Kitten

Kitten on Linux

Standard Installation

The installation script is the fastest way to install Kitten:

curl -f https://www.kittenapi.com/install.sh | sh

It downloads the latest build for your architecture, unpacks it to ~/.local/kitten.app, links kitten into ~/.local/bin, and adds a desktop entry.

We also offer a preview build. Install it with:

curl -f https://www.kittenapi.com/install.sh | KITTEN_CHANNEL=preview sh

The preview build installs to ~/.local/kitten-preview.app.

Builds are made on Ubuntu 22.04. They work best on systems that:

  • have a Vulkan compatible GPU available
  • have a system-wide glibc, version 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04 and newer)

NixOS does not have a system-wide glibc by default. Our builds may work with a glibc compatibility layer such as nix-ld.

Downloading Manually

If you'd prefer, download the .tar.gz from the download page. This is the same archive the install script uses. Unpack it under ~/.local and link the launcher into your $PATH:

mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
# extract kitten to ~/.local/kitten-linux-x86_64/
tar -xzf <path/to/download>.tar.gz -C ~/.local
# link the launcher into ~/.local/bin (or another directory in your $PATH)
ln -sf ~/.local/kitten-linux-x86_64/bin/kitten ~/.local/bin/kitten

For integration with an XDG-compatible desktop environment, also install the .desktop file and icon:

install -D ~/.local/kitten-linux-x86_64/share/applications/dev.kitten.Kitten.desktop -t ~/.local/share/applications
install -D ~/.local/kitten-linux-x86_64/share/icons/hicolor/512x512/apps/dev.kitten.Kitten.png -t ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/512x512/apps

The archive also contains a README.txt with steps for a system-wide install under /usr/local.

Uninstalling Kitten

If you used the install script, remove the bundle, the link and the desktop entry:

rm -rf ~/.local/kitten.app
rm -f ~/.local/bin/kitten
rm -f ~/.local/share/applications/dev.kitten.Kitten.desktop

If you unpacked the archive manually, remove the folder and any links you created:

rm -rf ~/.local/kitten-linux-x86_64
rm -f ~/.local/bin/kitten
rm -f ~/.local/share/applications/dev.kitten.Kitten.desktop

Optionally, remove your local collections and settings:

rm -rf ~/.local/share/kitten-gpui

Collections you synced to a git remote stay on that remote.

Troubleshooting

Linux runs on many differently configured systems. We test Kitten primarily on a stock Ubuntu setup.

Kitten fails to start

If you see an error like /lib64/libc.so.6: version 'GLIBC_2.35' not found, your distribution's glibc is too old. Upgrade your system, or build Kitten from source.

Graphics issues

Kitten renders with Vulkan. If it fails to open or draws incorrectly, check that your GPU drivers include Vulkan support:

vulkaninfo --summary