LinPad — Linux for iPad
A real Linux desktop on your iPad
Windows, tiling, workspaces and real Linux apps — Firefox, VS Code, Thunar, VLC, Node, git, Claude Code — running on the iPad itself. No VM. No jailbreak. One app.
Screenshots • Why LinPad • Features • How it works • Quick start • Install & updates • Shortcuts • Roadmap
📸 Screenshots
LinPad OS with the monochrome Dot Matrix desktop. Development captures from the iPad simulator.
 Visual Studio Code editing a React and TypeScript project |
 Firefox browsing Wikipedia |
 LinPad Store with Linux apps and developer tools |
 Aqua desktop with files and terminal |
 Classic 98 desktop |
 Platinum desktop |
🚀 Why LinPad?
The iPad Air M3 is as fast as a MacBook Air. Put a Logitech keyboard with a trackpad on it and it looks like a laptop — but it can't do laptop things. No real terminal. No VS Code. No Linux tools. A powerful machine that ends up as a Netflix screen.
LinPad turns it into the computer the hardware already is.
| Stock iPadOS | LinPad | |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop | Stage Manager | Real windowed desktop with tiling, snapping, workspaces |
| Terminal | Toy shells | Full Alpine Linux — apk, bash, Node, Python, git |
| Code editor | Web-based at best | Visual Studio Code (the real one) |
| Browser engine | WebKit only | Firefox + Safari's engine side by side |
| Linux GUI apps | ❌ | Thunar, Mousepad, VLC, GTK & Qt apps |
| AI coding | ❌ | Claude Code in the terminal and VS Code |
| Keyboard + trackpad | Partial | Right-click, shortcuts, pointer everywhere |
| Cost | — | Free & open source |
✨ Features
🖥️ Native Desktop
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Window manager | Move, resize from any edge, snap to halves and quarters, maximize, minimize to the taskbar |
| Auto-tiling | Master-stack, columns, grid and monocle layouts — on or off per workspace, float any window |
| Workspaces | Switch with keys or three-finger swipes, drag windows between them in the overview |
| Overview & switcher | Exposé-style overview, ⌥Tab switcher with live thumbnails, taskbar hover previews |
| Notification center | History, Do Not Disturb, swipe to dismiss |
| Quick settings | Volume, brightness, appearance, style, tiling, battery, network, fast mode |
| Lock screen & session | Lock, restart the desktop session, session restore on launch |
🎨 Styles & Themes
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Five desktop styles | LinPad, Windows, macOS, Ubuntu, Kylin — each changes the layout, not just colours |
| Matching Linux themes | GTK & Qt themes, cursors and fonts follow the style (Fluent, WhiteSur, Yaru, UKUI, Adwaita) |
| Icon packs | Papirus, Fluent, WhiteSur, Yaru, UKUI and more — independent of the style |
| Light & dark | Per style, or follow iPadOS |
| Wallpapers | Photos, Files, ~/Pictures, or browse Wallhaven (SFW only) right from the desktop |
🐧 Real Linux
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Alpine Linux 3.21 | Unmodified aarch64 binaries, full apk package manager |
| Linux GUI apps as native windows | Built-in Wayland compositor — every Linux window is a real iPad window |
| Firefox | The real thing, tuned for LinPad |
| Visual Studio Code | Microsoft's official build, installed on first use, with extensions & the integrated terminal |
| Developer tools | Node 22, npm, git, Python, Vite with hot reload, TypeScript, Claude Code |
| Lean by design | Optional apps — mail, PDF viewer, office, image editor, VLC — are ticked by you, never preinstalled |
⚡ Performance
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Native ARM64 JIT | ≈4.8× faster than the threaded-code engine — tsc 5.4×, Node 12×, vite build 3.5× |
| Fast mode in one tap | Hands off to StikDebug at launch and comes back with JIT enabled |
| GPU acceleration | Linux Vulkan & OpenGL ES on the Apple GPU (Venus → virglrenderer → MoltenVK → Metal) |
| Firefox | Scrolling at 30–50 fps, URL bar in ~40 ms |
⌨️ Input & Integration
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Keyboard, trackpad, touch | All first-class; touch-sized controls when no keyboard is attached |
| Right-click everywhere | Desktop, Files, title bars, taskbar, and inside Linux apps |
| Text input for every language | Accents, emoji, dictation, Japanese & Chinese composition — in Linux apps too |
| Clipboard & drag-and-drop | Between Linux apps, native apps and iPadOS |
| Sound | Linux audio plays through iOS |
| Files app | Thunar-style manager with Trash, Open With, Properties, desktop as a real folder |
🧠 How it works
LinPad does not run a virtual machine and needs no jailbreak — it is one iPad app.
