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Install smabar

Linux packages, the Windows installer, the macOS beta, what the first start looks like, and how updates work.

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smabar is free, needs no account, and runs entirely on your computer. Pick the package for your system from the download page, install it, start it. That is the whole setup.

Linux

Two packages are published for x86-64: a .deb for Debian, Ubuntu and Mint, and an .rpm for Fedora and openSUSE. Both declare their two runtime libraries, libgtk-layer-shell and libpulse, so the package manager installs them for you.

# Debian, Ubuntu, Mint
sudo apt install ./smabar_<version>_amd64.deb

# Fedora, openSUSE
sudo dnf install ./smabar-<version>.x86_64.rpm

smabar works on X11 and on Wayland compositors that support the layer-shell protocol (Sway, Hyprland, KDE Plasma, Cinnamon and most others). GNOME on Wayland does not offer layer-shell and is not supported yet.

Windows

Download the installer, run it, done. The installer is not signed with an Authenticode certificate, so Windows SmartScreen asks once whether you want to run it: choose “More info” and “Run anyway”. If you want to be sure the file is the one we published, compare its SHA-256 checksum with the SHA256SUMS file next to the download:

Get-FileHash .\smabar_<version>_x64-setup.exe

macOS (Beta)

smabar on macOS is a beta: it runs, but click-through, screenshots and the volume and media providers are not there yet. It needs macOS 13 or newer; there is a .dmg for Apple Silicon and one for Intel.

Open the DMG and drag smabar into Applications. Do not run it from the mounted DMG; updates replace the app in place, which only works from Applications. The app is not notarized, so the first start is blocked once: open System Settings › Privacy & Security, scroll to the note about smabar and choose “Open Anyway”. Later starts and updates need no further confirmation.

The first start

The bar appears at the bottom edge of your primary screen: a floating pill with the settings gear at its right end. The gear opens Settings, which has five sections:

  • Bar: position, width, behaviour, layout.
  • Design: theme, colours, fonts, opacity, the theme store.
  • Shortcuts: the apps, folders, files and websites pinned to the bar.
  • Plugins: installed plugins and the Plugin Store.
  • System: updates, the MCP endpoint, logs.

Plugins are written in Python, and you do not need to install Python: smabar ships a package manager and provisions its own Python runtime the first time a plugin needs it. That first provisioning needs a network connection and shows its progress.

Updates

smabar checks for a new version shortly after start and every six hours. A new version shows as a dot on the settings gear and under Settings › System › Updates. Nothing installs on its own. When you choose to update, the package is downloaded and its signature verified; on Linux the system installer opens for confirmation, on Windows the installer runs and restarts the app, on macOS the app replaces itself in Applications and restarts.

Where things live

Everything smabar writes is in one folder: ~/.smabar/ on Linux and macOS, %USERPROFILE%\.smabar\ on Windows. It holds the config file, plugins, plugin data, themes, downloaded fonts and logs. Deleting the folder resets smabar completely.