Think or Swim on Ubuntu 20.04 / Focal Fossa

It will be interesting to see what happens with Think or Swim and Charles Schwab in the coming years as the two merge. Retail brokerages are slowing consolidating and going by the wayside as Robinhood / options become all the rage.

I use Interactive Brokers for all my trading because I believe hands down they have the best API for all my needs. However, I use TOS in all my chart analysis and developing my algorithmic strategies.

I have written about installing Think or Swim on previous versions of Linux, so I thought I would update to Focal Fossa cause once again TOS directions didn’t work.

Start with some java:

1. install sudo apt install openjdk-8-jre

2. Download the installer

3. cd /Downloads && sudo chmod +x thinkorswim_installer.sh

4. install sh ./thinkorswim_installer.sh

m The installer should start the application for you. The TOS small box will pop up and say that it is installing updates. This seems to take a long time, like 5 minutes? So go do something else for a few. Then you should get a login screen after a while.

Note: If you find any discrepancies or tips please leave them in the comments. I will do my best to post them, as this blog post and the other Ubuntu / TOS get a lot of hits, there are people out there that need hits.