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Install

Realer Xpad is a single, small Rust binary. The only things it needs at runtime are GTK ≥ 4.16 and libadwaita ≥ 1.5, which every current desktop distro already ships.

Arch Linux (AUR)

yay -S realer-xpad-bin   # prebuilt binary
yay -S realer-xpad       # or build from source (x86_64 and aarch64)

Any AUR helper works (paru, yay, …). Updates come with your normal system upgrades.

One file with GTK 4 and libadwaita bundled. Nothing to install, and it runs even where your distro's own GTK is too old.

  1. Download Realer_Xpad-<version>-x86_64.AppImage from the latest release.

  2. Make it executable and run it:

    chmod +x Realer_Xpad-*-x86_64.AppImage
./Realer_Xpad-*-x86_64.AppImage

Works on x86_64 distros with glibc 2.39 or newer: Ubuntu 24.04+, Debian 13, Fedora 40+, Arch and others. It runs natively on Wayland.

Using it with Hyprland and keybinds

Move it somewhere on your PATH under a short name, so the Hyprland config works as written:

install -m 755 Realer_Xpad-*-x86_64.AppImage ~/.local/bin/realer-xpad

To update later, download the new version and replace the file, or use AppImageUpdate, which only downloads what changed.

Flatpak

Releases from 0.1.2 on include a Flatpak bundle. It runs sandboxed on the GNOME 51 runtime, which Flatpak fetches from Flathub:

flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak install --user Realer_Xpad-*-x86_64.flatpak
flatpak run ch.giosuel.RealerXpad

The sandbox keeps its notes in ~/.var/app/ch.giosuel.RealerXpad/data/realer-xpad, separate from a native install.

Option B: prebuilt binary

If your distro already has GTK ≥ 4.16 and libadwaita ≥ 1.5, the plain binary is much smaller (~1 MB download):

tar xzf realer-xpad-*-x86_64-linux.tar.gz
cd realer-xpad-*-x86_64-linux
./install.sh

Option C: build from source

You need Rust (1.92 or newer) and the GTK development files:

sudo pacman -S gtk4 libadwaita base-devel

sudo apt install libgtk-4-dev libadwaita-1-dev build-essential

sudo dnf install gtk4-devel libadwaita-devel gcc

Then:

git clone https://github.com/giosuel/realer-xpad
cd realer-xpad
./install.sh        # runs cargo build --release, then installs

Either way, the installer puts a realer-xpad command in ~/.local/bin and a Realer Xpad entry in your app launcher. It doesn't need root.

Not on your PATH?

If realer-xpad isn't found, add ~/.local/bin to your PATH.

3. First launch

realer-xpad

Your first note opens. Start typing, and that's it. If you use Hyprland, take two minutes to set it up so notes float instead of tiling.

Where are my notes?

Each note is stored in ~/.local/share/realer-xpad/ as a .md file holding its text, plus a small .json sidecar for its colour, size, position and drawing. Deleted notes are moved to trash/ in the same folder.

Set REALER_XPAD_DATA=/some/dir to keep notes elsewhere, for example in a synced folder.

Updating & uninstalling

Install a newer release the same way, or git pull && ./install.sh in your checkout. To remove Realer Xpad, run ./install.sh --uninstall. Uninstalling never touches your notes.

Coming from the Python version?

Nothing to migrate. The Rust version reads the same note files.