Installation and configuration

TuxGuitar currently runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD and Android. Depending on your operating system, TuxGuitar is installed in different ways.

Installation methods and locations

On Linux, we suggest to install TuxGuitar from the software center of your distribution. This way, you don't have to worry about your hardware architecture (e.g. amd64 for an avarage PC or arm64 for a Raspberry Pi) or the package format (DEB, RPM, Flatpak, Snap etc.). Also, TuxGuitar will be updated more or less automatically as soon as a new version appears in the distribution repository (the Linux "app store").

Please note that most Linux distributions do not ship TuxGitar with the original soundbank "Magic Sound Font 2.0" due to its unclear license. Debian, for example, uses the "Fluid General MIDI Sound Font" from the fluid-soundfont-gm package, which makes TuxGuitar sound slightly different. If you prefer to use the original soundfont, you can extract the file MagicSFver2.sf2 from the original TuxGuitar packages or download it from the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/download/free-soundfonts-sf2-2019-04/. There you also find other soundbanks that can be loaded with TuxGuitar.

In case your Linux distribution does not provide an up-to-date version of TuxGuitar, or if you want to try the latest development version, you can use the packages from the TuxGuitar website.

On Windows, macOS, FreeBSD and Android, TuxGuitar is currently not available in any app store, so you will need to download and install it manually from the website.

The following packages are available from https://www.tuxguitar.app/:

Operating System	Installation file	Default installation path ($TG_DIR)	Description
Linux (DEB based)	tuxguitar-version-linux-swt-amd64.deb	/opt/tuxguitar/	Installation package for Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint and others
Linux (RPM based)	tuxguitar-version_linux-swt.x86_64.rpm	/opt/tuxguitar/	Installation package for Fedora, SUSE and others
Linux (all versions)	tuxguitar-version-linux-swt-amd64.tar.gz	tuxguitar-version-linux-swt-amd64/	Portable version that should work on almost all Linux distributions
Windows	tuxguitar-version-windows-swt-x86_64-installer.exe	C:/Program Files/tuxguitar/	Installation package
Windows	tuxguitar-version-windows-swt-x86_64.zip	tuxguitar-version-windows-swt-x86_64/	Portable version - extract the ZIP archive wherever you like
macOS	tuxguitar-version-macosx-swt-cocoa-x86_64.app.tar.gz	tuxguitar-version-macosx-swt-cocoa-x86_64.app/Contents/MacOS/	Portable version - extract the TAR GZ archive wherever you like
FreeBSD	tuxguitar-version-freebsd-swt-amd64.tar.gz	tuxguitar-version-freebsd-swt-amd64/	Portable version - extract the TAR GZ archive wherever you like
Android	tuxguitar-android-version-release-signed.apk	-	APK package for Sideloading

We currently only provide installation packages for Intel/AMD systems. This is the most popular desktop platform for Windows and FreeBSD. On macOS, you can also use the x86_64 packages on the new Apple silicon hardware (M1/M2/...).

Depending on the package used, TuxGuitar will be installed in the installation path $TG_DIR listed in the table above. Among others, $TG_DIR contains the following files and directories:

dist/: Information files, default TuxGuitar configuration files
doc/: Documentation for developers and contributors
share/: This directory has the following subdirectories:

help/: Here you will find the help files that you normally access via the Help → Documentation menu item. The files are standard HTML files you can open in any web browser.
lang/: This directory contains the translation files for all languages supported by TuxGuitar. If you want to improve a translation, simply edit the corresponding language file in a text editor and enter the translated message after the = sign. Then please send us your updated translation to info@tuxguitar.app and we will include your changes in the next TuxGuitar release!
skins/: The TuxGuitar skins are located in this folder.
scales/, templates/, tunings/: The default scales/templates/tunings of TuxGuitar. If you know what you are doing, you can edit the XML files with a text editor. The templates are normal TuxGuitar files that you can open with TuxGuitar itself.
plugins/: This directory contains the plugins for TuxGuitar you can enable or disable in the Tools → Plugins dialog.
soundfont/: Contains the default TuxGuitar soundbank "Magic Sound Font 2.0".
applications/, metainfo/, mime/, man/, pixmaps/: Information about TuxGuitar that is mainly used by the OS (icons, file associations, metadata)

jre/: This is the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) needed to run TuxGuitar. This folder is only present on Windows and macOS, as Linux and FreeBSD can use the JRE provided by the OS.
lib/, lv2-client/: The TuxGuitar libraries, essentially the main program and a command for the LV2 plugin. Better not touch them.
tuxguitar.sh, tuxguitar.exe/tuxguitar.bat: Start commands for Java and TuxGuitar

Configuration files

The configuration files for TuxGuitar are stored in subdirectories below your user home directory ($HOME). The path within your home directory depends on the operating system:

Linux, FreeBSD: $HOME/.config/tuxguitar/
Windows: $HOME/AppData/Roaming/tuxguitar/
macOS: $HOME/Library/Application Support/tuxguitar/

Most of these settings are changed in the TuxGuitar menus, but some unusual settings can only be modified manually by editing the corresponding configuration file.

config/history.properties: Contains the recently opened tab files
config/plugins/tuxguitar-plugin.cfg: Configuration files of the plugins
config/templates/user-template.tg: The tab template you selected in the File → Set custom template menu item.
config/tunings.xml: The custom tunings you can create in the Tuning settings, reachable over the Track → Properties dialog box.
config/tuxguitar.cfg: The main TuxGuitar configuration file
config/tuxguitar-plugin-settings.cfg: Here the plugins are enabled or disabled.
log/tuxguitar.log: In this file you may find some debugging information if you have enabled the Debug helper plugin.

Be sure to exit TuxGuitar before changing these files. If you have problems with your manual changes, you can delete the correspondig configuration file. TuxGuitar will recreate it with the default settings when it starts. Of course, you then loose all your previously saved settings.