Claude Desktop for Linux 🐧

Unofficial Claude Desktop packages for Debian/Ubuntu systems with automated builds!

This project provides automated .deb and AppImage packages for Claude Desktop on Linux, with daily monitoring for upstream updates and automatic builds when new versions are released.

⚠️ Important: This is an unofficial build. If you encounter issues with this build script, please report them here - don't contact Anthropic support about unofficial packages.

🤖 Automated Builds

This repository features automated version detection and building:

• Daily Monitoring: Automatically checks for new Claude Desktop versions every day at 12:00 UTC
• Automatic Builds: Triggers builds for both amd64 and arm64 architectures when updates are detected
• Multi-Format Packages: Produces both .deb packages and AppImage files
• GitHub Releases: Automatically creates releases with downloadable packages
• Issue Notifications: Creates GitHub issues to announce new version availability

Latest Version Tracked: 0.9.3 (both amd64 and arm64)

Check the Releases page for the latest automated builds, or Actions to see builds in progress.

📦 Quick Installation

Option 1: Download Pre-built Packages (Recommended)

Visit our Releases page and download:

• claude-desktop_VERSION_amd64.deb for Debian/Ubuntu systems
• claude-desktop-VERSION-amd64.AppImage for universal Linux compatibility

Option 2: Build Yourself

git clone https://github.com/rlmattax/claude-desktop-debian.git
cd claude-desktop-debian
./build.sh  # Creates .deb package by default

🚀 Features

Arch Linux users: For the PKGBUILD and Arch-specific instructions: https://github.com/aaddrick/claude-desktop-arch

✅ Full Feature Support:

• 🔧 MCP (Model Context Protocol) - Configuration at ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• ⌨️ Global Hotkey - Ctrl+Alt+Space popup window
• 🔔 System Tray - Minimize to tray functionality
• 🖥️ Native Integration - Proper Linux desktop integration

Ctrl+Alt+Space Popup:

System Tray Integration (KDE):

🛠️ Building & Installation

For Debian-based distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, etc.), you can build Claude Desktop using our automated build script. The script supports multiple output formats and architectures.

# Clone this repository
git clone https://github.com/rlmattax/claude-desktop-debian.git
cd claude-desktop-debian

# Build the package (Defaults to .deb and cleans build files)
./build.sh

# Example: Build an AppImage and keep intermediate files
./build.sh --build appimage --clean no

# Example: Build a .deb (explicitly) and clean intermediate files (default)
./build.sh --build deb --clean yes

The script will automatically:

• Check for and install required dependencies
• Download and extract resources from the Windows version
• Create a proper Debian package or AppImage
• Perform the build steps based on selected flags

📋 After Building

If you chose Debian Package (.deb):

The script will output the path to the generated .deb file (e.g., claude-desktop_0.9.3_amd64.deb). Install it using dpkg:

# Replace VERSION and ARCHITECTURE with the actual values from the filename
sudo dpkg -i ./claude-desktop_VERSION_ARCHITECTURE.deb 

# If you encounter dependency issues, run:
sudo apt --fix-broken install 

If you chose AppImage (.AppImage):

The script will output the path to the generated .AppImage file (e.g., claude-desktop-0.9.3-amd64.AppImage) and a corresponding .desktop file (claude-desktop-appimage.desktop).

AppImage login will not work unless you setup the .desktop file correctly or use a tool like AppImageLauncher to manage it for you.

1. Make the AppImage executable:

   # Replace FILENAME with the actual AppImage filename
   chmod +x ./FILENAME.AppImage 

2. Run the AppImage:

   ./FILENAME.AppImage

3. (Optional) Integrate with your system:
   • Tools like AppImageLauncher can automatically integrate AppImages (moving them to a central location and adding them to your application menu) using the bundled .desktop file.
   • Alternatively, you can manually move the .AppImage file to a preferred location (e.g., ~/Applications or /opt) and copy the generated claude-desktop-appimage.desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications/ (you might need to edit the Exec= line in the .desktop file to point to the new location of the AppImage).

--no-sandbox

The AppImage script runs with electron's --no-sandbox flag. AppImage's don't have their own sandbox. chome-sandbox, which is used by electron, needs to escalate root privileges briefly in order to setup the sandbox. When you pack an AppImage, chrome-sandbox loses any assigned ownership and executes with user permissions. There's also an issue with unprivileged namespaces being set differently on different distributions.

