How to install Balsamiq on Ubuntu 12.10?

Question

I'm trying to install Balsamiq Mockups for Desktop on a fresh Ubuntu 12.10 install but failing.

I've installed Adobe AIR 2.6 from the Adobe archives but both Firefox (17) and Chrome (23) refuse to install Balsamiq. Firefox doesn't say anything (it just shows a clickable install button again) and Chrome gets into a loop trying to install AIR (eventhough that is installed already).

Answer 1

Balsamiq offers a direct .deb file to install Mockups on Linux. Follow these steps:

1. You still need to install Adobe AIR 2.6 from the archives.
2. Then download the .deb file of Mockups from http://www.balsamiq.com/download
3. Install GDebi using sudo apt-get install gdebi (On Ubuntu 12.10 .deb files can't be installed easily anymore. Also opening the .deb file with the Software Center doesn't work. So use GDebi, see http://askubuntu.com/a/110086/16480)
4. Then open the downloaded Mockups .deb with GDebi package installer (right click in Nautilus).
5. Click the install button in GDebi to install the .deb file normally
6. Find Balsamiq Mockups in the applications!

Answer 2

To add to Lode's answer:

You may, as I did, get an error when installing AIR:

Adobe AIR could not be installed. Install either Gnome Keyring or KDE KWallet before installing Adobe AIR.

First locate libgnome-keyring.so, type this:

david@ubuntutest:~$ locate libgnome-keyring.so
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

Now create a symbolic link to /usr/lib directory.

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

Try to install again…

After install, you can remove this symbolic link, you don’t need to use it any more.

sudo rm /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo rm /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0

Source at clarifylinux.org.