Today I ran in to some issues installing ThinkOrSwim (TOS) on Fedora, and since I couldn't find one tutorial to show me all the details, I want to write this to help others.
Note: I am new to Fedora/Linux, so this is something I played with for the past few hours today, and now everything works. The easiest experience I had installing TOS is on Pop_OS, but I had some issues with transferring larger files (system freezing), so I wanted to try Fedora.
If I missed anything, or messed up, I apologize. I might be able to help, but given I am new to this, these are these instructions that worked for me, and hopefully they work for you.
Links:
- Java Verison 21
- ThinkOrSwim Download
Steps:
1 - download and install Java version 21 (double click)
2 - Run and make sure to choose Java version 21
sudo update-alternatives --config java
3 - Now download 'thinkorswim_installer.sh'
4 - navigate to your downloads folder and right click on the thinkorswim file -> properties -> check 'exectutable as program' at the bottom
5 - right click 'thinkorswim_installer.sh' and 'Run as a Program'
5a - if you want an icon for the dock or to search, please check the box to create a desktop icon
This is where I had issues, and how to fix. (the desktop icon would not launch the app)
Before messing with the desktop file, I would recommend finding an icon in png format for TOS; I went with this icon. I saved the file in the /home/thinkorswim folder
1 - open the '.desktop' file in an editor
nano Desktop/thinkorswin.desktop
2 - edit the file on line 6 to point to your icon png file and save
Icon=/home/<username>/thinkorswim/<delete this part if here>/<logo_name>.png
3 - copy this file to your applications folder
sudo cp ~/Desktop/thinkorswim.desktop /usr/share/applications/
4 - update desktop database
sudo update-desktop-database /usr/share/applications
5 - log out and log back in
6 - now you can add TOS to your dock or you can search for it
Videos
Is anyone here using thinkorswim on a Linux distro, specifically Fedora? I'm transitioning my workspace over to Fedora from Windows because it's what I use 90% of the time now and I'd rather not have to reboot my computer into Windows just to use the program and then reboot it again to keep working in Fedora
Here is what I used for Ubuntu Mate
-
Download and install jdk-8u241-linux-x64 from Oracle website
In my case I extracted tar.gz files to /opt/ as there was no .deb install file -
Point to the newly installed JRE
sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/java" "java" "/opt/<jdk path>/bin/java" 0 -
Install thinkorswim_installer.sh file
-
Increased allocated RAM in settings on login window
Hope this somewhat helps.
Running on Ubuntu 20.04 and everything works great. No Java install issues. Only issue is interface doesn't 100% close cleanly on exit, but all data would've been sent to TD by then anyway.
I have read a number of users trying to use TOS on Linux and I've run into an interesting issue. I also have a question for Linux desktop users.
First, I am not familiar with java but I was able to download the installer, and then after installing zulu17-jdk-17.0.10 (as some users suggest) I ran the installer script provided by Schwab. The last step prompts me to run TOS, which I do. I am then able to log into my account, but I wanted to make sure I could reproduce this so I immediately quit the application.
When I try running TOS from the command line, I am prompted to update by downloading the installer (again). I do this, then run the install script. When I try running TOS from the command line again, I get the box with black background, TOS logo on top, bar with "Installing updates" underneath which seems to hang forever (at least a couple of hours).
Now what is interesting is that if I look in the /user/local/thinkorswim/suit directory, after the initial install, the version is 1981.1.8, which then updates to 1982.1.15 after running during the initial install. After the second install, the version becomes 1979.1.503, which seems to go backwards.
First, I am not sure what this suit directory is (since I am not familiar with java), and I am only guessing that these numbers are some sort of version numbers. So it seems like the update prompt after running from the command line goes back to an older version and then I can't run anymore. Can anyone tell me what the "suit" is?
I talked to technical support and they were helpful, up to a point at which I was told TOS is not supported on Linux.
So that brings me to my question ... is there an advantage using the Linux desktop version of TOS over the web version? I am wondering if it's worth banging my head on this?