Alternatives to --no-sandbox

• Run claude-desktop as root
  • Doesn't feel warm and fuzzy.
• Install chrome-sandbox outside of the AppImage(or leverage an existing install), set it with the right permissions, and reference it.
  • Counter-intuitive to the "batteries included" mindset of AppImages
• Run it with --no-sandbox, but then wrap the whole thing inside another sandbox like bubblewrap
  • Not "batteries included", and configuring in such a way that it runs everywhere is beyond my immediate capabilities.

I'd love a better suggestion. Feel free to submit a PR or start a discussion if I missed something obvious.

🗑️ Uninstallation

Debian Package (.deb)

If you installed the .deb package, you can uninstall it using dpkg:

sudo dpkg -r claude-desktop

If you also want to remove configuration files (including MCP settings), use purge:

sudo dpkg -P claude-desktop

AppImage (.AppImage)

If you used the AppImage:

1. Delete the .AppImage file.
2. Delete the associated .desktop file (e.g., claude-desktop-appimage.desktop from where you placed it, like ~/.local/share/applications/).
3. If you used AppImageLauncher, it might offer an option to un-integrate the AppImage.

Configuration Files (Both Formats)

To remove user-specific configuration files (including MCP settings), regardless of installation method:

rm -rf ~/.config/Claude

🔧 Troubleshooting

Aside from the install logs, runtime logs can be found in ($HOME/claude-desktop-launcher.log).

If your window isn't scaling correctly the first time or two you open the application, right click on the claude-desktop panel (taskbar) icon and quit. When doing a safe shutdown like this, the application saves some states to the .config/claude folder which will resolve the issue moving forward. Force quitting the application will not trigger the updates.

⚙️ How it works (Debian/Ubuntu Build)

Claude Desktop is an Electron application packaged as a Windows executable. Our build script performs several key operations to make it work on Linux:

1. Downloads and extracts the Windows installer
2. Unpacks the app.asar archive containing the application code
3. Replaces the Windows-specific native module with a Linux-compatible stub implementation
4. Repackages everything into the user's chosen format:
   • Debian Package (.deb): Creates a standard Debian package installable via dpkg.
   • AppImage (.AppImage): Creates a self-contained executable using appimagetool.

The process works because Claude Desktop is largely cross-platform, with only one platform-specific component that needs replacement.

Build Process Details

The main build script (build.sh) orchestrates the process:

1. Checks for a Debian-based system and required dependencies
2. Parses command-line flags (--build, --clean) to determine output format and cleanup behavior.
3. Downloads the official Windows installer
4. Extracts the application resources
5. Processes icons for Linux desktop integration
6. Unpacks and modifies the app.asar:
   • Replaces the native mapping module with our Linux version
   • Preserves all other functionality
7. Calls the appropriate packaging script (scripts/build-deb-package.sh or scripts/build-appimage.sh) to create the final output:
   • For .deb: Creates a package with desktop entry, icons, dependencies, and post-install steps.
   • For .AppImage: Creates an AppDir, bundles Electron, generates an AppRun script and .desktop file, and uses appimagetool to create the final .AppImage.

Automated Version Detection

The repository includes an automated system (scripts/check-upstream-version.py) that:

• Monitors both amd64 and arm64 Claude Desktop installers daily
• Downloads only small chunks (2MB) to efficiently extract version information
• Uses multiple regex patterns to detect version numbers in binary data
• Tracks file metadata (ETag, size, last-modified) for reliable change detection
• Automatically triggers builds when new versions are detected
• Creates GitHub issues and releases to notify users of updates

See AUTOMATION.md for detailed information about the automation system.

📖 Attribution & History

This project was originally inspired by k3d3's claude-desktop-linux-flake and their Reddit post about running Claude Desktop natively on Linux. The sophisticated build system was later developed by aaddrick.

Current Maintainer: Bob Mattax (rlmattax)

Original Authors:

• k3d3 - Original NixOS implementation and proof of concept
• aaddrick - Debian/Ubuntu build system and multi-format packaging

Related Projects:

• NixOS Users: k3d3's claude-desktop-linux-flake
• Alternative Implementation: Emsi's claude-desktop (includes additional refinements and the title bar fix)

📄 License

The build scripts in this repository are dual-licensed under the terms of the MIT license and the Apache License (Version 2.0).

See LICENSE-MIT and LICENSE-APACHE for details.

The Claude Desktop application, not included in this repository, is covered by Anthropic's Consumer Terms.

🤝 Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

Contributing Guidelines:

• Bug reports and feature requests are welcome via GitHub Issues
• Pull requests should maintain the automated build system compatibility
• Test changes with both .deb and AppImage formats when possible
• Check that automation scripts continue to work after modifications