How to Install Antigravity IDE on Ubuntu

This tutorial guides you through extracting the Antigravity IDE archive, configuring it to comply with Linux security standards, and creating an application launcher icon with the official branding.

Prerequisites

A downloaded copy of **Antigravity IDE.tar.gz.**

• An administrative user account with **sudo** privileges.
• A terminal shell open (**Ctrl + `Alt** +T`).

Step 1: Extract the Archive

If you haven’t already extracted the folder using the graphical interface, navigate to your downloads folder and unpack the archive using the terminal:

cd ~/Downloads tar -xvzf “Antigravity IDE.tar.gz”

This leaves you with a folder named **Antigravity IDE** alongside the original archive.

Step 2: Relocate the Bundle to /opt

Third-party, self-contained software packages are traditionally placed in the system’s **/opt** directory. We will move the folder there and rename it to a clean, lowercase name (antigravity) to avoid spaces in file paths.

Run the following command (enter your Ubuntu password when prompted):

sudo mv “Antigravity IDE” /opt/antigravity

Step 3: Configure Chrome Sandbox Permissions

Antigravity IDE runs on an Electron platform. Because Electron relies on web engine architectures, it uses a multi-process sandbox for security. Ubuntu requires strict system ownership over this sandbox binary (chrome-sandbox) to allow it to launch safely without crashing.

Run these two commands to update its owner to root and apply SUID execution privileges:

sudo chown root:root /opt/antigravity/chrome-sandbox sudo chmod 4755 /opt/antigravity/chrome-sandbox

Step 4: Create the Desktop Application Icon

To make the application show up natively inside your Ubuntu App Grid (when you press the Super / Windows key), you need to build a .desktop shortcut file that points to the execution file and the internal app logo.

Copy and paste this entire command block into your terminal and press Enter:

cat << ‘EOF’ > ~/.local/share/applications/antigravity-ide.desktop [Desktop Entry] Name=Antigravity IDE Comment=Antigravity Agentic IDE Exec=/opt/antigravity/antigravity-ide %U Terminal=false Type=Application Icon=/opt/antigravity/resources/app/resources/linux/code.png Categories=Development;IDE; StartupNotify=true StartupWMClass=Antigravity MimeType=x-scheme-handler/antigravity; EOF

Step 5: Refresh the Desktop Databases

To force Ubuntu to instantly recognize the new executable script and display the correct icon branding instead of a generic gray gear placeholder, register the shortcut and refresh your system’s desktop tracker:

chmod +x ~/.local/share/applications/antigravity-ide.desktop update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications

Step 6: Launching and Troubleshooting

1. Launch the IDE: Press the Super key on your keyboard, type “Antigravity”, and click the official code icon to launch your workspace.
2. If the Icon Still Shows a Gray Gear: Sometimes the GNOME desktop environment aggressively caches icon images. If the official icon isn’t displaying right away, clear the interface cache by restarting the shell environment in your terminal:

killall gnome-shell -r

(Alternatively, simply logging out of your Ubuntu user account and back in will reset the icon grid.)

3. Google OAuth Login Verification

When you click “Sign in with Google” inside the IDE, it will push a login process to your default internet browser. Ensure that your primary browser (like Google Chrome or Firefox) is set as your Default Web Browser in Ubuntu Settings so it can hand the secure connection tokens back over to the IDE seamlessly.