Guide on How To Install Unicenta on Linux or Windows

Posted on by Chubbable

Looking for a commercial grade, reliable, free POS software that you can deploy in your Restaurant or Retail Store? Jump in & learn about Unicenta and read the step-by-step instruction on how you would install and configure it.

Before starting with this guide, I’d like you to know something about Unicenta and what it could do for your business.

Updates

What is Unicenta oPOS?

Stylized as “Unicenta oPOS“, is a Touchscreen-enabled FREE Point-of-Sale System that you could use in your Restaurant, Amusement Park, Giftshop, Bars and Cafes. It is a great alternative for Electronic Cash Registers and expensive paid POS Systems. It’s a FREE POS software for Windows, Mac and Linux.

With Unicenta, you get a full-blown, commercial grade Point of Sale Software, that is capable of storing thousands of product list, and completing thousands of transactions. You could also create as many terminal operators or cashiers as you may need them. You need first to hookup Unicenta to a database like those popular, commercial-grade and open source database software like MySQL and Apache Derby.

It is very popular and in-use around the world, with over 180K downloads last year, since it is very easy to use and very flexible.

It’s not only free to download by the way, it is also free to own and it’s Open Source.

Unicenta oPOS is available in 16 languages and comes with English UK as the default language. Though you can change the language from it’s configuration menu. See data below.

Language Packs:

  • English UK (default)
  • Albanian
  • American
  • Arabic
  • Argentinian
  • Croatian
  • Dutch
  • Estonian
  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Mexican
  • Portuguese
  • Spanish
  • Swedish

Unicenta’s author and publisher is Jack Gerrard

Features

Unicenta has the best features for an ideal POS Software, such feature is the Category/Product Import. This feature is very useful and a must have especially when you’re just starting out with Unicenta. You could easily import your product list with selling price, buying price, barcode, reference number and category name from an easy to edit CSV file.

Other Features:

  • 40+ High Quality Reports (Sales, Current Inventory, etc.)
  • Automatic screen resolution scaling from 800 x 600 up
  • Category + Product Import
  • Cloud hosted database capable
  • Customers, Products, Inventory and Multi-Location management
  • Highly User customizable Sales screen, Ticket and Receipt layouts
  • Ideal for mobile retailers POS / Pop-up type stores
  • Internal Payment Gateways (US) and External terminal support – Chip and Pin
  • Inventory Management
  • Multiple Printers + Output to Kitchen Display monitors
  • Powerful scripting language
  • User and Role Security (i.e.; Admin; Manager; Clerk; Guest Role)

How To Install Unicenta oPOS?

Installing Unicenta is very easy, you could be up and running in minutes. But you might ask the question, what about Unicenta system requirements?

Well, it’s not high really. You’re not running any games on your target machine, so the minimum requirements below is recommended.

Unicenta System Requirements

System Hardware:

  • 512MB RAM – minimum but more is better
  • 70MB Disk space – more if not using default DB
  • Java 1.7 JRE – 32bit or 64bit for Windows XP SP3
  • Java 1.8 JRE – 32bit or 64bit for Windows 7/8

Peripherals:

  • Barcode Scanner – USB, Serial, Scanpal2 or compatible
  • Receipt Printer – ESC/POS, JavaPOS, SurePOS, Star, Ithica, EPSON
  • Report Printer – Local or Networked
  • Cash Drawer – Serial via Printer
  • Customer Display – Serial 2 line x 20 char
  • Mag’ Stripe Reader – K’board, Generic or Intelligent
  • Weighing Scale – Casio, Dialog1, SamsungESP or compatible

Operating System:

  • Windows – XP SP3, 7,8
  • Linux – CentOS, Ubuntu, Others
  • Mac OSX – 10.6.8 and later

Databases:

  • Derby Embedded – Built-in Default
  • MySQL – Local, Remote or Cloud
  • Derby Client/Server – version 10.6 or later
  • HSQLDB – version 2.0 or later
  • Oracle – Local or Remote – 10g or later
  • PostgreSQL – Local, Remote or Cloud

Installation Procedures

Before starting of with the installation, you must have already downloaded the latest version of Unicenta oPOS (Restaurant & Retail POS Software Free Download – Here. In addition to this, you also must have already installed the Java JRE for your chosen Operating System. If not yet, then downloadand install Java JRE first for your specific OS.