flowchart TB
subgraph app["LinPad app (one iOS process)"]
desk["DesktopKit — SwiftUI desktop shell<br/>windows · tiling · workspaces · styles · apps"]
bridge["Linux window bridge<br/>frames · input · clipboard · DnD · text input"]
audio["Audio bridge → AVAudioEngine"]
gpu["virglrenderer + MoltenVK → Metal"]
emu["iSH-ARM64 emulator<br/>Linux syscall translation · ARM64 JIT"]
end
subgraph guest["Alpine Linux (aarch64)"]
apps["Firefox · VS Code · Thunar · VLC · foot · node · git · claude"]
ishwl["ishwl — Wayland compositor"]
pulse["PulseAudio"]
mesa["Mesa Venus / Zink"]
end
apps --> ishwl --> bridge --> desk
apps --> pulse --> audio
apps --> mesa --> gpu
guest -. "runs on" .-> emu
| Layer | What it does |
|---|---|
| Emulator | Fork of iSH / iSH-ARM64: translates Linux system calls to iOS; LinPad adds a native ARM64 JIT and dozens of kernel fixes (signals, sockets, memory, inotify, netlink, futexes, memfd, virtio-gpu) |
| ishwl | A small Wayland compositor inside Linux; each window's pixels are shared through memory-mapped files, input goes back through FIFOs |
| DesktopKit | The native SwiftUI desktop — one window manager for native apps and Linux windows |
| GPU | A virtio-gpu device in the emulator feeds virglrenderer's Venus renderer, running on MoltenVK and Metal |
⚡ Quick start
| Requirement | Specification |
|---|---|
| iPad | Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) — developed on an iPad Air M3, iPadOS 27.2 |
| Mac | Xcode, Homebrew llvm lld meson ninja libarchive, libimobiledevice |
| Account | An Apple developer account (LinPad is sideloaded, not on the App Store) |
| Optional | StikDebug + LocalDevVPN for fast mode |
export PATH=/opt/homebrew/opt/lld/bin:/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin:$PATH gpu/build-third-party.sh # virglrenderer + MoltenVK (once) release/build-rootfs.sh # the Alpine system image (~50 min) xcodebuild -project iSH.xcodeproj -target iSH-ARM64 -configuration Release -sdk iphoneos \ -allowProvisioningUpdates SYMROOT=$PWD/build-ios-release IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=17.0 \ DEVELOPMENT_TEAM=<your team> ISH_JIT_BUILD=enabled build release/embed-rootfs.sh --device "build-ios-release/Release-iphoneos/iSH ARM64.app" \ release/out/ish-linux-rootfs-arm64.tar.gz ideviceinstaller install "build-ios-release/Release-iphoneos/iSH ARM64.app"
Full guide: release/INSTALL-DEVICE.md
Visual Studio Code is Microsoft's proprietary build. It is downloaded on your iPad when you choose to install it and is never redistributed by this project.
