FreeMind Free Mind Mapping Software Installation

Freemind is a utility available in open source version. It is mainly developed for mind mapping purpose. We will start with one node which is located in the center as the main idea. It can be developed further by adding another child nodes which contain items, data or information. Those child nodes will generally viewed as an integrated concept related with the parent node.

Freemind is written in Java and can be downloaded by the time this article is posted in 26th March 2016 in the following link.

We are going to give detail on freemind installation in Ubuntu 16.04. Basically, the installation itself involves downloading and extracting freemind and placing it in /opt directory. Below are the steps and details of installation :

1. Download freemind in the following link.

We can get freemind by downloading it without any java bundling. But we have to make sure that the prerequisite which is needed for freemind to be executed properly is available. One of the most important thing is availability of java program or java runtime environment to be more specific. Assuming that we already know the direct link to download freemind, first of all, in every UNIX or Linux Distribution which has any download utilities such as ‘wget’, we can get freemind by executing the following command :

user@hostname:~/Downloads$ wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/freemind/files/freemind/1.0.1/freemind-bin-1.0.1.zip/download
--2016-03-26 08:57:33--  https://sourceforge.net/projects/freemind/files/freemind/1.0.1/freemind-bin-1.0.1.zip/download
Resolving sourceforge.net (sourceforge.net)... 216.34.181.60
Connecting to sourceforge.net (sourceforge.net)|216.34.181.60|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/freemind/freemind/1.0.1/freemind-bin-1.0.1.zip?r=&ts=1458957454&use_mirror=iweb [following]
--2016-03-26 08:57:34--  http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/freemind/freemind/1.0.1/freemind-bin-1.0.1.zip?r=&ts=1458957454&use_mirror=iweb
Resolving downloads.sourceforge.net (downloads.sourceforge.net)... 216.34.181.59
Connecting to downloads.sourceforge.net (downloads.sourceforge.net)|216.34.181.59|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: http://iweb.dl.sourceforge.net/project/freemind/freemind/1.0.1/freemind-bin-1.0.1.zip [following]
--2016-03-26 08:57:35--  http://iweb.dl.sourceforge.net/project/freemind/freemind/1.0.1/freemind-bin-1.0.1.zip
Resolving iweb.dl.sourceforge.net (iweb.dl.sourceforge.net)... 70.38.0.134, 2607:f748:10:12::5f:2
Connecting to iweb.dl.sourceforge.net (iweb.dl.sourceforge.net)|70.38.0.134|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 28651919 (27M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘download’
download 100%[=========================================================================>]  27,32M   160KB/s   in 2m 45s
2016-03-26 09:00:20 (170 KB/s) - ‘download’ saved [28651919/28651919]
user@hostname:~/Downloads$

The available download process using wget renaming the file into ‘download’. In order to extract it, we have to rename the file again into its original name by executing the following command :

user@hostname:~/Downloads$ mv download freemind-bin-1.0.1.zip

2.Move freemind’s zip file installation to any location which you prefer is the right place to be extracted. In this context, we are using /opt as its main location of freemind files.

