A shell script that handles installing, updating, and launching OpenBubbles on Linux.
The official release tarball ships a bare binary alongside its shared libraries, but no installer or desktop integration. The Flatpak is seemingly not maintained. This script fills that gap.
- Installs
jqandlibmpvif missing (with confirmation prompts) - Downloads the latest release tarball from GitHub
- Extracts and installs to
~/opt/openbubbles/ - Creates a
.desktopentry and app icon - Copies itself to
~/.local/bin/openbubblesso it works as a launcher going forward - On subsequent launches, checks for new releases in the background
- Handles the
libmpv.so.1→libmpv.so.2symlink that most distros need
# Download and run
curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/<you>/openbubbles-installer/main/openbubbles.sh
chmod +x openbubbles.sh
./openbubbles.sh installAfter:
openbubbles # launch (checks for updates in background)
openbubbles update # update to latest release
openbubbles uninstall # remove everything
openbubbles --help # show usage
All commands accept --yes / -y to skip confirmation prompts.
| Path | Contents |
|---|---|
~/opt/openbubbles/ |
App binary, shared libraries, assets |
~/.local/bin/openbubbles |
Launcher script (this script) |
~/.local/share/applications/openbubbles.desktop |
Desktop entry |
~/.local/share/icons/openbubbles.png |
App icon |
User data (messages, settings) is stored by the app itself in ~/.local/share/app.bluebubbles.BlueBubbles/.
OpenBubbles is built against libmpv.so.1, but most current distros ship libmpv.so.2. The installer creates a compatibility symlink. This works in practice but is a cross-ABI link.
openbubbles uninstall removes the app, desktop entry, icon, user data, and the libmpv symlink (if the installer created it). It also offers to remove the libmpv package itself.
MIT
- Make updating automatically carry over user data (probably easy). For now export messages and settings in Openbubbles settings before updating, then after restore from backup.