📲 Install & updates
LinPad is sideloaded with your own Apple ID. Each release has an IPA, and SideStore and AltStore can follow the LinPad source:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fspecii/LinPad/main/release/source.json
| Sideloader | Install | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| SideStore / AltStore | Add the source above, then install LinPad | Offered by the sideloader, or Settings › Updates › Update via SideStore |
| iloader, Sideloadly, Xcode | Download LinPad-<version>.ipa from the release |
Install the new IPA with the same Apple ID; your Linux system and files are kept |
| Inside LinPad | What it does |
|---|---|
| App updates | Checks GitHub at launch and every 6 hours (never on Low Data Mode), shows the release notes and opens your sideloader |
| Linux system updates | Downloads the new system in the background, verifies its SHA-256 and installs it at the next launch — /root, /home and your packages are kept |
| Linux packages | apk upgrade with one tap, weekly check |
Cutting a release: release/RELEASING.md
Releases contain only redistributable software. Visual Studio Code and Claude Code are installed on your iPad from Settings › Apps when you choose them.
⌨️ Keyboard & trackpad
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
⌃⌥A |
Applications |
⌃⌥T |
New terminal |
⌃⌥W |
Close window |
⌃⌥M |
Minimize |
⌃⌥← ⌃⌥→ ⌃⌥↑ |
Snap left / right / maximize |
⌃⌥U I J K |
Snap to quarters |
⌃⌥⇧T |
Toggle auto-tiling |
⌃⌥O |
Overview |
⌥Tab |
Window switcher |
⌃⌥1…9 |
Switch workspace |
⌘ … |
Goes to the app (⌘S saves, ⌘W closes a tab, ⌘C/⌘V copy & paste) |
| Two-finger click | Right-click |
| Three-finger swipe | Overview / switch workspace |
🗺️ Roadmap
- Native desktop with tiling, snapping, workspaces, five styles
- Real Firefox, VS Code, Thunar, VLC as native windows
- Native ARM64 JIT with one-tap fast mode
- GPU acceleration via Venus → Metal
- Wallhaven wallpapers, icon packs, notification center
- Optional app catalog: mail client, PDF viewer, office, image editor (tick to install)
- iPad Files & Photos access from Linux
- Quick Look with Space, like macOS
- Faster Firefox page loads, lower memory
💻 Tech stack
| Layer | Technologies |
|---|---|
| Desktop | Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit |
| Emulator | C, ARM64 assembly, iSH, meson |
| Linux | Alpine Linux 3.21, Mesa (Venus/Zink), PulseAudio, GTK, Qt |
| Graphics | Wayland, virglrenderer, MoltenVK, Metal |
👤 About the Author
LinPad is built and maintained by Vali Neagu (valineagu.com · @AmbsdOP on X · fspecii on GitHub).
I bought an iPad Air M3, attached a Logitech keyboard with a trackpad, and realised I owned a laptop-class machine that couldn't run a terminal, an editor or a real browser. LinPad is the fix.
🙏 Credits
- iSH — the Linux shell for iOS that started it all
- iSH-ARM64 — the native ARM64 guest backend LinPad builds on
- Alpine Linux — the lightweight Linux underneath
- Mesa, virglrenderer, MoltenVK — the GPU path
- StikDebug — JIT on modern iPadOS
- Wallhaven — wallpapers
- The open-source themes and icon packs in
themes/, each under its own license
📄 License
LinPad is licensed under the GPLv3, like iSH — see LICENSE.md. The original iSH README is kept at docs/README-iSH.md.
Source code for releases. Each release attaches linpad-source-<version>.tar.gz (this repository at the release tag) and SOURCES.md / sources-manifest.json, which list every package in the bundled Linux system with the exact source it was built from: the Alpine aports commit of each package, the Debian and Ubuntu theme source packages, and the pinned theme and icon repositories. SOURCES.md also carries the written offer of source for the GPL and LGPL components.
⭐ If LinPad turned your iPad into a real computer, please star this repo! ⭐
Made with ❤️ for everyone whose iPad deserves more than Netflix
Stop using your iPad as a TV. Start using it as a computer.