Install LlamaTray

The easiest way on Arch-based systems (Arch, CachyOS, EndeavourOS). Install with your favorite AUR helper:

yay -S llamatray-git

paru -S llamatray-git

Then launch LlamaTray from your application menu or run LlamaTray in a terminal.

Ubuntu, Debian & Fedora — installer script

Clone the repository and run the bundled installer. It detects your distribution and does the rest:

git clone https://github.com/DolbyDAX2/LlamaTray.git
cd LlamaTray
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

What the installer does

• Detects your distribution and selects the highest installed Python 3 interpreter.
• Installs the matching virtual-environment package (pythonX.Y-venv, with python3-venv fallback) plus pip.
• Creates a virtual environment and installs the Python dependencies.
• Generates a launcher at ~/.local/bin/llamatray and registers a .desktop entry for your application menu.
• Adds ~/.local/bin to your shell PATH (bash / zsh / fish aware).

On apt-based systems it additionally installs missing Qt6/XCB runtime libraries (for minimal X11 desktops such as XFCE/MATE) and registers the application icon into ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor. On Fedora it installs python3 via dnf when needed and sets up the GNOME AppIndicator extension (see below).

Launch it afterwards with llamatray or from the application menu.

Fedora / GNOME: system tray extension

GNOME does not show Qt tray icons out of the box. If LlamaTray reports that the system tray is unavailable, install and enable the AppIndicator extension:

sudo dnf install -y gnome-shell-extension-appindicator
gnome-extensions enable appindicatorsupport@rgcjonas.gmail.com
gnome-extensions info appindicatorsupport@rgcjonas.gmail.com

The last command should show State: ENABLED; then log out of GNOME and back in. If the extension UUID differs on your Fedora/Nobara release, find it with:

rpm -ql gnome-shell-extension-appindicator | grep '/metadata.json$'

In a virtual machine GNOME may refuse automatic activation of the extension — enable it manually and restart the session. If tray rendering is still unavailable, LlamaTray safely continues in window mode.

Manual installation

Prefer to set things up yourself? LlamaTray is a standard Python package.

git clone https://github.com/DolbyDAX2/LlamaTray.git
cd LlamaTray

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

python -m LlamaTray

Prerequisites

• A Linux desktop environment (Wayland or X11).
• llama-server — part of llama.cpp. LlamaTray finds it automatically in ~/.local/bin or ~/llama.cpp/build/bin; you can also use the built-in llama.cpp manager to build or download it.
• GGUF model files — or use the built-in HuggingFace downloader.

Uninstall

From the repository root, the bundled uninstaller removes the launcher, the desktop entry, the installed icon and the PATH entries it added — but never touches your settings and profiles in ~/.llamatray.

./uninstall.sh

yay -Rns llamatray-git