Installing QGC

QGroundControl is a popular multi-platform ground control station software among PX4 autopilot developers. We will use it throughout the SDK documentation so it’s good to install it at this point.

Here, we will be installing QGC on an Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 machine.

Install Dependencies

me@mylaptop:~$ sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER
me@mylaptop:~$ sudo apt update
me@mylaptop:~$ sudo apt remove -y modemmanager
me@mylaptop:~$ sudo apt install -y gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-libav gstreamer1.0-gl libfuse2 libxcb-xinerama0 libxkbcommon-x11-0 libxcb-cursor0

Download the AppImage

me@mylaptop:~$ cd ~/Desktop
me@mylaptop:~/Desktop$ wget https://d176tv9ibo4jno.cloudfront.net/latest/QGroundControl-x86_64.AppImage
me@mylaptop:~/Desktop$ chmod +x QGroundControl-x86_64.AppImage

Launch

Launch QGC by right clicking on the QGroundControl-x86_64.AppImage icon on the desktop and selecting “Run as a program”.

Troubleshooting

If QGC does not launch, try running it from a terminal. This will print any debug messages it prints.

me@mylaptop:~$ cd ~/Desktop
me@mylaptop:~/Desktop$ ./QGroundControl-x86_64.AppImage