linux.md

Linux AppImage

Download Dovecot-Mailbox-Viewer-Linux-x86_64.AppImage from the GitHub Release. This contains Python, Qt and the viewer. Mark it executable in your file manager, or run chmod +x Dovecot-Mailbox-Viewer-Linux-x86_64.AppImage, then launch it. Do not run the viewer with sudo.

The first release targets x86-64 desktop systems with glibc 2.35 or newer, such as Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 and Debian 13. It uses X11, including XWayland on Wayland desktops. It does not provide ARM or 32-bit binaries. Standard desktop libraries (including the system glibc, graphics drivers, fontconfig, GLib, D-Bus and X11) come from your distribution. It is not a headless-server package.

The modern type-2 runtime embeds its FUSE support. If your system disallows FUSE mounts, use the fallback; it unpacks into a temporary directory automatically:

./Dovecot-Mailbox-Viewer-Linux-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run

Mail backups remain read-only. Caches and diagnostic logs normally live in ~/.cache/DesignStack/DovecotMailboxViewer. To update, close the app and replace the AppImage, then make the new file executable. Your cache stays separate. Help → Check for updates opens the release page and checks for the Linux asset.

Build and verification

GitHub builds on Ubuntu 22.04 x86-64, runs the test suite, then checks the actual AppImage under Xvfb. Separate clean Ubuntu 24.04 and Debian 13 containers run the downloaded artifact without installing Python or PySide6. These checks cover startup, the welcome screen, icons, TLS availability, mixed compressed/plain mailbox import, HTML preview, search, PDF and .eml export. They do not exercise every desktop theme, printer or hardware configuration.

On an Ubuntu 22.04 build machine, install Python 3.11+ with venv support and the desktop dependencies listed in .github/workflows/windows-build.yml, then run bash build-linux.sh. Output is in dist/. The build downloads pinned AppImage tools and verifies their SHA-256 hashes; a changed upstream continuous asset will stop the build until the pin is reviewed and updated.

Library sources and full notices accompany each release. Third-party-notices-Linux.zip records the dependencies and AppImage runtime revision. Bundled-files-Linux.txt lists native files. To modify the application or libraries, use the supplied source, install your replacement bindings, run the PyInstaller Linux spec and python scripts/build_appimage.py package. The runtime sources include rebuild instructions and the libfuse patch; pass a replacement runtime to appimagetool with --runtime-file. There is no signature or activation requirement preventing you from running a modified version.