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title: ChatGPT desktop app comes to Linux in preview | daily.dev
description: OpenAI has released a preview of the ChatGPT desktop app for Linux. The app bundles ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex, enabling users to run these AI tools...
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# ChatGPT desktop app comes to Linux in preview

**[Collections](https://daily.dev/sources/collections)** · 3 min read · 3 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

OpenAI has released a preview of the ChatGPT desktop app for Linux. The app bundles ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex, enabling users to run these AI tools alongside existing projects and browser workflows on supported Linux systems.

## Content

OpenAI has finally put out a Linux version of its ChatGPT desktop app, currently in preview. It bundles ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex into one native workspace instead of making you juggle browser tabs and a separate CLI.

## What's supported

The preview works on:

- Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and 26.04 LTS
- Debian 13
- Fedora 43 and 44

Both x64 and ARM64 builds are available, packaged as .deb for Ubuntu/Debian and .rpm for Fedora. The app itself is closed-source, so no digging through the code to see how it works.

OpenAI says Linux has been one of its most-requested platforms for a while, which tracks — a lot of the developer crowd already living in Codex CLI workflows has been asking for this.

## What's actually new here

Codex already ran on Linux through its CLI, so the core functionality isn't new. What the desktop app adds is the integrated layer on top: your projects, files, and browser workflows live alongside ChatGPT and Codex in one interface, rather than being spread across a terminal and a browser tab.

Compared to just using ChatGPT in a browser, the desktop app can:

- Run Codex directly against local repositories
- Access local files without uploading them anywhere
- Integrate with other apps through extensions
- Use an in-app browser with Chrome extension support

One thing it notably doesn't do: computer-use capabilities outside the browser. So don't expect it to control your desktop environment the way some other agent tools promise to.

I'd frame this less as a CLI replacement and more as a coordination layer — useful if you're running multiple agents or juggling several projects and want a visual home base for all of it.

## The ChatGPT vs. Codex mode confusion

One detail worth flagging: some users have noticed that when you're in Codex mode inside the desktop app, conversations still show up, but they're labeled as ChatGPT Work conversations. That's raised the obvious question of whether Codex and ChatGPT Work are actually different products on the backend or just different front-end labels for the same thing. OpenAI hasn't clarified this publicly yet, so it's an open question for now.

## Context: Anthropic got there first

This isn't happening in a vacuum. Anthropic shipped a Claude desktop app for Linux about a month earlier, in beta, supporting Ubuntu 22.04+ and Debian 12+. OpenAI's release covers a slightly narrower set of distros for now but adds Fedora support, which Anthropic's doesn't have.

For Linux users who've been stuck choosing between browser tabs and CLI-only workflows, having both major AI labs now shipping proper desktop clients is a good sign — even if it did take both companies a while to get here.

## Questions this post answers

### Which Linux distributions does the ChatGPT desktop app preview support?

The ChatGPT desktop app preview supports Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and 26.04 LTS, Debian 13, and Fedora 43 and 44, with both x64 and ARM64 builds. It ships as .deb packages for Ubuntu and Debian and .rpm packages for Fedora. The app is closed-source.

_Track new Linux tooling releases like this alongside other daily.dev developer environment updates._

### How does the ChatGPT desktop app on Linux differ from just using Codex CLI?

The desktop app adds an integrated layer where projects, files, and browser workflows sit alongside ChatGPT and Codex in one interface, rather than spreading work across a terminal and browser tabs. It can run Codex directly against local repositories, access local files without uploading, use extensions, and browse via an in-app browser with Chrome extension support, though it lacks computer-use capabilities outside the browser.

_Developers weighing CLI versus GUI agent workflows can follow comparisons like this on daily.dev._

### How does OpenAI's Linux desktop app compare to Anthropic's Claude desktop app for Linux?

Anthropic shipped its Claude desktop app for Linux about a month before OpenAI's ChatGPT app, in beta, supporting Ubuntu 22.04+ and Debian 12+. OpenAI's release covers a slightly narrower distro range but adds Fedora 43 and 44 support, which Anthropic's app lacks.

_Anyone picking between AI desktop clients on Linux can keep up with these releases on daily.dev._

## Community take

How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 2 discussions and 303 comments across hackernews, x (as of 2026-09-13).

**TL;DR:** There's very limited discussion, mostly a brief exchange clarifying that ChatGPT Work and Codex share the same underlying agent harness, differing mainly in how much technical detail is shown to the user. Codex in ChatGPT desktop app for Linux is now in preview 🐧: The discussion is largely negative, mocking OpenAI for taking six months to ship an Electron-based Linux app instead of something native, with heavy criticism of its bloat, bugs, and security risks; a smaller group defends the desktop app's usefulness and pushes back on blanket distrust.

