Blender is an integrated 3d suite for modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback (games). Blender has its own particular user interface, which is implemented entirely in OpenGL and designed with speed in mind. Python bindings are available for scripting; import/export features for popular file formats like 3D Studio and Wavefront Obj are implemented as scripts by the community. Stills, animations, models for games or other third party engines and interactive content in the form of a standalone binary are common products of Blender use.
This article describes adding/removing and launching the Blender application on Debian through:
- The Official Blender website (UI based installation)
- The Debian Software Manager (UI based installation)
- From the Snap store ( command-line based installation)
We have run the commands and procedures mentioned in this article on a Debian 10 Buster system.
Install latest Blender 3D on Debian
The official Blender website provides downloadable tar.bz2 files for the latest stable and beta versions of Blender, on the following link
https://www.blender.org/download/
Click on the Download Blender link or select a specific version from the “Windows, macOS, and other versions” link. You can also be more adventurous and try a beta version if one is available on this website.
When you have selected a Blender version by clicking on it, the following dialog will appear:
Select the Save File option and click OK in order to download the tar.bz2 file on your system. The file is around 137 MB and might take some time to download, depending on your Internet speed.
Next, open the location where you have saved the file; it is mostly saved in your Downloads folder by default.
Right-click on the Blender tar.bz2 file and select Extract Here from the options. When the files are extracted into a folder by the same name, open the folder and try to locate a “blender” executable file.
Right-click the ‘blender’ file and then select Run from the options. This will run the Blender application as follows:
Every time you want to access/launch the application, you can run the Blender file from the same location.
If you ever want to remove the application from your system, installed through this method, you can simply delete the folder you extracted from the tar.gz2 file.
Install Blender 3D through the Debian Software Manager
For a person who does not want to open the Command Line much, installing a software present in the official Debian repository through the UI is very simple.
On your Debian desktop Activities toolbar/dock, click the Debian Software icon.
In the following view, click on the search icon and enter Blender in the search bar. The search results will list the Blender entry as follows:
Click the Blender package maintained from Debian Stable Main repository. The following dialog will appear:
Click the Install button to begin the installation process. The following authentication dialog will display for you to provide your authentication details as only an authorized user can install and configure software on Debian:
Enter your password and click the Authenticate button. After that, the installation process will begin, displaying a progress bar as follows.
Blender will then be installed to your system and you will get the following message after a successful installation:
Through the above dialog, you can choose to directly launch Blender and even Remove it immediately for whatever reason.
Launch Blender 3D Application
You can launch Blender through the UI any time you want by entering relevant keywords in the Application Launcher search or access it directly from the Applications list.
Remove Blender 3D
You can uninstall Blender through the Software manager by first searching for it through the Search button and then clicking the Remove button from the following view:
A dialog will ask you if you are sure about removing the software from your system. Please enter the Remove button to uninstall Blender. An authentication dialog will display for you to provide the authentication details for a sudo user as only an authorized user can install software on Debian. Enter your password and click the Authenticate button. After that, the uninstall process will begin, removing Blender from your system.
Install Blender 3D through the Debian Command Line
Open the Debian command line, the Terminal, through the Application Launcher as follows:
You can then install Blender either through the Snap store by following this method:
If you do not have the Snap utility installed on your system, you can install it by running the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install snapd
Then enter the following command in order to install Blender through Snap:
$ sudo snap install blender --classic
This will install the latest version of Blender available in the Snap store.
In case you want to remove Blender installed through this method, you can do so through the following command:
$ sudo snap remove blender
Please select any one of the methods that suit you from the ones we have presented in this article. You can then reliably work with its toolset to create and edit animated films, visual effects, 3D models, video games and much more, on your Debian.