alt Hacker NewsCodex in ChatGPT desktop app for Linux is now in preview
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Unrelated to this Linux release but I've been using the new ChatGPT desktop app since I annoying updated on accident, and I haven't had that great of an experience.
I previously really enjoyed the Codex app. It was easy for me to understand and find what I needed. The conversation view provided the right amount of information without feeling too concise or full of jargon and the typographic hierarchy made it easy to skim. The project based workflow made sense for my needs.
Ever since they combined all ChatGPT into one app though it has become a mess. It's trying to do too much in one. The settings menu is especially bloated, and I find the UI to be too complicated for the simple questions I'm asking outside of development work. I would rather just use the web interface for general use at this point. They've also been updating much of the UI to follow the same patterns as Claude, and I've not been impressed with the Claude desktop app.
To me, they are taking multiple steps backwards. I hope they eventually find their way again.
Sitting at 2.2GB of combined resident RAM across 11 processes. I haven't done a single query yet.
Not sure what I should see under the Link provided. Here is another one:
https://community.openai.com/t/codex-in-chatgpt-desktop-app-...
"The desktop app is designed as a workspace for managing projects, working with files, using browser workflows, and running Codex alongside ChatGPT."
Not sure if I really understand this. And somehow I am worried about ChatGPT having access to my files and workflows. How much control do I have?
From yesterday, with 26 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49264334
The testimonials at the bottom are all from AI companies.
Linux users are kind of averse to trojans. You should call it Back Orifice For Linux. You don't even have to change the OpenAI logo!
For someone who has not tried these desktop apps: what is the the advantage versus cli codex with some MPCs and multiple folders each one with their context files?
The most remarkable things about this announcement:
- Electron based app: Electron is a framework sold on the basis of enabling rapid cross-platform development at the cost of performance.
- Frontier AI company: AI is sold on the basis of enabling rapid development
- App was released in February & took 6 entire months to port to Linux
This will make it much easier to trap people into installing it without any isolation just to their primary user account or even make it run with admin privileges by default.
With the recent security related events we already see that it seems to be wide spread practice that many operators avoid the hassle of isolating their agents.
It is just an incredible cultural experience to see how quick stupidity gets accepted as a behavioural default.
I'd love to see the stats on how many Linux users want this. Most Linux usage probably comes from WSL/SSH'ing into servers, where they would use the CLI instead of a GUI. Even for the people who run Linux on the desktop, most probably prefer the terminal anyways
Nobody should be installing or using AI apps. Your browser is as far as they should go.
Reminder that the macOS app went from "this is fairly well made" to "it downloads multiple gigabytes of random things and doesn't follow any design conventions nor standards"
The Linux app will fail the same tests.
I wonder why operating systems aren't integrating with browsers more.
Congrats on supporting Linux. It makes the ecosystem more rich. Hope they will continue to maintain it and provide parity support.
I find it almost funny how hostile the response is when a company actually goes through the effort of supporting Linux. Apparently shipping the Linux version is only step one, you also need to pick the right framework, use the right packaging, consume the right amount of RAM, and preferably rewrite it natively.
so instead of using a browser, now i can use an app that is a browser. makes total sense
FYI; This link shows Codex based on your current OS. I get a norwegian landing page with a download link for Windows.
Reminder to everyone, treat these as trojans. Run them isolated from the rest of your system.
Give it a full desktop in a VM if you want to, just not direct access to your system.
On macOS, the version made for Apple Silicon in Swift was abandoned (now it called ChatGPT-classic until they decide to kill it) to this garbage in Electron.
that’s why i made a clone of macos libraries to compile SwiftUI to linux to make something like this faster (for non Electron!)
I’ve got a long running chat in the Windows app that becomes completely unresponsive for minutes on end. Complete travesty.
If gpt is so great as they say, why aren't they using their own operating system yet? They have all the resources they need to prove a point
I think these styles of apps will be popular for OpenAI and Anthropic as they help solve some of their moat issues. The deeper you integrate someone's files into their app, the harder it will be to switch AIs
Why would they write this in electron instead of something closer to the metal I thought this is the whole point of AI.
