This simple tutorial will show you how to install Avast! Linux Home edition in Ubuntu 12.04. Although Linux OS is already secured, antivirus software can be used to scan windows partition or removable drive from Ubuntu.

Avast! Linux Home Edition is offered free of charge but only for home, non-commercial use.

Hit Ctrl+Alt+T to launch a terminal window, paste following command into terminal and hit enter to download avast:

wget http://files.avast.com/files/linux/avast4workstation_1.3.0-2_i386.deb

Next, run this command to install it:

sudo dpkg -i avast4workstation_1.3.0-2_i386.deb

When you launch it, it will prompt you to register and obtain a free license key:

If you’re on 64-bit Ubuntu, first install i32-libs package:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

then run this to install the deb:

sudo dpkg --force-architecture -i avast4workstation_1.3.0-2_i386.deb

After the packages are installed make sure that all of the required libraries can be found. Type the following:

ldd /usr/lib/avast4workstation/bin/avastgui
ldd /usr/lib/avast4workstation/bin/avast

Scroll through both lists and make sure that none of them say ‘Not found’. If any say not found then you may need to install additional packages or as a last resort manually extract the libraries from a package into your /usr/lib32 folder. You can do a package contents search here.