Roue

Install

Roue needs Linux, Python 3.10+, and GTK 4.6+ with libadwaita 1.1+ for the wheel and the panel. Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 40 and newer all qualify. The command line and the conversion engine work without GTK.

Tested on Ubuntu 22.04 (GNOME 42, Python 3.10), Ubuntu 24.04 (GNOME 46) and Ubuntu 26.04 (GNOME 50, Python 3.14), on Wayland.

Ubuntu and Debian: one command#

wget -qO- https://guilyx.github.io/roue/install.sh | sh

It asks for your password, then:

  1. Adds Roue's signed update channel: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/roue.sources and /usr/share/keyrings/roue-archive-keyring.gpg.
  2. Installs the roue package with apt, which pulls in FFmpeg and libvips.
  3. Runs roue setup for you: the Files menu, the Super+Shift+D hotkey and, on GNOME, the GNOME helper.

Want to read it first? Open install.sh in your browser, or download it and run it with sh install.sh. (Ubuntu ships wget, not curl.)

Ubuntu and Debian: the .deb by hand#

Download roue_<version>_all.deb from the releases page, then:

sudo apt install ./roue_<version>_all.deb

Double-clicking the file may also work, depending on your Ubuntu version's App Center. The package installs the app, the launcher, the D-Bus service, the Files right-click menu, the GNOME helper and Roue's update channel.

First launch: Set Up Roue#

Open Roue from your apps. The first time, Set Up Roue shows what's ready and offers one button for each thing that isn't:

  • Right-click in Files: installs python3-nautilus if it's missing, or restarts Files so Convert with Roue… shows up (Files' windows close).
  • Keyboard shortcut: sets Super+Shift+D to open the wheel.
  • Wheel on top, at the pointer (GNOME on Wayland): turns on the GNOME helper.
  • Conversion tools: one Install button per missing tool. It asks for your password, then installs the package with apt. LibreOffice (Office documents to PDF) is a large download: skip it if you don't need it.

Open it again any time from the panel's main menu: Set Up Roue…. In a terminal, roue setup does the same, minus the tools.

Any distribution, from source#

Install the dependencies with your package manager. On Ubuntu:

sudo apt install ffmpeg libvips-tools ghostscript python3-gi python3-gi-cairo \
  gir1.2-gtk-4.0 gir1.2-adw-1 python3-nautilus libheif-plugin-libde265 pipx

On Ubuntu 22.04 and Debian 12, leave out libheif-plugin-libde265: their libheif already reads HEIC.

Then install Roue for your user and hook it into the desktop:

pipx install --system-site-packages git+https://github.com/guilyx/roue
roue setup

--system-site-packages lets Roue use your distribution's PyGObject and GTK. roue setup writes the launcher, the D-Bus service, the icon and the Files extension under ~/.local/share, and sets the hotkey on GNOME.

Other package names:

Tool Fedora Arch openSUSE
FFmpeg ffmpeg-free ffmpeg ffmpeg
libvips vips-tools libvips vips
ImageMagick (fallback) ImageMagick imagemagick ImageMagick
Ghostscript ghostscript ghostscript ghostscript
Pandoc pandoc pandoc pandoc
LibreOffice libreoffice libreoffice-fresh libreoffice
PyGObject (with cairo), GTK 4, libadwaita python3-gobject gtk4 libadwaita python-gobject python-cairo gtk4 libadwaita python3-gobject-cairo typelib-1_0-Gtk-4_0 typelib-1_0-Adw-1
Files extension host nautilus-python python-nautilus python3-nautilus

What each tool does#

Roue drives existing command-line tools. Install the ones you need. Presets whose tools are missing stay off the wheel, and their tiles in the panel are greyed out with a hint.

Tool Used for Needed by
FFmpeg (+ ffprobe) video and audio MP4, GIF, WebM, Under 10/25 MB, Mute, MP3, Opus, WAV, FLAC…
libvips fast images, HEIC, AVIF JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, resizes, metadata removal
ImageMagick images, when libvips is missing same as libvips (AVIF output may not work)
Ghostscript PDFs Compress PDF, Pages to PNG, Text
Pandoc Markdown, reStructuredText, Org Word, Web page, PDF from Markdown
LibreOffice office documents PDF from DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, ODT…

HEIC photos need the HEVC decoder plugin for libheif. On Ubuntu and Debian: sudo apt install libheif-plugin-libde265. Writing AVIF needs the AV1 encoder plugin: sudo apt install libheif-plugin-aomenc. (Ubuntu 22.04 and Debian 12 build both into libheif, so there's nothing to add.)

Markdown to PDF uses the first PDF engine it finds (typst, weasyprint, wkhtmltopdf, tectonic, xelatex, pdflatex). With none installed, Pandoc writes an ODT file and LibreOffice prints it to PDF.

Check your setup#

roue doctor

It shows every tool, which presets are ready, and one command to install everything that's missing.

Updates#

The .deb adds Roue's update channel, so Software Updater offers new versions of Roue next to your other updates. In a terminal:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

roue doctor shows whether the channel is set up.

Roue itself never checks for updates and never contacts the network: apt does the checking, as for any other Ubuntu app.

Opt out: delete /etc/apt/sources.list.d/roue.sources. Upgrades don't bring it back.

Install updates automatically: Ubuntu's unattended upgrades only take security updates by default. To let them install Roue too, create /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/52roue-unattended with:

Unattended-Upgrade::Origins-Pattern { "origin=Roue"; };

pipx installs: pipx upgrade roue.

Uninstall#

roue setup --remove      # your hotkey, GNOME helper and the files roue setup added
sudo apt purge roue      # if you used the .deb: also removes the update channel
pipx uninstall roue      # if you used pipx

Your settings live in ~/.config/roue/ and your history in ~/.local/state/roue/. Delete them too for a clean slate.

For contributors#

git clone https://github.com/guilyx/roue
cd roue
make dev     # virtualenv with your system's GTK, plus dev tools
make test    # the test suite
make site    # build this website into website/

See Contributing.

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