OpenCPN Open Source Chart Plotter and Ship GPS Navigation Application

OpenCPN is a free and open source chart plotter and marine GPS navigation application for Linux, Windows and MacOS. You can download pre-configured charts, create routes, track your ship and it comes with with build-in route and mark manager, collision alerting, weather routing plugin, Waypoint navigation, Autopilot output support. Currently it supports Worldwide standard S57 and encrypted S63 vector chart, BSB v3 and MBTiles chartsets. You can also extend its features via plugins.

Install OpenCPN on Ubuntu Linux

OpenCPN or Open Chart Plotter Navigation is available via Ubuntu PPA and flatpak package from flathub. You can install it via the command line terminal application. You need to install flatpak and flathub on your Ubuntu system first. After the installation restart your system. If you already have just skip the flatpak installation and directly install OpenCPN via below commands.

In terminal (ctrl+alt+t) run below OpenCPN flatpak installation command.

flatpak install flathub org.opencpn.OpenCPN

After the installation you can start the application via below command.

flatpak run org.opencpn.OpenCPN

Please note that OpenCPN does not come with charts.But it comes with built-in chart installer. You can find it on Options menu. So install charts and setup your GPS to appear your boats position on chart.

And uninstall OpenCPN via belw command.

sudo flatpak uninstall org.opencpn.OpenCPN

Install OpenCPN via PPA:

You can also install OpenCPN via Ubuntu PPA. But it may not work on most recent versions of Ubuntu. In terminal run below commands one by one to install it.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:opencpn/opencpn

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt install opencpn

That’s it.