Ade Malsasa Akbar contact
Senior author, Open Source enthusiast.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015 at 11:32

Light Table is an open source integrated development environment. Light Table support Clojure, ClojureScript, Python, HTML, JavaScript, CSS and it is extensible via plugin for another language. Light Table is available for 32 dan 64 bit Linux. I will show how to install it in Ubuntu 15.04 then create menu icon and Launcher in Unity desktop.



Download Light Table Package



Obtain Light Table installer for Linux in
I am using 32 bit machine, so I choose the 32 bit one. Download it to your Downloads folder.

Extract Light Table Package



  1. Open Terminal. Currently, your Terminal is in $HOME directory. You should go to $HOME/Downloads directory. 
  2. Type command: cd Downloads
  3. Type command: ls
  4. After ls command, you should see the file name LightTableLinux.tar.gz or LightTableLinux64.tar.gz.
  5. Extract that package by command: tar xvfz LightTableLinux.tar.gz
  6. Or, just type tar xfvz Li then press Tab button so Terminal will automatically complete the name.
  7. After extracting, type command ls again. You will see a directory named LightTable along with the package. You should enter that directory. 
  8. Type command: cd LightTable
  9. Now you are in LightTable directory. Type command: ls
  10. You should see a file named LightTable. That is the program. 
  11. Run the program by command: ./LightTable


Create Light Table Menu



Now you realized that Light Table package actually doesn't install Light Table on your system. It is similar to Windows' portable program. You can make Light Table appears in Ubuntu menu along with another programs by using Alacarte. If you don't have Alacarte yet, install it first.

  1. Open Alacarte. 
  2. Click on Programming entry in left panel.
  3. In the right panel, click New Item button. 
  4. The most important thing, type in Command text box the path into your LightTable executable file. For example, mine is /home/ubuntu/Downloads/LightTable/LightTable. If your username is daddy, then yours is /home/daddy/Downloads/LightTable/LightTable.
  5. Then give it a name. You can give it icon too. Download from the internet instead.
  6. Then close the Alacarte.
  7. Now look at your Ubuntu menu. Look for Light Table. It is now same with another applications. 

Create a Launcher



Now you probably want Light Table to dock on your Launcher (the Ubuntu panel). It is simple. It is fairly simpler than Alacarte one.

  1. First, open Light Table. 
  2. On the Light Table icon on Launcher, right click > Lock from Launcher.
  3. If you close Light Table, the icon will still stay on the Launcher.