For direct downloads of various versions of Unicenta oPOS Software for Windows visit this page.

For direct downloads of various version of Unicent oPOS Software for Linux visit this page.

For Windows XP: Java JRE 1.7 Offline Installer – Click Here For Windows 7/8 32bit: Java JRE 1.8 Offline Installer – Click Here For Windows 7/8 64bit: Java JRE 1.8 Offline Installer – Click Here For Mac OS X (10.7.3 or newwer) – Click Here

For Windows XP/7/8

Setting up Unicenta oPOS on Windows-based computers is very straight forward. You just have to download the installer file and fire it up.

  • Step 1: Double click the downloaded Unicenta installer file, it comes in an exe file. Then click “RUN” button to start the installation.
  • Step 2: Select the “Installation Language” and click the “OK” button.
  • Step 3: Select the Java Runtime to use and click “OK” button.
  • Step 4: Click next and then accept the License Agreement on the next screen. Click “I accept the agreement” radio button and click “Next” button three times. That should start the insallation process, it will just take a few seconds to finish.
  • Step 5: Click the “Finish” button to finish the install wizard. Congratulation! You have now successfully installed Unicenta oPOS Software.

For Ubuntu/Linux

If you’re on Ubuntu Desktop (14.04) or Linux Mint, then download first the binaries (no installers) from this page. You need to have Java installed in your system to make Unicenta work. Java JRE comes pre-installed with Linux Mint but not on Ubuntu Desktops, so you don’t have to install it prior of installing Unicenta oPOS in Linux Mint, but you need to install Java if you’re on Ubuntu Desktop.

Read further below and read how you would install Unicenta on Ubuntu-based Linux. In my case, I’ve tested it on Ubuntu 14.04 without issues.

  • Step 1: Install Java JRE in Ubuntu by launching a terminal (ctrl+alt+t). Then enter the following command and hit “enter” key.

    sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre

    You need to type in your user’s password or admin password for this. Hit “enter” key after typing your password and you’ll be asked if you wanted to continue, press “y” key to continue with the installation.

    If you ask “how to check if Java is installed on Ubuntu Linux (Java JRE)?”, then just type “which java” in your Ubuntu terminal. It should output /usr/bin/java.

  • Step 2: Download the binaries in zip format for the latest Unicenta oPOS Software from this page. In Ubuntu or Linux Mint, the default download location path is /home/your-user-name/Downloads.

  • Step 3: After downloading the ZIP file, copy the file to /usr/bin/. To do this, open a terminal (ctrl+alt+t) and type in sudo cp ~/Downloads/unicentaopos-xxx.zip /usr/bin/. Substitute xxx with the version number of your downloaded Unicenta ZIP file.

    Extract the downloaded Unicenta ZIP file.

    How to extract the zip file in Ubuntu? To extract the ZIP file, switch back to your terminal and type in sudo unzip unicentaopos-xxx.zip -d /usr/bin/unicenta/

  • Step 4: Create a launcher. So the question again is… “How to create an application launcher in Ubuntu” for Unicenta oPOS?

    To create a Launcher for Unicenta, create a new text file with a file extension of .desktop. To do this, you need again to use a terminal and make the necessary configurations.

    Fire up a terminal (ctrl+alt+t) and type in nano ~/Desktop/unicenta.desktop. Nano is a Text Editor for Linux by the way.

