This tutorial explains how to install a package tracer on Ubuntu Linux and how to solve the problem of starting the Packet Tracer in Ubuntu. Learn how to perform an error-free installation of the package tracer.
For this tutorial, I assume that you have already downloaded the latest version of Packet Tracer for Linux. If you haven’t downloaded it, download it now from the following link.
Download the latest version of Packet Tracer
This article provides direct download links to Cisco Packet Tracer. You can download the latest and all previous versions of Packet Tracer from this page.
After downloading, open the folder containing the downloaded file. Select the downloaded file and right click. In the context menu, click on the Run option.
The installation process starts in a graphical assistant. The first screen of the wizard displays the welcome message. Click on Next button.
The next screen allows us to customize the Packet Tracer installation directory. The default location is / opt / pt. Keep the default selection and click on the Next button.
If you want to install Packet Tracer in another directory, use the leaf to navigate the file system and select the desired directory. But if you change the installation directory, be sure to use the changed directory path in the following steps.
The next screen displays the license agreement. Select the “I accept the license“and click the button Next button.
On the next screen, the installation process displays the size of the disk space that Packet Tracer will use after installation. Until this point, the installation process does not write anything to the disk. So if you want to make changes, such as changing the installation directory, use the Return and make the necessary changes.
When you are done, click on the Install button.
Any changes to system settings require superuser privileges. Enter your password to authenticate the installation.
The installation process usually takes less than a minute, but in some circumstances it may take a few minutes. You can see the progress in real time of the installation.
Once the installation is complete, the wizard displays the result of the installation on the last screen. If there is a problem during installation, the wizard displays the corresponding error message on this screen. Click it finish to close the wizard.
After installation is complete, you can start the package tracer in two ways. To start it from the application launcher, click on the Hyphen button. In the search box of the open pane, enter “packet tracer“. Click on Packet Tracer result icon.
To start Packet Tracer from a terminal, use the packet tracer order.
Fixed issue when starting Packet Tracer
If the Packet Tracer does not start from any of the above methods, use the following steps to resolve the startup problem.
Open a terminal and replace the current directory with the installation directory (/ opt / pt) of the Packet Tracer.
If the installation directory contains a post-installation script, run it.
cd /opt/pt ls sudo chmod +x postinstall.sh sudo ./postinstall.sh
Replace the current directory with the directory / opt / pt / bin and run the Packet Tracer launch file directly.
If the Packet Tracer does not start, the reason blocking the start of the Packet Tracer is displayed on the terminal.
The most common reason is as follows.
Packet Tracer uses a library named libpng12.so.0 Ubuntu. This library is obsolete in Ubuntu.
Since this library is no longer available in Ubuntu and since Packet Tracer depends on this library, the packet tracer does not start.
The following image shows the missing library error.
To solve this problem, we need to install the libpng12.so.0 library manually.
This library is available as a package in the following repository.
http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/
It is a third party repository and by default not available in Ubuntu.
To install a package from this repository, we need to add this repository to the source list of the repository.
Before adding an entry from this repository to the source list of the repository, let’s take the backup of the source list of the current repository.
Use the following commands to back up and open the existing source list file for editing.
#cp /etc/apt/ sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.bak #nano /etc/apt/sources.list
Add the following lines to the end of the file and save the file.
#Manually added a source for libpng12-0 package deb http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/ xenial main
Run the following commands to install the libpng12.so.0 library.
#apt-get update #apt-get install libpng12-0
The following image shows the above commands with output.
Now close the open terminal and open a new terminal. In the new terminal,
execute the packet tracer again to verify that the Packet Tracer starts normally.
That’s it for this tutorial. If you like this tutorial, don’t forget
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