Building Desktop Apps for Linux with Python

I've always loved Linux for its freedom, but the desktop app ecosystem can feel sparse. That's why I started building my own tools.

Downtube Pro

A Material Design 3 YouTube downloader wrapping yt-dlp in a PyQt5 interface. Features include:

• Download queue with progress tracking
• SQLite history for past downloads
• Format selection (video/audio/playlist)
• 4 color themes
• Cookie support for age-restricted content

Macshot for Linux

A lightweight screen recorder that uses only 60MB RAM idle (vs OBS's 218MB). Built with:

• Python + GTK3 for the GUI
• Go for the capture engine
• FFmpeg for encoding
• Supports 15/30/60 FPS recording and GIF export

Why Desktop Apps?

Web apps are great, but some tasks need native performance. Screen recording and media downloading are two of those tasks where system-level access makes a real difference.