out the account information into the page, you must solve the Captcha. Look at the image and fill out the Captcha.
After filling out the Captcha on the page, you’ll need to tell Cisco if you’d like to receive email updates. Select “yes” or “no” depending on your preferences.
When all information on the account creation page is complete, select the “Register” button.
Verify your email
Now that you’ve created a Cisco account, you must verify your email account. To verify your email account, log into your email, locate the message and copy the verification code to your clipboard.
After copying the verification code to your clipboard, press Ctrl + V on the keyboard to paste it into the text box, then select the “Verify” button to confirm the code.
Configure your profile
You’ll need to configure your Cisco profile after creation. To configure your profile, fill out the forms on the Cisco welcome page. Filling out this page will not take long.
Once all of the forms on the profile page are filled out, press the Create Account button at the page’s bottom.
Downloading Packet Tracer
You must download Packet Tracer on your Linux PC before it can be installed. To download Packet Tracer on Linux, head to your Cisco “I’m Learning” page.
Once on the page, scroll to the bottom, locate “Packet Tracer” under the “Resources” section, and click on it. After selecting the “Packet Tracer” link, you’ll be taken to the download page.
On the “Packet Tracer” download page, scroll to the bottom and locate the “Download” section. Then, click on “64 Bit Download” under the “Linux Desktop Version 8.0 English” section.
When you click on the download link under “Linux Desktop Version 8.0 English,” a DEB package will download to your Linux PC. When it is complete, open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T on the keyboard to open up a terminal window, then follow the installation instructions in the next section.
Installing Packet Tracer on Linux
Packet Tracer is installable on Ubuntu Linux, Debian Linux, and any operating system based on Ubuntu or Debian. Additionally, it is installable on Arch Linux and Manjaro Linux via the AUR.
Ubuntu
To install Packet Tracer on Ubuntu, start by using the CD command and move into the “Downloads” directory where the DEB package was downloaded.
cd ~/Downloads
Once inside the “Downloads” folder, you can install the Packet Tracer application on your Ubuntu Linux PC by using the apt command below.
sudo apt install ./PacketTracer_*_final.deb
Debian
On Debian Linux, you will be able to install Packet Tracer the same way Ubuntu users do. To start the installation, use the CD command to move into the “Downloads” directory where the DEB package is.
cd ~/Downloads
Inside of the “Downloads” directory, execute the dpkg command to install the Packet Tracer DEB package on Debian.
sudo dpkg -i PacketTracer_*_final.deb
After installing the Packet Tracer application, you may need to correct some dependency issues. To do that, enter the command below.
sudo apt-get install -f
Arch Linux/Manjaro
On Arch Linux as well as Manjaro, it is possible to install Packet Tracer using the AUR. To start, ensure you’ve downloaded the Packet Tracer DEB package. Then, use the commands below to install the “git” and “base-devel” packages.
sudo pacman -S git base-devel
After installing the two packages, use the git clone command to manually download the Packet Tracer AUR package.
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/packettracer.git
Once the “packettracer” AUR package is done downloading, open up the Linux file manager, browse for the Packet Tracer DEB package and place it in the “packettracer” folder in your home directory. Then, use the commands below to install the app.
cd ~/packettracer makepkg -sri
