Build from source · 6 steps · no official build today
Run Pulse on Linux by building it from source. There is no official Linux build today. Pulse is developed and tested primarily on Windows, and the community has ported the source to GTK3 and WebKit2GTK. Expect rough edges; if a step fails, open a GitHub issue and include the error output.
Two artifacts at the end: a .deb for Debian and Ubuntu, and an .AppImage that runs on most modern Linux desktops. Both are unsigned — there is no apt or pacman repository, and there is no auto-update channel.
Five toolchain pieces. Versions are minimums — newer is fine.
node --version.
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh.
Check with rustc --version.
package.json scripts; the lockfile is npm.
build-essential on Debian and Ubuntu, base-devel on Arch, @development-tools on Fedora. Tauri also needs pkg-config and the OpenSSL development headers (libssl-dev on Debian, openssl-devel on Fedora, openssl on Arch).
GTK3 and WebKit2GTK are not bundled — they come from the distro. The package list is the Tauri 2 prerequisite set as published in the Tauri docs.
apt
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev \
build-essential curl wget file pkg-config \
libgtk-3-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev \
librsvg2-dev libssl-dev
On Debian 12 and Ubuntu 22.04, libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev is the right package. On older Ubuntu 20.04 and Debian 11, swap to libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev.
dnf
sudo dnf install -y webkit2gtk4.1-devel \
gcc gcc-c++ make pkg-config \
gtk3-devel libappindicator-gtk3-devel \
librsvg2-devel openssl-devel
On Fedora 40 and newer, the package is webkit2gtk4.1-devel. On Fedora 39 and older, swap to webkit2gtk4.0-devel.
pacman
sudo pacman -Syu --needed \
webkit2gtk-4.1 base-devel curl wget file pkg-config \
gtk3 libappindicator-gtk3 librsvg openssl
The base-devel meta-package pulls gcc, make, and binutils. Replace webkit2gtk-4.1 with webkit2gtk-4.0 on Arch installs that predate the 4.1 bump.
The list above mirrors the
Tauri 2 Linux prerequisites
page. Versions of webkit2gtk shift between distros; if the build fails on a missing webkit2gtk-4.1 package, fall back to webkit2gtk-4.0 on older releases.
The Linux build lives in the pulse-desktop subdirectory of the main repo.
git clone https://github.com/TimesNuRoman/pulse.git
cd pulse/pulse-desktop
The monorepo holds Pulse for Windows, the Android app, and the shared data model. The Tauri app is in pulse-desktop. The rest of this guide assumes the working directory is that folder.
JavaScript dependencies and the Tauri CLI. First run takes 30 to 90 seconds on a fast connection.
npm install
The install pulls the Vite frontend, the Tauri 2 JavaScript bindings, and the Ollama client. The Rust toolchain handles the backend on the first tauri dev run, not during npm install.
Compiles the Rust backend and opens the dev window. First build is 3 to 5 minutes; later runs are incremental.
npm run tauri devThe first run downloads and compiles every Tauri dependency — the Rust crates that bind to GTK3, WebKit2GTK, and the Vite plugins. Build output streams to the terminal; the Pulse window appears once the compile finishes.
Edits to TypeScript files hot-reload. Edits to Rust files trigger an incremental rebuild of the affected crate. The dev window uses the same Ollama runtime as production, so any local model that works on Windows will work here.
Two outputs in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/: a .deb and an .AppImage.
npm run tauri build
The build pipeline produces a Debian package for Debian-based distros, an AppImage for portable use, and a raw ELF binary under src-tauri/target/release/pulse-desktop. The full output tree:
src-tauri/target/release/bundle/deb/Pulse_0.1.0_amd64.debsrc-tauri/target/release/bundle/appimage/Pulse_0.1.0_amd64.AppImagesrc-tauri/target/release/pulse-desktop (run directly, no install)
The .deb installs to /opt/pulse-desktop and registers a .desktop entry. The AppImage is a single file that runs from any folder, no install required. The raw binary skips the bundler entirely.
None of the three is signed. There is no apt repository and no auto-update mechanism. Re-run npm run tauri build to upgrade.
Four issues that come up most often, and the fix for each.
webkit2gtk-4.1 package.
Older distros (Ubuntu 20.04, Debian 11, Fedora 39 and earlier) ship only webkit2gtk-4.0. The fix is in the Tauri config: open src-tauri/Cargo.toml, find the tauri dependency, and append features = ["gtk-4-0"] — or downgrade to Tauri 2.0.x line, which defaults to 4.0. The distro package list in Step 2 documents the swap.
failed to run custom build command for openssl-sys.
OpenSSL development headers are missing. On Debian and Ubuntu: sudo apt install libssl-dev. On Fedora: sudo dnf install openssl-devel. On Arch: sudo pacman -S openssl.
error: package `tauri v2.x` requires Rust 1.77.2.
The repo's rust-toolchain.toml pins the minimum Rust. Update via rustup update, or accept the toolchain prompt and let rustup download it. Older system rustc packages (e.g. apt install rustc) will not work; use rustup.rs.
WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 in the environment, or launch with GDK_BACKEND=x11 as a workaround. Headless servers (no display) will not start the dev window.
ollama --version before launching Pulse.
The Linux port is a community build. Some things on Windows do not work here yet.
.deb and .AppImage are unsigned. Some Linux distros (e.g. Fedora with strict SELinux policies, or Ubuntu Snap users) will need the file marked executable and run with explicit user consent.
/updates/desktop.json. The Linux build does not have an update channel — re-run npm run tauri build to upgrade.
.deb and .AppImage. Fedora and Arch users fall back to the AppImage or the raw ELF binary.
GDK_BACKEND=x11).
One channel: GitHub Issues. Include the error output and the distro version.
Open an issue on the
pulse issue tracker
and tag it linux. The minimum reproduction set is: distro and version, Node version, Rust version, the failing tauri dev or tauri build output, and the contents of ~/.cargo/registry/cache/ if the build failed on a specific crate.
Source patches go through the standard fork-and-pull-request flow on the pulse-desktop tree. CI runs on Ubuntu 22.04, Fedora 40, and Arch; a patch that breaks one of those three gets flagged before merge.
Two follow-up paths: switch to the Windows build for the supported experience, or read the source on GitHub.