Install mhr on Ubuntu

This page shows how to install mhr, a read-only GitHub-flavoured markdown viewer, from the .deb attached to a GitHub release, and how to check that download against its published checksum before installing it. It covers requirements, download, checksum verification, install, and removal, in that order. For the snap package, other distributions, or building from source, see the README.

v0.1.0-beta is out now. See the release notes for what changed.

Requirements

The .deb needs Ubuntu 24.04 or newer, or Debian trixie or newer. It links against the t64 builds of GTK and GLib, which earlier releases do not have.

1. Pick a release

Open the releases page and note the tag of the release you want, for example v0.1.0-beta. Early tags are marked Pre-release on purpose. That is expected during alpha and beta, not a sign anything is broken.

2. Download the package and its checksums

Set TAG to the tag you picked, then download both files into the same directory:

TAG=v0.1.0-beta

curl -LO "https://github.com/chairulakmal/markdown-hot-reload/releases/download/$TAG/SHA256SUMS"
curl -LO "https://github.com/chairulakmal/markdown-hot-reload/releases/download/$TAG/mhr_${TAG#v}-1_amd64.deb"

Every release also ships a source tarball and a .tar.gz of the binary for other Linux distributions, both covered by the same SHA256SUMS file.

3. Verify the checksum

Before installing anything, check the download against the checksum GitHub Actions produced when it built the release:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing

--ignore-missing skips the tarball's line, since you only downloaded the .deb. The command must print OK next to the package's filename. If it prints FAILED or reports no such file, do not install the package. Delete it and download it again.

4. Install it

apt resolves the WebKitGTK and GTK dependencies from your system's own repositories, so no separate download step is needed for those:

sudo apt install ./mhr_*.deb

apt may print a line like

N: Download is performed unsandboxed as root as file '...'
          couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'.

This is a warning, not an error. It happens because the _apt sandbox user cannot read files inside your home directory. The install still completes correctly. To avoid the warning, move the .deb to /tmp first and run the same command there.

Then run it against any markdown file:

mhr notes.md

Removing it

sudo apt remove mhr

mhr never contacts the network. It only reads the file you point it at and re-renders it when the file changes on disk.