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Linux Installation

Quick Install

# Using curl
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JonRC/excalirender/main/install.sh | sh

# Using wget
wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JonRC/excalirender/main/install.sh | sh

Options

Configuration is done via environment variables:

Variable Default Description
VERSION latest release Install a specific version, e.g. v1.0.0
PREFIX /usr/local (root) or ~/.local (user) Installation prefix 
# Install a specific version
VERSION=v1.2.0 curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JonRC/excalirender/main/install.sh | sh

# Install to a custom prefix
PREFIX=/opt curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JonRC/excalirender/main/install.sh | sh

Install Locations

The script auto-detects whether it's running as root:

Root (sudo) Non-root
Binary + libs /usr/local/lib/excalirender/ ~/.local/lib/excalirender/
Symlink /usr/local/bin/excalirender ~/.local/bin/excalirender

After installation the file layout is:

$PREFIX/
├── bin/
│   └── excalirender -> ../lib/excalirender/bin/excalirender  (symlink)
└── lib/
    └── excalirender/
        ├── bin/
        │   ├── excalirender      # Shell launcher (sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH)
        │   └── excalirender.bin  # Bun standalone binary
        ├── lib/
        │   └── *.so*             # Bundled shared libraries (Cairo, Pango, etc.)
        └── etc/
            └── fonts/
                └── fonts.conf    # Minimal fontconfig configuration

If $PREFIX/bin is not in your PATH, the script prints a hint to add it.

Requirements

  • Linux x86_64
  • curl or wget
  • tar
  • glibc 2.31+ (Ubuntu 20.04+, Debian 11+, Fedora 33+, RHEL 9+, Arch)

No other system dependencies are required. All native libraries (Cairo, Pango, Pixman, etc.) are bundled in the tarball.

How It Works

The install script is a POSIX shell script (/bin/sh) with no bash-specific features, ensuring it runs on any Linux distribution.

Steps:

  1. Preflight checks — verifies Linux x86_64, checks for curl/wget and tar
  2. Version resolution — queries the GitHub Releases API for the latest tag, or uses the VERSION env var
  3. Download — fetches the excalirender-linux-x64.tar.gz tarball from the GitHub release
  4. Extract — unpacks into a temporary directory
  5. Install — copies files to $PREFIX/lib/excalirender/, removes any previous installation first
  6. Symlink — creates $PREFIX/bin/excalirender pointing to the launcher script
  7. Verify — confirms the symlink is executable

Why a self-contained tarball

The native tarball bundles all shared library dependencies (collected via ldd during the Docker build) so the binary works on any Linux x64 system without installing Cairo, Pango, or other system packages. Only core glibc libraries (libc, libm, libpthread, libdl) are expected from the host — these are present on every Linux system.

The launcher script (bin/excalirender) sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the bundled lib/ directory before executing the real binary, so the bundled libraries take precedence over any system versions.

Uninstall

rm -rf $PREFIX/lib/excalirender $PREFIX/bin/excalirender

Where $PREFIX is /usr/local (root install) or ~/.local (user install), unless you specified a custom prefix.

Upgrading

Running the install script again replaces the previous installation. It removes the old files before copying the new ones.