How to Install and Setup Cursor AI Code Editor on Ubuntu

1. Go to https://www.cursor.com/

2. Click “Download for Free“

3. Save the AppImage file in Downloads which could be named as “cursor-0.42.3x86_64.AppImage“

4. Open terminal in Downloads

5. Make the AppImage executable

    $ chmod +x cursor-0.42.3x86_64.AppImage
   

6. Try running AppImage temporarily from the terminal to check if there is any issue

    $ ./cursor-0.42.3x86_64.AppImage
   

   If the Cursor AI Code Editor opens without any error or issue then we are good to go but if there are any issues like I faced in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is:

    dlopen(): error loading libfuse.so.2
   
    AppImages require FUSE to run. 
    You might still be able to extract the contents of this AppImage 
    if you run it with the --appimage-extract option. 
    See https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/wiki/FUSE 
    for more information
   

   Then install the libfuse2 library like this:

    $ sudo apt update
    $ sudo apt install libfuse2
   

   After installing the libfuse2 rerun the AppImage file like this:

    $ ./cursor-0.42.3x86_64.AppImage
   

   If the Code Editor opens without any error, we can proceed to the next step.

7. Now, extract the contents of the AppImage

    $ ./cursor-0.42.3x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract
   

   This will create a new directory squashfs-root in the same location where the AppImage is located i.e. in the Downloads folder itself.

8. Now move the AppImage and Cursor AI icon to a different stable location ~/.local/bin and we’ll create a folder inside this directory as cursor.

    $ mkdir ~/.local/bin/cursor
    $ mv cursor-0.42.3x86_64.AppImage ~/.local/bin/cursor
    $ mv squashfs-root/cursor.png ~/.local/bin/cursor
   

9. Now let’s edit the desktop launcher

    $ gedit squashfs-root/cursor.desktop
   

   Replace the existing file content with the below content and don’t forget to replace the username with your username of ubuntu which is visible in the terminal every time

    [Desktop Entry]
    Name=Cursor
    Exec=/home/username/.local/bin/cursor/cursor-0.42.3x86_64.AppImage %U
    Terminal=false
    Type=Application
    Icon=/home/username/.local/bin/cursor/cursor.png
    StartupWMClass=Cursor
    X-AppImage-Version=241016kxu9umuir
    Comment=Cursor is an AI-first coding environment.
    MimeType=x-scheme-handler/cursor;
    Categories=Utility;
   

   Save the file and close the gedit editor.

10. Now it’s time to move the desktop launcher from squashfs-root to ~/.local/share/applications to make it visible in Applications:

    $ mv squashfs-root/cursor.desktop ~/.local/share/applications
    

11. Give the cursor.desktop file executable permissions:

    $ chmod +x ~/.local/share/applications/cursor.desktop
    

12. Now remove the squashfs-root directory from Downloads

    $ rm -rf squashfs-root
    

    NOTE: Keep in mind that almost every command is run from Downloads folder/directory.

Now go build some great AI projects in Cursor AI. Happy Coding!