How to Install Openscad 2015.03 on Ubuntu 18.10 And Ubuntu 18.04

As you may know, OpenSCAD is an open-source CAD application for creating solid 3D models. While it does not behave as an interactive modeller, the software reads a script file that describes the object and renders the 3D model from the script.

The latest version available is OpenSCAD 2015.03, which has been released a while ago, coming with changes.

Language Features:

• Added text() module for 2D text
• Added offset() module for 2D offsets
• Added list comprehensions and let()
• Added concat() function
• Added chr() function
• surface() can now take PNG images as input
• min() and max() can now take a vector argument
• 2D minkowski can now handle polygons with holes
• Variables can now be assigned in local blocks without using assign()

Program Features:

• Added Toolbar icons
• New code editor based on QScintilla
• Added Splash screen
• Added SVG export
• Added AMF export
• Added –viewall and –autocenter cmd-line parameters
• GUI is now translated into German, Czech, Spanish, French and Russian
• MDI (Multiple Document Interface) is now available on all platforms
• Color schemes for viewer and editor can be user-edited using JSON files
• GUI components are now dockable
• Added Tickmarks on axes

Bugfixes/improvements:

• Performance improvement: 2D (clipper), preview, hull, minkowski, surface
• Performance improvement: Reduce duplicate evaluation of identical expressions
• Better recursion behavior
• STL export and import is now more robust
• Internal cavities are better supported
• New examples
• Better mirror() and scale() behavior when using negative factors

Deprecations:

• polyhedron() now takes a faces= argument rather than triangles=
• assign() is no longer needed. Local variables can be created in any scope

Installation instructions:

Due to the fact that OpenSCAD is not available via any PPA for Ubuntu 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish, you need to download the openscad package and to install it via the package manager. I prefer gdebi over dpkg due to the fact that it also handles dependencies. Follow the instructions matching your operating system exactly.

Instructions for 32 bit Ubuntu systems:

$ sudo apt-get install gdebi-core
$ wget ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/o/openscad/openscad-testing_2015.03-2+dfsg-2+b4_i386.deb
$ sudo gdebi openscad*.deb

Instructions for 64 bit Ubuntu systems:

$ sudo apt-get install gdebi-core
$ wget ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/o/openscad/openscad-testing_2015.03-2+dfsg-2+b4_arm64.deb
$ sudo gdebi openscad*.deb

For Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver, Linux Mint 19.x, Elementary OS 0.5 Juno and other Ubuntu derivative systems, you can install the software via PPA. You have to add the PPA, update the repo index and install the openscad package:

$ sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:openscad/releases
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install openscad

Optional, to remove openscad, do:

$ sudo apt remove openscad