I'm not sure that anyone here uses Linux much less uses Thinkorswim on Linux, but I am trying to get ToS installed on an Ubuntu computer, and I am getting an error. So I take a look at the shell script in a code editor and find that it's not able to run gunzip/gzip on one of the install files. I have tried playing around with it (ie using tar instead of gunzip), but so far I haven't had any luck.
They recently, like in the last month or two, updated the installer for all operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux), and the Linux installer worked fine before this. Does anyone know of a way to get ToS installed on Linux? Perhaps an older version of the installer?
I did contact ToS support, but they gave me the "installer provided as-is" runaround...
I figured it out. The script is actually corrupt. I think they transferred the fire to their server as ASCII instead of binary. I found a good copy on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. It installs. Let me know if it worked for you.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150801000000*/https://mediaserver.thinkorswim.com/installer/InstFiles/thinkorswim_installer.sh
If the previous link from way back machine dies I've uploaded a working installer from March 2018. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EXThUfoDpdERSRMqOQNXH1n6og0MHXeI/view?usp=drivesdk
Instructions for Lubuntu / Ubuntu 19.04
Thanks to Michael in tech support at Thinkorswim.
The following instructions should help you to install thinkorswim with the proper version of Java:
Installing Zulu OpenJDK:
Log in as root or use sudo
Import Azul's public key
$ sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 0xB1998361219BD9C9Add the Azul package to the APT repository
For Ubuntu
$ sudo apt-add-repository 'deb http://repos.azulsystems.com/ubuntu stable main'For Debian
$ sudo apt-add-repository 'deb http://repos.azulsystems.com/debian stable main'Update the information about available packages.
$ sudo apt-get updateInstall Zulu by using the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install zulu-8Once Zulu is installed move on to installing ThinkorSwim:
- Navigate to downloads and right click "thinkorswim_installer.sh", select "Properties"
- Select the "Permissions" tab, and make sure "Allow executing file as program" is selected
- Close the window
- Double click "thinkorswim_installer.sh"
-IF ONLY A TEXT EDITOR OPENS, CLOSE IT AND CONTINUE BELOW-
- Click back onto the file explorer
- Open from the top menu bar: Edit > Preferences OR Files > Preferences
- Select the "Behavior" tab
- Select "Ask each time" OR "Ask what to do" under "Executable Text Files"
- Close the window and launch "thinkorswim.sh" and select "Run" from the prompt
I had trouble getting this to run on Mint 19 due to having Java 11 installed by default and not wanting to set 8 as the default Java. Solved this here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/545041/running-thinkorswim-on-linux-mint-19
Copying answer here for ease of use:
I tried a variety of things but the one thing that seemed to work best is by making my own executable script and replacing the desktop shortcut with it.
So open a text editor/nano/vi/etc file and name it thinkorswim2 (or whatever you want). In that put the following:
#!/bin/sh export PATH=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/:$PATH exec /home/user/thinkorswim/thinkorswim "$@"Double check and make sure that the export path does match up on your system by following it. It just goes to the directory of the java executable.
If you followed the install script defaults then change user to be your home directory username. It installed to this directory by default for my version.
Now make that script executable. If you aren't used to the terminal than right click -> properties -> permissions -> allow executing file as program (or similar).
If your like me you want the same icon too so (in mint cinnamon) go to the basic tab in properties. Click the icon. Click browse and go to "/home/user/thinkorswim" then press ctrl + H while browsing to reveal hidden folders. go into "install4j" and pick "thinkorswim.png"
Hopefully this saves someone time in the future.
Finally I've erased thinkorswim from everywhere, download a fresh installer and this problem, at least, is solved.
The fields to do the log in never appear.
I run it from terminal to see if there were some error but only three warnings:
When finish with the "installing updates" process an empty chromium pop-up appears. But no message is displayed
I'm running on Java Zulu 17... any thoughts?