Heads up: unlike Codex CLI, Codex Desktop is proprietary, and thus can't be audited for Claude Code style hidden anti-user behavior.
The permission prompts after asking it to touch only 3 files are more concerning to me than Electron itself. An agent that can expand its access scope that easily needs a much clearer capability boundary, especially on a desktop where the user’s files are the real sandbox.
I am unable use non-CLI tools, so I don't care about this app. However, I have a question about codex CLI: currently I am using pi agent and I am happy with it, using codex CLI would give me some advantage?
Does this mean it's a matter of time until I can deploy codex on my raspberry pi now?
More details here: https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/linux/linux-app
About the damn time. Couldn't they vibe code the Linux version using the same very tool from the day one?
Does this mean it is possible to talk to Codex from ChatGPT on a mobile phone now?
When I tried that with the Codex CLI version on a Linux VM, I did not get it to work. Possibly because OpenAI only supports connecting ChatGPT to a desktop installation of Codex?
Everybody is irritated about electron, but that's not at all the problem. It's possible to write performant and optimized react code. They simply don't. I find the chatgpt app on Windows to be extremely laggy.
An often overlooked advantage of Electron based apps is they can convert any older version of laptop into a nice toaster oven.
This is fantastic as I can toast or reheat my frozen waffles on the same machine which is also running a agentic loop on codex desktop to cook my software.
Download it a few hours ago. I've been waiting a long time for linux and it is working fine in debian kvm via X11
Glad to see a .rpm, Claude only publishes a .deb.
Meh...
Codex messing around with the usage limits so much these past few months have convinced me to exit my $200/month burden and pick up Pi Coding Agent and Deepseek V4 Flash 0731.
It's incredible what you can do with subagents that you design yourself.
Liberating, really.
Does this mean that ChatGPT Desktop will run now also on Intel Macs?
I don't think its asking too much of a $1T company to not make a shitty desktop app. Especially when that companies whole moat with developers is that their tools can do our jobs better and faster.
The real reason they're using Electron is that some PM is comfortable with it and since nobody is reading the code, they use that comfort as a crutch to release most-likely working desktop app.
When the creator of a project has infinite money, infinite labor, and infinite incentive to lock more devs into their platform via skill atrophy and the product is still shit, that's the human in the loop.
What's the benefit of working with this app, which eats insane amounts of memory, instead of Codex CLI?
Much prefer CLI because its easier to isolate
If you are using linux and cannot use a console to code...
Are there really daily driver Linux users that want to run a proprietary gui based LLM solution that Sam Altman gets to keylog AND have full remote code execution on their system? This feels like trolling.
Meanwhile I am looking at a Crush client running beside neovim in a herdr session I am accessing via ssh to a machine in my garage with 4 local GPUs. I think we Linux users have got this without Sams help.
OpenAI: With AI, you can build really good apps, really quickly! Fire your devs!
Also OpenAI: Aight look, Electron is the best that we can do at this point, take it or leave it.
If this isn’t enough to convince you how little truth there is in everything these companies claim, then you have been brainwashed entirely already.
Why aren’t we getting quality native apps on all platforms, released simultaneously, if these AI code monkeys are THAT good? Where are all these amazing experiences built with AI that these guys keep promising?
I guess an Electron monstrosity is about as far as it can go.
Learn from this, internet. (I know none of you will, but doesn’t hurt to call a bit of attention to it)
Not perfect but a good starting point
Why not create a separate account on Linux just for the agent? This security measure should also be enabled by default. Many packages REQUIRE the creation of an account, but agents do not. Interesting.
This is how I get ChatGPT on Windows to not absolutely suck.
Can just install it in WSL now and it's got buttery smooth performance vs. the Windows version
I blame AV hooks
oh Electron, leave my ram alone.
So much negativity... I like the desktop app and am looking forward to testing it out.