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ZDNET's key takeaways
OpenAI's ChatGPT Desktop App for Linux is an Electron-based program.
The application is proprietary, not open source.
Frankly, it's not that impressive. I'll keep using ChatGPT in the browser.
OpenAI has released a preview of its ChatGPT desktop application for Linux. With this, OpenAI now has a native client on all major desktop operating systems and is placing its coding agent, Codex, alongside ChatGPT and its Work environment.
That's the good news. The bad news is that, for me at least, ChatGPT continues to be annoyingly inaccurate. While I can cosplay a coder, with or without AI, my real use for AI is as an advanced search engine. When I asked the ChatGPT app on my main Linux Mint desktop to give me the technical specifications for SpaceX and Nvidia's forthcoming Starmind AI datacenter satellites -- and provided it with a link to the satellite's site -- I expected an accurate answer. I didn't get one. Starmind's height and wing-width, according to SpaceX, are 30m and 75m, respectively; not, as ChatGPT would have it, 20m and 70m.
Also: Microsoft is merging Copilot and Copilot 365 into one unified app - and retiring 3 features
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
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