How to Install and Use Cordova on Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04 & LinuxMint 19/18

Apache Cordova is an open-source mobile development framework. It allows you to use standard web technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript for cross-platform development, avoiding each mobile platforms’ native development language. Apache Cordova command-line requires Node.js to run and available on NPM.

• Recommended: Setup Ionic Framework on Ubuntu, Debian, and LinuxMint for open-source SDK for hybrid mobile app development

Step 1 – Install Node.js and NPM

First, use the following commands to install NPM and Node.js on your system. In below commands, the first command will install some required packages on the system. The second command will add PPA for node.js to your system. After that update, your all attached PPA and last command will install Node.js and NPM on your system.

You can visit our tutorial to install latest Node.js on Ubuntu and debian systems.

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_8.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install nodejs

Step 2 – Install Cordova with NPM

Now use the following command to install Cordova on your system using npm command. It will install all other required node modules on your system.

sudo npm install -g cordova

Step 3 – Check Cordova Version

After successful installation of Cordova on your system, Use the following command to check Cordova version.

cordova --version

8.0.0

Step 4 – Create Application with Cordova

Use the cordova command to create your Application. Execute below command to create an application with name myapp. You can change the name on yours.

cordova create myapp

Now add the required platform in your application. This will create required files for the corresponding platform under the platforms/android and platforms/ios directories.

cordova platform add ios
cordova platform add android

Use below command to list the installed and available platforms for Cordova application.

cordova platform -ls 

Installed platforms:
  android 7.0.0
  ios 4.5.4
Available platforms:
  browser ~5.0.1
  osx ~4.0.1
  windows ~5.0.0
  www ^3.12.0

If you accidentally added any platform which you no longer needs, just remove that using commands like below.

cordova platform remove ios
cordova platform remove android

Step 5 – Build Cordova Application

Before building a Cordova application, make sure that the system fulfills all the requirements for your build environment.

cordova requirements

On all requirements completed successfully run the build command to build your application.

cordova build              ## Build all added platforms 
cordova build android      ## Build for specific platform