user@hostname:~/Downloads$ sudo su -
[sudo] password for user:
root@hostname:~# cd /home/user/Downloads
root@hostname:/home/user/Downloads# mv freemind-bin-1.0.1.zip /opt/
root@hostname:/home/user/Downloads# cd /opt
Extract the already downloaded file with the following command :
root@hostname:/opt# mkdir freemind-bin-1.0.1
root@hostname:/opt# mv freemind-bin-1.0.1.zip freemind-bin-1.0.1/
root@hostname:/opt# cd freemind-bin-1.0.1/
root@hostname:/opt/freemind-bin-1.0.1# unzip freemind-bin-1.0.1.zip
Archive:  freemind-bin-1.0.1.zip
   creating: accessories/
   creating: browser/
   creating: doc/
   creating: lib/
   creating: lib/SimplyHTML/
   creating: lib/jibx/
  inflating: FreeMind.exe
  inflating: FreeMind64.exe
  inflating: accessories/ExportToHtml.groovy
  inflating: accessories/ExportToPdf.groovy
  inflating: accessories/LICENSE.MIT
  inflating: accessories/freemind2applet.xsl
  inflating: accessories/freemind2flash.xsl
  inflating: accessories/freemind2html.css
  inflating: accessories/freemind2html.xsl
  inflating: accessories/hide.png
  inflating: accessories/ilink.png
  inflating: accessories/leaf.png
  inflating: accessories/map_location.png
  inflating: accessories/marktree.js
  inflating: accessories/masterfile.tex
  inflating: accessories/mindmanager2mm.xsl
  inflating: accessories/minus.png
  inflating: accessories/mm2csv.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2html.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2latex.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2latex_latin1_TEMPLATE.mm
  inflating: accessories/mm2latexartcl.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2latexbook.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2msp_utf8.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2msp_utf8_TEMPLATE.mm
  inflating: accessories/mm2ooimpress.manifest.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2ooimpress.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2ooimpressStyles.xml
  inflating: accessories/mm2oowriter.manifest.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2oowriter.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2oowriterStyles.xml
  inflating: accessories/mm2opml.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2text.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2tjiresources.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2tjitasks.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2tsk.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2twiki.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2twiki_headings.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2wordml_utf8.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2wordml_utf8_TEMPLATE.mm
  inflating: accessories/mm2xbel.xsl
  inflating: accessories/mm2xls_utf8.xsl
  inflating: accessories/opml2mm.xsl
  inflating: accessories/plus.png
  inflating: accessories/show.png
  inflating: accessories/tohtml.xsl
  inflating: accessories/toxhtml.xsl
  inflating: accessories/treestyles.css
  inflating: accessories/xbel2mm.xsl
  inflating: browser/freemind.mm
  inflating: browser/freemindbrowser.html
  inflating: browser/freemindbrowser.jar
  inflating: browser/freemindbrowser.xhtml
  inflating: browser/license
  inflating: dictionaries.properties
  inflating: dictionary_de.ortho
  inflating: dictionary_en.ortho
  inflating: dictionary_es.ortho
  inflating: dictionary_fr.ortho
  inflating: dictionary_nl.ortho
  inflating: dictionary_ru.ortho
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide.odt
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide.pdf
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_et.odt
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_et.pdf
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_fr.odt
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_fr.pdf
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_hr.odt
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_hr.pdf
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_it.odt
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_it.pdf
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_ja.pdf
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_ru.odt
  inflating: doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_ru.pdf
  inflating: doc/freemind.mm
  inflating: doc/freemind_da.mm
  inflating: doc/freemind_de.mm
  inflating: doc/freemind_es.mm
  inflating: doc/freemind_et.mm
  inflating: doc/freemind_fr.mm
  inflating: doc/freemind_id.mm
  inflating: doc/freemind_ja.mm
  inflating: doc/freemind_ru.mm
  inflating: doc/freemind_vi.mm
  inflating: freemind.bat
  inflating: freemind.sh
  inflating: freemindw.bat
  inflating: lib/SimplyHTML/SimplyHTML.jar
  inflating: lib/SimplyHTML/gnu-regexp-1.1.4.jar
  inflating: lib/bindings.jar
  inflating: lib/forms-1.0.5.jar
  inflating: lib/freemind.jar
  inflating: lib/jibx/jibx-run.jar
  inflating: lib/jibx/xpp3.jar
  inflating: lib/jortho.jar
  inflating: lib/serializer.jar
  inflating: lib/xalan.jar
  inflating: lib/xercesImpl.jar
  inflating: lib/xml-apis.jar
  inflating: license
  inflating: patterns.xml
root@hostname:/opt/freemind-bin-1.0.1#

3. To make sure that java has already installed in your operating system, please run the following command :

user@hostname:/opt$ java -version
java version "1.6.0"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0-b105)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 1.6.0-b105, mixed mode)
user@hostname:/opt$

And the following is my operating system which is used to install Freemind. Below is the executed command to check the operating system version :

user@hostname:/opt$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu Xenial Xerus (development branch)
Release:        16.04
Codename:       xenial
user@hostname:/opt$

4. Based on the information displayed in their sites in this link (http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download), it is stated that freemind need Java Runtime Environment 1.6 or later. So based on the information provided by executing the command in point 3 we have already fulfill the prerequisite to be able to execute freemind.

