PhotoTux has no packages yet — no AUR entry, no Flatpak, no AppImage. Building it takes one command once the dependencies are in place, and the result is a single binary you can run from the build directory.

What you need
Operating system Linux. Wayland is the target session; X11 works but the frame budgets are measured on Wayland.
Graphics A working Vulkan driver — Mesa (radv, anv, nvk), AMDVLK or the proprietary NVIDIA driver.
Qt 6.10 or newer, with the Declarative (QML) and SVG modules.
Rust 1.87 or newer, edition 2024.
Build tools CMake and a C++ toolchain, for the thin canvas shim.

If you are not sure whether Vulkan is working, vulkaninfo --summary should list at least one device. On most systems it comes from the vulkan-tools package.

Install the dependencies

Arch, CachyOS, EndeavourOS, Manjaro

sudo pacman -S --needed rust qt6-base qt6-declarative qt6-svg vulkan-icd-loader cmake

You will also want the Vulkan driver for your hardware if it is not already installed: vulkan-radeon for AMD, vulkan-intel for Intel, nvidia-utils for NVIDIA.

Debian and Ubuntu

sudo apt install qt6-base-dev qt6-declarative-dev qt6-svg-dev \
  libvulkan-dev cmake build-essential

Check your Qt version. Debian 13 and Ubuntu 25.04 ship Qt 6.8, which is below the 6.10 PhotoTux needs. Either wait for a newer release, add a backports source, or install Qt 6.10 from the Qt online installer and point QMAKE at it. qmake6 -query QT_VERSION tells you what you have.

Rust from apt is usually behind as well. Install it from rustup.rs instead:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Fedora

sudo dnf install qt6-qtbase-devel qt6-qtdeclarative-devel \
  qt6-qtsvg-devel vulkan-loader-devel cmake gcc-c++

openSUSE Tumbleweed

sudo zypper install qt6-base-devel qt6-declarative-devel qt6-svg-devel \
  vulkan-devel cmake gcc-c++

Build and run

git clone https://github.com/PerkyZZ999/Phototux.git
cd Phototux
export PATH=/usr/lib/qt6/bin:$PATH
export QMAKE=/usr/lib/qt6/bin/qmake
cargo run --release -p phototux

The first build takes a few minutes; after that it is incremental.

Those two exports are not optional. Most distributions put Qt 5’s qmake first on PATH, and the build links against whichever Qt that qmake reports. Getting it wrong produces a link error that reads like a missing symbol rather than a wrong Qt version. If /usr/lib/qt6/bin is not where your distribution puts Qt 6, find it with qmake6 -query QT_INSTALL_BINS.

Drop --release while you are experimenting — debug builds compile faster, and dependencies are optimized anyway so opening and saving stay quick. The canvas is slower in a debug build.

Making it a desktop application

To get PhotoTux into your application launcher, install the desktop entry, the icons and the AppStream metadata under the standard prefixes:

sudo install -Dm755 target/release/phototux /usr/local/bin/phototux
sudo install -Dm644 packaging/linux/io.github.PerkyZZ999.PhotoTux.desktop \
  /usr/share/applications/io.github.PerkyZZ999.PhotoTux.desktop
sudo install -Dm644 packaging/linux/io.github.PerkyZZ999.PhotoTux.svg \
  /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/io.github.PerkyZZ999.PhotoTux.svg
sudo install -Dm644 packaging/linux/io.github.PerkyZZ999.PhotoTux.png \
  /usr/share/icons/hicolor/256x256/apps/io.github.PerkyZZ999.PhotoTux.png
sudo install -Dm644 packaging/linux/io.github.PerkyZZ999.PhotoTux.metainfo.xml \
  /usr/share/metainfo/io.github.PerkyZZ999.PhotoTux.metainfo.xml
sudo update-desktop-database

The desktop entry associates PNG, JPEG, WebP, TIFF, BMP, GIF and PSD, so those file types offer PhotoTux in “Open With”.

First launch

The PhotoTux welcome screen, with New File and Open File buttons and an empty recent-files list.

PhotoTux opens on a welcome screen with New File and Open File and, once you have used it, a recent-files list. New File offers 720p, 1080p, 2K and 4K presets with an editable size beside them; whatever you pick, the document opens zoomed to fit.

Carry on with a tour of the workspace.

Updating

cd Phototux
git pull
cargo run --release -p phototux

The .ptx format is still moving. Documents written by an older build open in a newer one, but the reverse is not guaranteed while the format is pre-1.0. Export anything important to PNG or PSD as well.

When the build fails

qmake reports Qt 5, or linking fails with missing Qt symbols

PATH and QMAKE are pointing at the wrong Qt. Check with:

qmake --version
echo "$QMAKE"

Both should name Qt 6. Set them as shown above, then cargo clean -p phototux_ui and build again — a stale object file linked against the wrong Qt will not relink itself.

Could not find Qt6Config.cmake

The Qt 6 development packages are missing, not just the runtime. On Debian and Ubuntu that is the -dev packages; on Fedora, -devel.

The window opens black, or the process exits at startup

That is a graphics problem rather than a build problem. See troubleshooting.

Anything else

Run with RUST_LOG=debug from a terminal and include the output when you open an issue. Distribution, kernel, session type, desktop, GPU and driver version all matter — Linux graphics bugs are environment bugs until proven otherwise.