Is there going to be support for Linux in the future?
Is that in relation to the new app/UI? I use RescueTime for tracking applications and websites on Ubuntu, and it works pretty well.
Yes, it’s for the new app. The latest release for Linux seems to be from 2020.
Yes, we do have plans to offer Linux support in the future. As we are a small team this will take some time.
It’s mentioned here: What operating systems are compatible with RescueTime? - RescueTime
Currently Linux is not compatible with RescueTime, however we are working to open this up in the near future.
It would be nice to know if this is actually being worked on, though! Also it’s a bit funny to me that it says “Linux is not compatible with RescueTime” rather than “RescueTime is not compatible with Linux” but anyway
Good catch @scott! Doc updated. Appreciate it!
We did start the research for Linux, however our priorities have shifted to more pressing stuff.
We’ll get back on the horse hopefully sooner rather than later.
+1 for Linux support.
Anyone know how to setup rescuetime as linux service?
It works perfectly fine, but only as an app.
I can sometimes forget to run application.
I have tried by setting systemctl service, but it failed and showed that as a reason:
Mar 05 14:15:44 danzosystems rescuetime[9761]: qt.qpa.plugin: Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was found.
Mar 05 14:15:44 danzosystems rescuetime[9761]: This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.
the app works perfectly fine, when I will run it as normal appl
I use arch, and KDE BTW.
Is there anyway I could contribute to the Linux version?
Hi @jaloway, sure! When Linux support is ready (no live date yet), we’d love for you to beta test it for us.
From what I recall reading from the RT team, RescueTime for Linux only works on Xorg/X11 desktops, but now that most desktop Linux distros have moved to Wayland display server (much less janky than the 40+ year old Xorg/X11), window tracking using window titles via “xprop” command doesn’t work at all; also Wayland doesn’t provide window title data by default to other apps to keep each app “sandboxed” and secure by default. There are some open-source projects like “ActivityWatch” that DO work on Wayland desktop, but ActivityWatch is nowhere near the level of polish of RescueTime and you have to manually categorize everything before ActivityWatch will be able to provide useful time tracking metrics.
For now I’m getting by with the RescueTime app for MacOS, but if by some miracle the RT team figures out Linux time tracking on Linux I will definitely use it!
Please work on RescueTime for Linux, I was using it on all my work computers, and it’s very unfortunate I can’t log my time on my new work computer.
I bet there are loads of people with this problem
just wanted to add that I have talked to several people using rescuetime who have moved to opensource alternatives because of the lack of linux support. It seems like the it’s technically not impossible to track windows in wayland.
As I do work mostly in programming languages where Windows is rather a burden, I consider to move to Fedora Linux. However it sucks that I’ve paid an annual subscription that I can’t use then anymore .
So +1 for Linux support.
And I’m open for Linux compatible alternatives as well, if someone could propose some?
I am using the old version of the app on Ubuntu 24.04. Window title tracking appears to work only with Google Chrome (for some reason I have not yet figured out), but not with Firefox nor with Microsoft Edge.
The other quirk I experience is that it does not register offline time correctly while locked. Rescuetime never pops up the popup shown in Offline Time settings and when I return my open window/tab is logged for the duration that I was away, even if it was way more than 5 minutes.
I’ll keep trying it, Rescuetime is fabulously valuable tool for my productivity. I also hope that the team can provide some fixes for Linux - I completely understand we’re a minority compared to the other operating systems, though.
+1 for Linux support
We appreciate our Linux user community and encourage those with working setups to continue using RescueTime. While we’ve been in an unsupported state for several years, many users have successfully kept things running.
Maintaining Linux support became increasingly challenging due to the disproportionate support load. However, we hope to revisit Linux development in the future, once we complete the major feature updates we are currently focused on. In the meantime, view our current Linux help docs here.
Thanks!
JP
+1 For Linux Support