    A new screen should pop-up, now enter the following texts:

    ############ Start ############

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Name=Unicenta
Comment=Fires up Unicenta oPOS
Type=Application
Exec=/usr/bin/unicenta/start.sh
Icon=/usr/bin/unicenta/unicentaopos.ico

############ End ##############

    When done, save the file by pressing ctrl + o then ENTER key. That is, control key + letter O, then hit enter key to save the file. That’s how to save a file in terminal using Nano Text Editor.

  • Step 5: Now you must set permission for your newly created Application Launcher and permit the file to be executable. To do just that, open a terminal and type in chmod +x ~/Desktop/unicenta.desktop and then hit ENTER key.

    Check out your desktop now, you should now see a new shortcut with icon for Unicenta.

    Now check your launcher by either double-clicking on it, or right-click on it and then clicking OPEN. Unicenta oPOS should now open. If not, make sure you entered the right path to your extracted Unicenta folder. Double check your Exec path in your unicenta.desktop file, make sure that you’re pointing to the correct location.

    If you see similar image like the one below, then congratulation! You’ve successfully installed Unicenta oPOS Free Point of Sale Software to your Ubuntu Linux Desktop.

    Reference Image: [jig ids=”1920″]

For Linux Mint

How to install Unicenta in Linux Mint?.

Putting up an instance of Unicenta oPOS on LinuxMint is slightly easier than setting it up on Ubuntu Desktop, since you don’t have to install the Java JRE for Linux, since it comes pre-installed with Linux Mint.

  • Step 1: Download the software if you haven’t yet. Download the latest version from this page.

  • Step 2: Copy the downloaded ZIP file (ie unicentaopos-381.zip) to /usr/bin/

    To do just that, open a terminal (ctrl+alt+T) and type in sudo ~/Downloads/unicenta-381.zip /usr/bin/ Then hit ENTER key, type in your password when prompted.

  • Step 3: Extract the ZIP file by typing the below command in your terminal:

    sudo unzip unicentaopos-381.zip -d /usr/bin/unicenta

    Then hit ENTER key.

    The files should be extracted inside /usr/bin/unicenta/

  • Step 4: Create an Application Launcher.

    How to create a launcher in Linux Mint? To create one, just do the following: Open up a terminal (ctrl+alt+t) and type in nano ~/Desktop/unicenta.desktop.

    A new screen should pop-up, now enter the following texts:

    ############ Start ############

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Name=Unicenta
Comment=Fires up Unicenta oPOS
Type=Application
Exec=/usr/bin/unicenta/start.sh
Icon=/usr/bin/unicenta/unicentaopos.ico

############ End ##############

    Then save the file by pressing Ctrl + O + ENTER.

  • Step 5: Set Execute Permission for the new launcher.

    Set user permission to execute the newly created Unicenta Launcher.

    Open a terminal and then type in chmod +x ~/Desktop/unicenta.desktop then press ENTER.

    Enter your password when prompted to do so.

  • Step 6: Launch the Application using the newly created launcher to try it out. Unicenta should launch and you should see a screen similar to the image below.

    Reference Image: [jig ids=”1919″]

    If you see the Unicenta Login Screen, then congratulations! You successfully installed Unicenta oPOS Software in Linux.

It’s a Wrap

There you have it folks, I really hope that you learned how to install Unicenta especially on Linux. Since it’s a bit more challenging to set it on Ubuntu or Linux Mint than on Windows. Installing it on Windows is just a few mouse clicks away.

Doing these things by yourself will save you some money. The next thing you should do with your setup is to try and test it with some data.

If you need further help with regard to this tutorial, feel free to ask and post your comments below.

For VERY URGENT help, contact me through this page.

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Chubbable

Hi, I'm Chubby! That's what my friends call me. I'm a tech savvy dude who is passionate in learning stuffs by himself. I post stuffs that I recently learned and also stuffs that I'm very knowledgeable of. I also post articles here to serve as my own reference and knowledge base archiving.