Talis

An interactive, music-aware, animated turntable that brings the classic vinyl experience to your Linux desktop.

Watch records spin and the tonearm glide in real time as your music plays and control your playback directly from the turntable.

Day scene (4K)	Night scene (4K)

Live playback controls	Moving tonearm and vinyl

Player volume control	Album sleeve with live song coverart

Live cover art: During playback, the sleeve and vinyl shows cover art from your music player when available.

Install

Ubuntu / Debian / Linux Mint

sudo apt install ./talis_VERSION_amd64.deb

Arch / CachyOS

sudo pacman -U ./talis-bin-VERSION-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Fedora

sudo dnf install ./talis-VERSION.x86_64.rpm

Open Talis from your application menu after installation.

NixOS

Extract the prebuilt talis-VERSION-nixos-x86_64.tar.gz bundle and run:

bash install.sh

Missing dependencies download automatically; no compilation needed. Installation details.

Other distros

Extract the portable .tar.gz into a permanent folder. Open a terminal there:

./talis

On GNOME Wayland, run bash setup-gnome.sh once before ./talis. Keep the extracted folder in place. Portable setup and dependencies.

Usage

• Play music in your usual player. Talis follows it automatically; select a specific app under General → Music source if needed during playback.

• Use the turntable to control playback and volume. Controls and cover art depend on what your player provides.

• Adjust appearance and performance in Settings. Enable General → Run on startup to start at sign-in, where available.

Desktop notes

See the desktop support matrix for test results and known limitations.

Desktop or session	Integration
GNOME (Wayland)	Follow the setup prompt; log out/in if asked. The enabled companion handles startup. Setup guide.
KDE Plasma, Hyprland, Sway (Wayland)	Native Wayland integration.
Cinnamon, KDE Plasma (X11)	Native X11 integration.
MATE (X11)	Enable Advanced → MATE compatibility. Desktop icons are hidden while active.
Xfce (X11)	Desktop icons are currently covered while Talis runs.
COSMIC, Budgie and other desktops	Yet to test. You're welcome to try Talis and share feedback.

License

Application code: GPL-3.0-only. Scene and third-party asset terms: licensing and credits.