Filestar*
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Linux

Filestar for Linux is the same app as on Windows and macOS, packaged as a single AppImage that runs on most Linux distributions without installing anything.

What you need

  • A 64-bit Intel or AMD PC (x86-64). ARM is not supported yet.
  • A distribution from 2018 or later (glibc 2.28 or newer): Ubuntu 20.04, Debian 10, Fedora 29, RHEL/AlmaLinux/Rocky 8, openSUSE Leap 15.3 or anything newer.
  • A desktop session (X11 or Wayland) for the app. The command line works without one.

Install and run

  1. Download Filestar from filestar.com and choose Linux. You get a file named like Filestar.29.0.0.1.linux-x64.AbCd1.AppImage - keep the last part of the name, it carries your download key.

  2. Make it executable and start it:

    chmod +x Filestar.*.AppImage
./Filestar.*.AppImage

    Most file managers can also do this: open the file's properties and allow it to run as a program, then double-click it.

  3. Keep the AppImage where you want it to live, for example in ~/Applications. Filestar updates itself in place.

If it does not start with a message about FUSE (common in containers and on some minimal installs), run it with --appimage-extract-and-run, or install your distribution's libfuse2 package.

The command line

The same AppImage contains the Filestar CLI:

./Filestar.*.AppImage cli -c "convert to pdf" -i report.docx

The CLI needs a plan that includes it, as on Windows and macOS.

Updates

Filestar checks for updates when it starts and replaces its own AppImage with the new version, then restarts. Before it does, it checks the update's signature against the Filestar release key built into the app, and refuses anything that is not signed by Filestar. If the AppImage sits in a folder you cannot write to (for example /opt), Filestar keeps running the version you have; download the new one from filestar.com instead.

What works on Linux today

Most conversions work as on the other platforms: images (including HEIC and RAW photos), audio and video, PDF, documents through Pandoc, e-books apart from calibre's formats, archives, CAD and 3D, GIS, OCR and speech to text.

Not available on Linux yet: conversions that depend on LibreOffice, Inkscape, GIMP, Blender, calibre, FontForge, FluidSynth, MrSID, libcdr (CorelDRAW), SoX, NConvert or Microsoft Office, and printing. Filestar says "This skill is not yet available for your platform" when you ask for one of those.

Check that a download comes from Filestar

Every Linux release is signed with the Filestar release key. The signature for a version is next to it on the release server, for example https://release.filestar.com/releases/29.0.0.1/Filestar.29.0.0.1.linux-x64.AppImage.sig. Save the public key below as filestar-release.pem and run:

openssl dgst -sha256 -verify filestar-release.pem -signature Filestar.29.0.0.1.linux-x64.AppImage.sig Filestar.29.0.0.1.linux-x64.AbCd1.AppImage

It prints Verified OK for a genuine file. The key:

-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAE06s0qAVJMelCGkkPRGkDwoxLPfR8
BWNHNuAIwQd4CD9SA5LQdBoOpDrvCbRHzy3jTAXPwWOjPxfmYgeZDE9vTw==
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----

SHA-256 fingerprint of the key: F6:50:BF:DE:B1:D8:D0:D6:36:54:13:3F:DA:8B:78:2B:85:AE:50:DF:14:B6:96:40:6F:B5:E3:C7:AC:94:26:DB

Tell us what you find

If something does not work on your distribution, write to us through the concierge with your distribution and version, and we will look at it.

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