5. Before we launch freemind, first of all we have to change the owner of the already extracted freemind by typing the following command :

root@hostname:/opt/freemind-bin-1.0.1# chown -Rv user.user *
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2latexartcl.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/freemind2flash.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/tohtml.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/hide.png’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2text.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/minus.png’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2latex.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/plus.png’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2opml.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mindmanager2mm.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/marktree.js’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/LICENSE.MIT’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2csv.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/freemind2applet.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/xbel2mm.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/toxhtml.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/freemind2html.css’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/map_location.png’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2wordml_utf8.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2ooimpress.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2msp_utf8_TEMPLATE.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2xls_utf8.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2oowriter.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/show.png’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2oowriterStyles.xml’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/ExportToHtml.groovy’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2msp_utf8.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/opml2mm.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2ooimpress.manifest.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2tjiresources.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/ExportToPdf.groovy’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2xbel.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2latexbook.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2oowriter.manifest.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2ooimpressStyles.xml’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2html.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2tjitasks.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/masterfile.tex’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2twiki_headings.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/leaf.png’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2tsk.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2twiki.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/ilink.png’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/freemind2html.xsl’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/treestyles.css’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2latex_latin1_TEMPLATE.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories/mm2wordml_utf8_TEMPLATE.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘accessories’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘browser/freemindbrowser.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘browser/freemindbrowser.html’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘browser/freemindbrowser.xhtml’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘browser/freemind.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘browser/license’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘browser’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘dictionaries.properties’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘dictionary_de.ortho’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘dictionary_en.ortho’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘dictionary_es.ortho’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘dictionary_fr.ortho’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘dictionary_nl.ortho’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘dictionary_ru.ortho’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide.odt’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_et.odt’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_et.pdf’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/freemind_vi.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_hr.pdf’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_ru.pdf’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_fr.pdf’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_it.pdf’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_hr.odt’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/freemind_es.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide.pdf’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/freemind_et.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/freemind_da.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/freemind_id.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/freemind_ru.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_ja.pdf’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_fr.odt’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_it.odt’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/FM_Key_Mappings_Quick_Guide_ru.odt’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/freemind.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/freemind_de.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/freemind_fr.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc/freemind_ja.mm’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘doc’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘FreeMind64.exe’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘freemind.bat’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘freemind-bin-1.0.1.zip’ retained as user:user
changed ownership of ‘FreeMind.exe’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘freemind.sh’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘freemindw.bat’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/xml-apis.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/bindings.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/jortho.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/forms-1.0.5.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/xercesImpl.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/serializer.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/jibx/jibx-run.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/jibx/xpp3.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/jibx’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/freemind.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/SimplyHTML/gnu-regexp-1.1.4.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/SimplyHTML/SimplyHTML.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/SimplyHTML’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib/xalan.jar’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘lib’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘license’ from root:root to user:user
changed ownership of ‘patterns.xml’ from root:root to user:user
root@hostname:/opt/freemind-bin-1.0.1#

6. To launch freemind, try to execute the following command :

user@hostname:/opt/freemind-bin-1.0.1$ sh freemind.sh
Checking Java Version...
STDOUT: User patterns file /home/user/.freemind/patterns.xml not found.
STDOUT: User patterns file /home/user/.freemind/patterns.xml not found.
STDOUT: User patterns file /home/user/.freemind/patterns.xml not found.Mar 26, 2016 9:27:17 AM freemind.main.Tools waitForEventQueue
WARNING: Can't wait for event queue, if I'm inside this queue!

7. If the launch process is normal, it will display the following splash screen of freemind version 1.0.1 :

8. Since I have already installed a previous version of freemind which is 1.0.0, it will display the following pop-up message :

Click Yes to convert the old version file of FreeMind .

When the conversion process of the old file has already succeeded, freemind will display it in its canvas. But overall, this is the image of Freemind version 1.0.1 :

9. The process has already finished and we can start using freemind.