Arduino IDE on Ubuntu 16.04 won't start

End of Life does not mean the OS stops working.

The problem is usually there is a mismatch between the IDE and Linux.

  • Linux 64 bit with 64 bit IDE - OK
  • Linux 32 bit with 32 bit IDE - OK
  • Linux 32 bit with 64 bit IDE - Fail
  • Linux 64 bit with 32 bit IDE - Maybe

The following command should show which Linux version and 32 versus 64 bit.

$ uname -a

A much less frequent "Exec format error" is to run ARM executables on a Intel/AMD CPU or vice versa.