Installing Flutter on Arch Linux: A Complete Developer's Guide

This guide provides a comprehensive walkthrough for installing Flutter on Arch Linux. For the official and most up-to-date instructions, always consult the official Flutter documentation.

Welcome, developers! If you’re an Arch Linux user eager to dive into cross-platform app development with Flutter, you’ve come to the right place. This guide will walk you through every step of setting up a complete Flutter development environment on your machine. We’ll cover everything from system dependencies to the final flutter doctor check.

⚙️ Step 1: Prepare Your System

Before we get to Flutter itself, we need to ensure your system has the necessary build tools. Flutter uses the Ninja build system for creating Linux desktop applications.

First, let’s install ninja and mesa-utils for OpenGL support:

sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -S ninja mesa-utils

Then install other dependencies:

sudo pacman -S curl git unzip xz zip mesa

🤖 Step 2: Install Android Studio

A full Flutter setup requires the Android SDK, emulator, and platform tools. The easiest way to get them is by installing Android Studio. On Arch Linux, you can install it from the Arch User Repository (AUR) using a helper like yay.

# Install yay if you haven't already
sudo pacman -S yay

# Install Android Studio from AUR
yay -S android-studio

Once installed, launch Android Studio and use the SDK Manager to get the necessary components:

1. Open Android Studio and navigate to Tools → SDK Manager.
2. Switch to the SDK Tools tab.
3. Check the boxes for:
   • Android SDK Command-line Tools (latest)
   • Android SDK Platform-Tools
   • Android SDK Build-Tools
4. Click Apply to download and install them.

🐦 Step 3: Download and Extract the Flutter SDK

Now it’s time to get the Flutter SDK.

1. Download the SDK: Head over to the Flutter SDK archive and download the latest stable release for Linux. It will be a .tar.xz file.

2. Create a Directory: It’s good practice to keep your SDKs in a dedicated folder. Let’s create one:

   mkdir -p ~/development
   

3. Extract the Archive: Extract the downloaded SDK into your new directory. Replace the filename with the one you downloaded.

   tar -xf ~/Downloads/flutter_linux_*.tar.xz -C ~/development/
   

   This will create a flutter directory inside ~/development.

🛠️ Step 4: Add Flutter to Your PATH

To run flutter and dart commands from any terminal, you need to add the SDK’s bin directory to your system’s PATH.

For Bash (the default on most systems), run this command:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/development/flutter/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Close and reopen your terminal for the changes to take effect.

✅ Step 5: Verify the Installation with Flutter Doctor

With everything in place, it’s time to run Flutter’s built-in diagnostic tool, flutter doctor. This command checks your environment and displays a report of the status of your Flutter installation.

flutter doctor

flutter doctor will guide you through any remaining setup tasks, such as accepting Android licenses.

📝 Step 6: Final Configuration

Accept Android Licenses

If flutter doctor warns you about Android licenses, run the following command and accept all of them by typing y:

flutter doctor --android-licenses

Configure Chrome for Web Development

For web development, Flutter uses Google Chrome. If flutter doctor can’t find it, you may need to set the CHROME_EXECUTABLE environment variable, especially if you installed it from the AUR.

echo 'export CHROME_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

🎉 Step 7: All Systems Go!

Run flutter doctor one last time. If everything is set up correctly, you should see all checkmarks:

[fr0stb1rd@archlinux bin]$ flutter doctor
Doctor summary (to see all details, run flutter doctor -v):
[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.35.6, on Arch Linux 6.17.1-arch1-1, locale en_US.UTF-8)
[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 36.1.0)
[✓] Chrome - develop for the web
[✓] Linux toolchain - develop for Linux desktop
[✓] Android Studio (version 2025.1.4)
[✓] Connected device (2 available)
[✓] Network resources

• No issues found!
[fr0stb1rd@archlinux bin]$ 

Happy coding!