How to Install Etherpad on Linux Mint

This tutorial will guide you through the installation process of Etherpad on Linux Mint. Etherpad is a powerful open-source collaborative editing tool that enables users to work together in real-time on texts and documents.

Prerequisites

Before installing Etherpad, you need to make sure that your system meets the following requirements:

  • You must have a Linux Mint operating system installed on your machine.
  • You must have sudo access to your system.
  • You must have Node.js and npm (node package manager) installed on your system.

Step 1: Install Node.js and npm

If you don't have Node.js and npm installed on your system, you can install them by running the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install curl
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs

You can verify that Node.js and npm are installed correctly by running the following commands:

node -v
npm -v

The output should display the version numbers of both Node.js and npm.

Step 2: Download Etherpad

You can download the latest stable version of Etherpad from the official website using the following command:

wget https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite/archive/1.8.14.tar.gz

Step 3: Extract and Configure Etherpad

To extract the downloaded file, run the following command:

tar -zxvf 1.8.14.tar.gz

This will extract the files to a directory named etherpad-lite-1.8.14. Now navigate into this directory using the following command:

cd etherpad-lite-1.8.14

Next, you need to install the required dependencies by running the following command:

bin/run.sh --setup

This command will clone the required Git repositories and install the dependencies. Once the process completes, you need to configure Etherpad using the following command:

cp settings.json.template settings.json

You can now edit the settings.json file to configure your Etherpad instance.

Step 4: Start Etherpad

To start Etherpad, run the following command:

bin/run.sh

This will start Etherpad on port 9001. You can now access Etherpad by opening your web browser and navigating to http://localhost:9001.

Conclusion

That's it! You have successfully installed Etherpad on Linux Mint. You can now use Etherpad for your collaborative editing needs.