LinxPad

A macOS-style fullscreen application launcher for Linux, supporting both X11 and Wayland sessions.

Video	Screenshots

Features

• Full-screen grid of application icons
• Drag-and-drop folder grouping
• Drag-and-drop reordering
• Multi-page navigation with page indicator dots
• Integrated search — apps, files, and web
• Settings panel
• Live reload — detects new/removed applications automatically
• Works on X11 and Wayland
• Works on any desktop environment or window manager (even the tilling ones)
• Keyboard navigation and launch

Requirements

• Python 3.11 or newer
• PyQt6 >= 6.4
• watchdog >= 3.0

The requirements are automatically handled by the installers.

Installation

Binary tarball (recommended for most users)

Download the latest linxpad-VERSION-linux.tar.gz from the Releases page, extract it, and run the installer:

tar -xzf linxpad-1.0.0-linux.tar.gz
cd linxpad-1.0.0-linux
./install

The installer detects your distribution, installs any missing dependencies, and sets up the application and desktop entry automatically. Pass --non-interactive to skip all prompts.

Packages

Format	Distros
RPM	Fedora 42, 43 · openSUSE Tumbleweed
DEB	Debian 12, 13 · Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04, 25.04
Arch	PKGBUILD manual
AppImage	Any Linux Distro (x86_64)
Flatpak	Any Linux Distro with Flatpak installed

Download the appropriate package from the Releases page and install with your package manager.

From source (git clone)

git clone https://github.com/apapamarkou/linxpad.git
cd linxpad
./install

Or install in editable mode for development:

make install

Usage

Launch from your application menu, or run from the terminal:

linxpad

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
Esc	Close launcher
Arrows	Navigate in pages, folders and search results
PgUp / PgDn	Navigate pages
Type anything	Open search

Configuration

Settings are stored in ~/.config/linxpad/:

File	Purpose
settings.conf	Settings panel data
apps.json	Application order, folder assignments

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please open an issue before submitting a pull request for significant changes.

See docs/developer-usage.md for how to set up a development environment.

License

LinxPad is released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.