JOSM

Installing JOSM on Debian

JOSM is available in the Debian official repository, so to install it, you just need to open a terminal and run the following command:

su -c 'apt-get install josm'

Solving JOSM Outdated Version on Debian

Installing JOSM from the official Debian repositories resolves the dependency issue you would encounter when using the most up-to-date version from the official .jar build.

To run the latest stable version, you need to download it from the official JOSM website as a JAR file. However, before doing that, you need to run the version installed from the Debian repository at least once.

josm

This will create the following directory structure:

~/.config/JOSM
~/.cache/JOSM
~/.local/share/JOSM

Under ~/.cache/JOSM/, a directory named jar will be created:

mkdir -p ~/.cache/JOSM/jar

Now, navigate to that directory:

cd ~/.cache/JOSM/jar

Next, download the latest version of the JOSM editor using wget:

wget -N -t 0 -c https://josm.openstreetmap.de/josm-tested.jar

To run the newly downloaded version, use the following command:

java -jar ~/.cache/JOSM/jar/josm-tested.jar

Script Launcher

To launch the JAR file easily, you can create a script. First, create an executable file:

touch ~/.local/bin/tested-josm.sh

Then, add the following content to the script:

#! /bin/bash
java -jar ~/.cache/JOSM/jar/josm-tested.jar

Adding a Launcher

To make this process even easier, let's create a launcher for the manually downloaded JOSM JAR file and the previously created script.

Create a new desktop entry file:

touch ~/.local/share/applications/org.openstreetmap.josm.desktop

Then, add the following content to the file:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Version=1.0
Name=JOSM Tested
GenericName=Java OpenStreetMap Editor
Comment=Extensible off-line editor for OpenStreetMap (OSM)
Icon=org.openstreetmap.josm
Exec=/home/pionen/.local/bin/tested-josm.sh
Terminal=false
MimeType=application/x-osm+xml;application/x-gpx+xml;application/geo+json;application/x-josm-session+xml;application/x-josm-session+zip;x-scheme-handler/geo;
StartupNotify=true
Categories=Education;Geoscience;Maps;
StartupWMClass=org-openstreetmap-josm-MainApplication
Keywords=OpenStreetMap;OSM;

The next time you restart your computer, you will find the new launcher. By clicking on it, you will launch the most up-to-date version of JOSM on Debian.