**Sentiment:** 10% positive · 16% mixed · 74% skeptical

**The case for**

- Clarification that ChatGPT Work and Codex share the same agent harness suggests functional parity across products.
- Some find the desktop app genuinely convenient for managing multiple projects with built-in diff viewer, file browser, and terminal.
- A few report positive real-world experiences using agents for system diagnostics (e.g. fixing network speed issues, diagnosing hardware failures) on Linux.
- One commenter argues large-company release delays are usually due to coordination/process overhead rather than engineering incapability, offering a defense of the timeline.

**The pushback**

- Heavy criticism that an AI company shipping a bloated Electron app undermines its own claims about AI accelerating software development.
- Frustration that a native Swift Mac app was reportedly dropped in favor of the Electron app, seen as a regression in quality and resource usage.
- Concerns about memory leaks, unadjustable settings, and general unmaintained bugs in the new app compared to the old one.
- Security concerns about giving these agent-powered desktop apps deep filesystem or admin access, with one detailed account of an installer creating new users and mangling NTFS permissions on Windows.
- Skepticism about OpenAI's transparency and trustworthiness, including doubts about a previously reported sandbox escape incident.

**By community**

- hackernews (skeptical): Commenters largely mock the six-month delay and Electron choice as ironic for an AI company, mixing technical critiques of Electron/native toolkits with security concerns about giving agents system access, alongside a smaller contingent defending the app's usefulness and the realities of shipping software at scale.
- x (mixed): A short exchange clarifies backend similarities between ChatGPT Work and Codex rather than debating the release itself.

**Hottest debate:** Codex in ChatGPT desktop app for Linux is now in preview 🐧: Whether choosing Electron over native UI toolkits is a reasonable engineering tradeoff or a hypocritical failure for a company claiming AI has solved software development.

**Open questions**

- Is there any meaningful backend separation between ChatGPT Work and Codex beyond UX differences?
- Why did porting to Linux take six months if the app reportedly already ran there internally back in February?
- What is the actual engineering reason OpenAI chose Electron over native frameworks for a company that claims to have solved coding with AI?
- How should users safely grant these desktop agents system-level access without risking data loss or security breaches?

**Highlights**

> @iScienceLuvr The agent harness is the same across ChatGPT Work and Codex! The major difference is that ChatGPT work won't show you as much of the code it's writing and technical work it's doing under the hood (mostly because this would be distracting for non-engineers)
> — [ChrisHayduk on x · 3 points, 2 comments](https://x.com/ChrisHayduk/status/2088474379365572832)

> @ChrisHayduk good to know, thank you for the clarification!!
> — [iScienceLuvr on x · 1 points](https://x.com/iScienceLuvr/status/2088476134883406128)

> @iScienceLuvr But aside from this UX difference, the underlying functionality of ChatGPT Work and Codex should be the same
> — [ChrisHayduk on x · 1 points](https://x.com/ChrisHayduk/status/2088474525432176885)

> > App was released in February & took 6 entire months to port to Linux Product releases at large companies are slowed dow by coordination and resources more than actual development. (I'm an Electron maintainer who is currently working on better Linux support in the framework, and also a developer/PM for a commercial app that supports Linux.) It's very likely that the Codex Electron app already "worked" on Linux back in February, as in someone internally could build and run it from source and start a chat session. That fact would have made it possible for a small team to make a business case and start getting support from ops, QA, CS, marketing, legal, etc. The engineers would spend their unlimited tokens on Linux-specific build, packaging, and platform integrations (remember this is a computer use agent) to take the app from a prototype to something a company could actually launch and support for millions of users. Apps are also a moving target. The entire time building up to release, the Linux desktop app would have been getting feature and design updates for free from the updates going out on Mac/Windows/web. None of those other teams working on those features have have had the time (or the mandate) to coordinate with Linux engineers if they were building a separate app from scratch, and I suspect such a proposal would never have gotten off the ground.
> — [mitchchn on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49289794)

> And that's not a joke, I made the mistake of installing this on my Windows machine just to test it out quickly last week. It created 2 new users and then assigned new NTFS permissions for every single file under my user directory to them. This of course wrecked havoc, ssh refused to work, several applications refusing to start and a ton of permission errors. It did this without even a warning in the background and it also does not undo any of it when you uninstall it. It took around 3 hours to fix it by updating ~10 million NTFS permissions for every single file under my user directory.
> — [debazel on hackernews · 6 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49284113)

**Source threads**

- [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49281916) · 436 points · 297 comments
- [x](https://x.com/iScienceLuvr/status/2088471714015658109) · 0 points · 6 comments
- [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49266657) · 1 points · 0 comments

## Similar posts on daily.dev

- [OpenAI brings Codex to the ChatGPT mobile app](https://daily.dev/posts/openai-brings-codex-to-the-chatgpt-mobile-app-usgk8lgxx) · The New Stack · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

---

Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#openai](https://daily.dev/tags/openai), [#chatgpt](https://daily.dev/tags/chatgpt), [#openai-codex](https://daily.dev/tags/openai-codex)

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