For UBUNTU, see here

'''Update: Freeplane is packaged for Debian/Ubuntu => just run: apt-get install freeplane

The following steps are recommended if the Freeplane package for your distro is out of date:

  1. Download the Freeplane zipfile, and extract its contents to the folder of your choosing (e.g. ~/local/freeplane-xxxx , where xxxx is a version-number).

  2. Create a freeplane symlink to ~/local/freeplane-xxxx: 

    ln -nsf ~/local/freeplane-xxxx ~/local/freeplane

  3. (optional) If you have a ~/bin folder which is in your shell path, you can create a symlink to the freeplane start-script: 

    ln -s ~/local/freeplane/freeplane.sh ~/bin/freeplane
    If you do that you should now be able to run freeplane from the commandline by simply typing freeplane.

  4. Finally, to add an icon which will show up in your applications menu, save the following text to the file ~/.local/share/applications/freeplane.desktop :

[Entry](Desktop)
Version=1.0
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Freeplane
Exec=/bin/sh /home/YOUR-USERNAME/local/freeplane/freeplane.sh %f
Terminal=false
Icon=/home/YOUR-USERNAME/local/freeplane/freeplane.svg
Type=Application
MimeType=application/x-freemind
Categories=Application;Office;
GenericName=Freeplane
Comment=A free mind mapping tool

(for more details on why adding this file works, see the XDG Desktop Menu Specification, which is followed by all major linux desktop-environments)

Now, any time you wish to update your Freeplane application, just repeat steps 1 and 2.