Install on Linux

Sternway for Linux comes as a .deb package for Debian, Ubuntu and their relatives, and as an AppImage for any distribution, each for x64 and arm64. Download them from sternway.dev/download.

File	For
Sternway-<version>-amd64.deb	Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS and the like, on x64
Sternway-<version>-arm64.deb	the same, on 64-bit ARM (a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 with a 64-bit system, ARM servers and laptops)
Sternway-<version>-x86_64.AppImage	any distribution, on x64
Sternway-<version>-arm64.AppImage	any distribution, on 64-bit ARM

Note

The arm64 packages are built and checked on an x64 machine (their files are arm64, the package says arm64), but they have not been run on an ARM computer yet.

Check the download

Each release has a SHA256SUMS file next to its downloads. In the folder with the download:

sha256sum Sternway-*.deb

Compare the result with the line for that file in SHA256SUMS.

Install the .deb

sudo apt install ./Sternway-*-amd64.deb

apt also installs what the package depends on (GTK 3, libnss3, libsecret and a few others). Sternway is then in your applications menu, and sternway starts it from a terminal. The app itself is in /opt/Sternway.

To update, install the newer .deb the same way. Your hosts and settings are kept, and Sternway writes a snapshot of them before the new version first opens them.

To remove it:

sudo apt remove sternway

Your data stays in ~/.config/@sternway/desktop; delete that folder to remove it too.

Run the AppImage

chmod +x Sternway-*-x86_64.AppImage
./Sternway-*-x86_64.AppImage

If it stops with dlopen(): error loading libfuse.so.2 (“AppImages require FUSE to run”), the system has no FUSE 2, which recent Ubuntu releases no longer install. Either install it (sudo apt install libfuse2t64, or libfuse2 on Ubuntu 22.04 and Debian), or run the AppImage without FUSE:

./Sternway-*-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run

An AppImage is not added to the applications menu by itself, and it updates by replacing the file with the newer one.

The system keychain

Sternway keeps the key that encrypts its data on this computer in the system keychain (the Secret Service: GNOME Keyring, KWallet and others). On a desktop without one, it asks you to Create a passphrase on its first start and to type it each time it starts. Your data is encrypted either way.

Mosh, security keys and serial ports

• Mosh needs mosh-client installed (sudo apt install mosh). See Use Mosh.
• FIDO2 security keys need read and write access to the key’s device. Desktops with systemd 244 or later give it for any FIDO key; on others, install the libfido2 udev rules. See Log in with a hardware security key.
• Serial ports (/dev/ttyUSB0 and the like) need permission to open the device; on most distributions that means your user in the dialout group (sudo usermod -aG dialout $USER, then log out and back in).

Under WSL

The Linux build also runs inside WSL on Windows. There it keeps the system title bar, because WSLg gives a window without a frame nothing to move or resize it by. On Windows you can also use the Windows build: see Install on Windows.