Codex desktop app for Linux

[Suhaibinator]

What variant of Codex are you using?

App

What feature would you like to see?

I love the new codex app.

However due to this issue it is almost unusable on my mac laptop. I would like to use the app on my linux desktop where power consumption is far less of an issue.

Additional information

No response

[etraut-openai]

Which distro(s)?

[skypher]

Which distro(s)?

Arch and Ubuntu

[KaminariOS]

NixOS

[Suhaibinator]

There is a form where you can sign up to be notified when they release for linux/windows. I would imagine that they use this to gauge demand and triage priority.

Please sign up in case I am right.

[Suhaibinator]

I just heard about codex being released on Windows. Hopefully linux is next 🤞 (pretty please with a penguin on top)

Eagerly awaiting linux release!

[roshal]

there is a package in the arch user repository
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/codex-desktop-bin

[sluongng]

Im on CachyOS, which is Arch-based / Wayland.

But if you are doing Electron, then it should just work regardless of distro?

[ORDL-AMF]

I really don't see how mine is a duplicate, I'm literally providing you a solution, tested and working...

[tompta1]

Working Linux ARM64 port — technical findings + community Flatpak

I've successfully run the macOS Codex.dmg (v26.325.31654, Electron 40.0.0) on Fedora 44 aarch64 (Snapdragon X / PocketBlue). Posting a full technical breakdown in case it's useful for an official Linux release.

---

What works out of the box (architecture-neutral)

• app.asar — the entire JS/web frontend is pure JS, works on Linux unchanged
• The app-server IPC protocol (stdio JSON-RPC) — same on all platforms
• All app logic, UI, threading, API calls

What needs changing for Linux

1. Native Node modules must be recompiled

app.asar.unpacked/node_modules/ ships macOS ARM64 .node bundles for:

• better-sqlite3
• node-pty

These are standard npm packages. Rebuilding for Electron 40 / linux-arm64:

npm install better-sqlite3 node-pty --ignore-scripts
npx @electron/rebuild --version 40.0.0 --arch arm64

2. The codex CLI binary in Resources/ is a macOS Mach-O

The 142 MB Resources/codex is the codex-rs backend, compiled for aarch64-apple-darwin. It needs to be replaced with the aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu build — which is already published in openai/codex releases (e.g. codex-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz). No source changes needed.

3. ELECTRON_RENDERER_URL must be set when not packaged

The window-loading code (in .vite/build/main-*.js) is:

function Kh() { return process.env.ELECTRON_RENDERER_URL || 'http://localhost:5175/' }
// ...
if (!app.isPackaged) {
    D.loadURL(new URL(Kh()).toString()); // tries dev server → blank window on Linux
}

When running electron app.asar directly (as electron-forge make does for Linux packages), app.isPackaged is false, so the app tries to connect to a Vite dev server that doesn't exist. The fix already exists in the code — just set the env var in the Linux launcher:

export ELECTRON_RENDERER_URL="file:///path/to/app.asar/webview/index.html"

The renderer bundle is at app.asar/webview/index.html — this is what the prod path loads when app.isPackaged is true (via a different code branch). The simplest upstream fix would be to ensure app.isPackaged returns true for packaged Linux builds (which it will for .deb/.rpm/Flatpak builds via electron-forge make).

4. Electron runtime — linux-arm64 works perfectly

Electron 40.0.0 linux-arm64 from the official GitHub releases runs without issues. The app starts, the Rust backend initializes, and the full UI loads.

---

What already works in the repo

Looking at package.json in the bundled app:

"@electron-forge/maker-deb": "^7.11.1",
"@electron-forge/maker-rpm": "^7.11.1",

Linux packaging is already in the devDependencies. The build script just needs --platform=linux --arch=arm64 added alongside --platform=darwin.

---

Community Flatpak (working today)

For anyone who wants this now on ARM64 Linux, I've published the build scripts:

https://github.com/tompta1/codex-linux-flatpak

It automates the full process (extract DMG → swap binaries → rebuild natives → install Flatpak) as a single ./build.sh /path/to/Codex.dmg.

Tested on: Fedora 44 aarch64, Wayland (GNOME/mutter), Snapdragon X Elite.

---

Summary for an official release

Task	Effort	Notes
Replace codex CLI binary in build	Trivial	Already published for all Linux targets
Rebuild native modules for linux-arm64	Trivial	Standard @electron/rebuild step
Add --platform=linux to forge build	Trivial	Makers already in devDeps
ELECTRON_RENDERER_URL / isPackaged	None needed	Resolved automatically by electron-forge make producing a packaged app
.deb / .rpm / Flatpak outputs	Trivial	Makers already present

The Electron app itself is essentially already Linux-compatible. The main blocker is just adding Linux to the build matrix.

[ORDL-AMF]

I literally already have all of this done, this is silly you're actually disregarding all of my work.