Installation

CointMU is a desktop application built with Electron, packaging a Proof-of-Work node together with a dashboard, wallet, and mining interface. It runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Installers for each release are published on GitHub Releases. You can also build the application from source.

The app's version numbers are its own and unrelated to the CointMU CLI's: desktop 1.7.x is not CLI 1.7.x.

Install a Release

Download the installer for your platform from the latest release:

Platform	File	Architecture
Windows	windows-cointmu-desktop-<version>-installer.exe	x64
Linux	linux-cointmu-desktop-<version>-installer.AppImage	x64
Linux	linux-cointmu-desktop-<version>-installer.deb	x64
macOS	macos-cointmu-desktop-<version>-installer.dmg or .zip	Apple Silicon (arm64)

• Linux (deb): sudo apt install ./linux-cointmu-desktop-<version>-installer.deb. The app installs to /opt/CointMU.
• Linux (AppImage): chmod +x the file and run it.
• Windows: run the installer. It lets you choose the install folder and creates a desktop shortcut.
• macOS: open the .dmg and drag CointMU to Applications. The build is not notarized (notarize: false in electron-builder.yml), so macOS asks for confirmation the first time you open it.

macOS: the node does not start

macOS builds do not include the geth binary where the app looks for it, so the embedded node never starts. The wallet, dashboard and explorer then have no chain data. See CointMU-App#102.

Verified on

The .deb was extracted and run on Linux (x64) for these docs. The Windows and macOS steps above come from the build configuration and the published files, and were not run on those systems.

Updates

When it starts, an installed build checks GitHub Releases for a newer version. If it finds one, it downloads it in the background. Prereleases are included. You can also check by hand in Settings → About → Check for Updates, and turn the startup check off under Settings → General → Updates.

What happens once the download is done depends on the version you are running:

Running	After the download
1.8.0	Install when I quit (default): nothing is shown; the update installs when you quit, after the node has stopped, and CointMU does not restart. Ask me: an Update ready prompt offers Restart now or Later.
1.7.4 and older	CointMU restarts into the new version as soon as the download finishes. An update from 1.7.4 to 1.8.0 is installed this way.

The node always shuts down cleanly before an update installs. The startup check was seen on Linux (1.8.0 found no newer release); the download and install come from the source and were not exercised for these docs.

Network Access

The node finds peers through the three CointMU nodes on the campus network (10.64.24.101, 10.64.24.106 and 10.64.24.113 since 1.8.0; only the first before). Off campus, connect through the VPN. Without it the node starts but stays at 0 peers, and the Mining page says Bootnode unreachable — make sure you are connected to the campus network or VPN. The nodes and whether each can be reached are listed under Settings → Network.

Where Data Is Stored

CointMU keeps everything in its user data folder (<userData>):

Platform	<userData>
Linux	~/.config/CointMU
Windows	%APPDATA%\CointMU
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/CointMU

What	Where
Chain data	<userData>/cointmu-chaindata/1912, or the folder you moved it to (see below)
Settings and wallet (accounts encrypted with your password)	<userData>/config.json
Logs (main.log, geth.log)	<userData>/logs/
Block index for the Explorer's miner chart (since 1.8.0)	<userData>/explorer-index/1912
Error reports waiting to be sent	<userData>/telemetry-queue/

Since 1.8.0, Settings → General → Chain data location → Move… copies the chain data to another folder, for example on a larger drive; see Moving the Chain Data. The block index, settings, wallet and logs stay in <userData>.

The Linux paths were checked on a running build. The Windows and macOS folders are Electron's defaults for an app named CointMU, and were not checked on those systems.

Requirements

To build CointMU from source you need:

Requirement	Version / Notes
Node.js	24.15 or later, pinned in .nvmrc. Node.js 22.22.2 or later also works, but npm prints an EBADDEVENGINES warning on every install.
npm	12.2 or later, through Corepack. package.json pins npm@12.2.0, and any older npm stops with EBADDEVENGINES, including the npm 10 that ships with Node.js 22.
Git	Required to clone the repository
Go	Windows builds only (npm run build:win, from 1.7.4): builds geth-supervisor.exe. Use the version in native/geth-supervisor/go.mod.

The geth binaries are committed to the repository under resources/bin/linux/, resources/bin/mac/ and resources/bin/win/, so there is nothing to download or place by hand.

Install from Source

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/Cointmu-ORG/CointMU-App.git
   cd CointMU-App

2. Switch to the pinned Node.js version and let Corepack provide the pinned npm:

   nvm use
   corepack enable npm   # after nvm use, so the shim lands in that Node.js
   npm -v                # 12.2.0

3. Install dependencies:

   npm install

   npm 12 runs dependency install scripts only for the packages listed under allowScripts in package.json. If your ~/.npmrc has a global allow-scripts=... line, remove it: npm ignores it in this project and warns on every install.

4. Optionally, copy the environment file. It is read in development only, and its values are the defaults the code already uses:

   cp .env.example .env

5. Start the application in development mode:

   npm run dev

How the Node.js and npm versions were checked

On the main branch (1.7.4) on Linux: with Node.js 22.23.2 and its bundled npm 10.9.9, npm ci stops with EBADDEVENGINES. With Node.js 22.23.2 and npm 12.2.0, from Corepack or installed directly, npm ci and npm run build succeed after one devEngines.runtime warning, and all tests pass. Corepack resolves npm 12.2.0 under Node.js 22.23.2 and 24.x. The 22.22.2 lower bound is npm 12's own engines range, and was not run.

1.8.0 declares the same Node.js and npm versions (.nvmrc, devEngines, packageManager and native/geth-supervisor/go.mod are unchanged since 1.7.4, and the bundled geth binaries are identical), so these checks were not repeated for it. Its Electron is 45.0.0, installed by npm install like any other dependency.

Building Distributables

The application is packaged with electron-builder. Each platform must be built on a matching host OS — build Windows artifacts on Windows, Linux artifacts on Linux, and macOS artifacts on macOS.

Platform	Command	Output
Windows	npm run build:win	Installer in dist/
Linux	npm run build:linux	AppImage / deb package in dist/
macOS	npm run build:mac	Application bundle and DMG in dist/

From 1.7.4, npm run build:win also needs Go, to build geth-supervisor.exe. On Linux or macOS you can build only the supervisor with GOOS=windows GOARCH=amd64 npm run build:geth-supervisor.

Continuous integration builds all three platforms automatically via the GitHub Actions release workflow (.github/workflows/release.yml) whenever a v* tag is pushed.

Development Workflow

The repository also provides a Makefile for common tasks:

Command	Description
make dev	Start the development server with hot-module reloading.
make build:win	Compile and package the application as a Windows installer.
make build:linux	Compile and package the application as Linux AppImage and deb packages.
make build:mac	Compile and package the application as a macOS DMG.
make clean	Remove build artifacts (out, dist, build).
make help	List the available commands (the default target).

Next Steps

Continue to the App Overview to understand the application architecture, or see Self-Healing Embedded Node for details on the embedded Geth process.