RobOS App Manager

Use the same RobOS App Manager on Windows, Ubuntu GNOME and macOS. The base download contains the manager and one shared Electron runtime. Apps are separate downloads for your OS and CPU.

1. Open the Windows installer, Ubuntu .deb (or the AppImage on other Linux desktops) or macOS DMG.
2. Expand a group and check the apps you want. Group checkboxes select their apps; partly selected groups show an intermediate state.
3. Review the download size and choose Install selected. Install one app, several checked apps, or use Select all apps to install the whole library. Shared dependencies download once.
4. Use Uninstall selected to remove one or several installed apps in one batch, with one confirmation. Shared components needed by remaining apps are kept.
5. In Installed, use Uninstall all apps to clear the entire library while keeping App Manager ready to install apps again. This also works offline.
6. Choose Uninstall RobOS to remove App Manager and its entire managed library together. Personal settings are retained.

The first time App Manager can read the app catalog it installs RobOS Preferences by itself and opens it on Config Sync, where Back up to my Google Drive keeps your settings, Audio Player and Movie Player libraries and watch history the same on every computer. It does this once: if you uninstall Preferences later, it stays uninstalled.

Each installed app has its own native launcher. On Windows each one is in the Start menu under RobOS Apps, named “RobOS …” so typing “RobOS” finds every app, and shows its own icon in the Start menu, on its taskbar button and in Alt+Tab (App Manager makes icon.ico from the app’s icon.png; scripts/app-manager/render-icons.cjs renders icon.png from icon.svg for apps that only have an SVG). The table header checkbox selects visible rows; Select all apps selects the entire library even when search hides some apps. In the Installed view, Select all installed selects every installed app.

On Ubuntu GNOME, install the .deb by double-clicking it or with sudo apt install ./RobOS-*-Linux-amd64.deb. App Manager pins itself to the dock on first launch, and later unpinning is respected. Each installed app appears in the app grid in a RobOS Apps folder and in search, and the dock shows it with its own icon while it runs.

The AppImage is for other Linux desktops and needs FUSE 2. Its first launch copies it to ~/.local/share/robos/RobOS.AppImage and registers the manager in the app menu. Keep the original download only if you want a backup.

On macOS, use the Intel or Apple Silicon DMG matching your Mac. Launching from the mounted DMG installs a persistent manager in ~/Applications/RobOS.app. Each selected app gets an application launcher under ~/Applications/RobOS Apps.

Choose Uninstall RobOS to remove the manager, its downloaded apps and menu entries, and on GNOME its dock icon and app-grid folder. Windows Settings or sudo apt remove robos-app-manager on Ubuntu can also uninstall RobOS. Personal app settings under ~/.config/robos/ are retained. An AppImage removed directly in a file manager cannot run cleanup; use the manager’s uninstall action first.

Windows and Linux use platform-specific app payloads for native dependencies. Linux-specific apps still need their Linux services and tools. The optional appliance USB installer is a separate product.

See the distribution build guide for release packaging and validation.