How to Install Google Antigravity 2.0 on Ubuntu Linux

Purpose

This tutorial will guide you through the process of manually installing Google Antigravity 2.0 on Ubuntu Linux using the .tar.gz package provided by Google.

Google Antigravity 2.0 is a standalone desktop application for working with AI agents on coding and other complex tasks. Google provides Linux downloads for both x64 and ARM64 systems as compressed .tar.gz archives.

At the time this tutorial was written, I previously had Antigravity installed using Google’s APT repository. However, the version installed through APT was not Antigravity 2.0. I therefore downloaded and manually installed the Antigravity 2.0 Linux archive instead.

These instructions were developed using an Ubuntu Linux virtual machine and the x64 version of Antigravity.

Pre-Requisites

Required

An Ubuntu Linux installation with a graphical desktop environment.
An account with sudo privileges.
The appropriate Google Antigravity 2.0 Linux .tar.gz archive.
These instructions assume an x64 system. ARM64 users should download the ARM64 package instead.

Google currently lists the minimum Linux requirements as glibc >= 2.28 and glibcxx >= 3.4.25. Ubuntu 20.04 and newer are among the examples Google identifies as meeting the minimum requirements.

Steps to Install Google Antigravity 2.0

1.) Download the Linux x64 version of Google Antigravity 2.0 from Google’s Antigravity download page.

The downloaded file should be named similar to:

Antigravity.tar.gz

Google also provides a separate ARM64 download for compatible systems.

2.) Open a terminal and navigate to your Downloads directory.

cd ~/Downloads

3.) Extract the Antigravity archive.

tar -xzf Antigravity.tar.gz

The archive should create a directory named:

Antigravity-x64

4.) Test Antigravity before permanently installing it.

cd ~/Downloads/Antigravity-x64

./antigravity

Antigravity 2.0 should launch.

If the application launches correctly, close Antigravity before continuing with the installation.

5.) If an older version of Antigravity was previously installed using APT, remove it.

sudo apt remove antigravity

NOTE: This step can be skipped if Antigravity was not previously installed using APT.

6.) If you previously configured Google’s Antigravity APT repository and no longer want APT attempting to install the older package, remove the repository configuration.

sudo rm -f /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antigravity.list

Update the package database afterward.

sudo apt update

7.) Copy the extracted Antigravity 2.0 application into /opt.

Start by returning to the Downloads directory.

cd ~/Downloads

Remove an existing manual Antigravity installation from /opt if one exists.

sudo rm -rf /opt/antigravity

Copy the extracted application.

sudo cp -a Antigravity-x64 /opt/antigravity

8.) Ensure that the Antigravity executable has executable permissions.

sudo chmod +x /opt/antigravity/antigravity

9.) Create a symbolic link so that Antigravity can be started from a terminal without specifying its complete path.

sudo ln -sf /opt/antigravity/antigravity /usr/local/bin/antigravity

10.) Verify which Antigravity executable will run.

which antigravity

The result should be:

/usr/local/bin/antigravity

You can also verify the actual destination of the symbolic link.

readlink -f "$(command -v antigravity)"

The result should be:

/opt/antigravity/antigravity

11.) Start Antigravity.

antigravity

Google Antigravity 2.0 should now launch.

Add Antigravity to the Ubuntu Application Menu

1.) Create the local application directory if it does not already exist.

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications

2.) Create a desktop application file.

nano ~/.local/share/applications/antigravity.desktop

3.) Add the following content:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Antigravity
Comment=Google Antigravity
Exec=/opt/antigravity/antigravity %U
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Development;IDE;
StartupNotify=true
StartupWMClass=Antigravity
Icon=applications-development

Save and close the file.

NOTE: The Antigravity 2.0 Linux archive used while developing this tutorial did not contain an easily accessible standalone Antigravity icon. The applications-development icon uses a generic development application icon provided by the Linux desktop environment.

4.) Make the desktop file executable.

chmod +x ~/.local/share/applications/antigravity.desktop

5.) Update the desktop application database.

update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications

You should now be able to search for Antigravity from the Ubuntu application menu and launch it like other installed applications.

Updating Antigravity 2.0

Google indicates that Antigravity releases can automatically update to newer versions unless the application’s update mode is changed to manual or disabled.

If a future Linux release needs to be installed manually, the same general process can be used:

1.) Download the newer Linux .tar.gz package.

2.) Extract it.

3.) Close Antigravity.

4.) Replace the existing /opt/antigravity directory with the contents of the newer archive.

Because /usr/local/bin/antigravity and the Ubuntu desktop launcher point to /opt/antigravity/antigravity, they should not need to be recreated as long as Google retains the same executable name and application structure.

Notes

Google provides separate Antigravity 2.0 and Antigravity IDE products. Be certain that you download Antigravity 2.0 if that is the application you intend to install.

At the time this tutorial was developed, Google’s Linux installation information was somewhat confusing because an APT installation path was available while the Antigravity 2.0 download was also distributed as a .tar.gz archive. Linux users have reported similar difficulties when upgrading from earlier Antigravity releases to Antigravity 2.0.

The procedure above installs Antigravity under /opt, makes it available from the command line as antigravity, and creates an Ubuntu application-menu entry without requiring Antigravity to remain in the user’s Downloads directory.