Installing
Ripple Effect is one download per platform from the download page, which always points at the latest release. After the first install the app updates itself: once per launch it asks whether a newer release exists, and when one does it fetches the right installer for the way this copy was installed, checks it against the checksum the release publishes, and hands it to your platform’s own installer. See Updates, logs and support.
| Platform | You get | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| Linux, Debian and Ubuntu | a .deb |
glibc 2.38 or newer — Ubuntu 24.04+, Debian 13+ |
| Linux, Fedora and RHEL | an .rpm |
glibc 2.38 or newer — Fedora 39+ |
| Windows | a Setup .exe |
Windows 10 or 11. It installs for your account only and never asks for an administrator. |
| macOS | a .dmg |
macOS 12 Monterey or newer. One universal build, Apple silicon and Intel. |
Nothing is code-signed yet
Section titled “Nothing is code-signed yet”None of the installers is signed by an authority your machine already trusts. So Windows and macOS will each stop the app once, on first run, and say they do not know it. The warning is about the missing certificate, not about anything the installer does. Linux checks nothing of the sort and asks nothing.
A purchased certificate would remove the SmartScreen warning on Windows and, with notarisation, the Gatekeeper prompt on macOS. Both are a known next step rather than a decision against; until then, this is what each platform asks.
SmartScreen shows Windows protected your PC. Choose More info,
then Run anyway. Setup then installs into
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Ripple Effect, for you alone, and running a
later installer over it upgrades in place.
If instead you see An Application Control policy has blocked this file, that is not SmartScreen — see Smart App Control below.
Gatekeeper says the app cannot be opened because it is from an unidentified developer, or that it could not verify it. Drag the app to Applications first, then either right-click it and choose Open, which adds an Open button to the dialog, or clear the quarantine mark from a terminal:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Ripple Effect.app"Either is once; the app opens normally afterwards.
sudo apt install ./ripple_effect-<version>-linux.debsudo dnf install ./ripple_effect-<version>-linux.rpmNothing asks about signing. The .deb installs to
/opt/ripple_effect and the .rpm to /usr/share/ripple-effect, and
both put ripple_effect on your PATH. A package refused with a
complaint about libc6 or GLIBC_2.38 is the floor in the table above:
the version control feature ships a libgit2 that needs it, and a package
that claimed less would install and then be unable to open a repository.
Sound adds three runtime libraries the .deb declares — ALSA, PulseAudio
and PipeWire — which every desktop has.
Smart App Control
Section titled “Smart App Control”Windows 11 only. If Setup refuses with
An Application Control policy has blocked this file— error 4551, in the language of a log — then Smart App Control is on. It is a Windows 11 feature that runs only apps Microsoft’s reputation service already knows or that carry a trusted signature, and an unsigned installer is neither. It has no Run anyway: unlike SmartScreen there is no per-app exception, so the only way to install is to turn it off.
You may well have never seen it. It is only ever enabled on a clean install of Windows 11 (a reset counts), it starts in an Evaluation mode that blocks nothing while Windows decides whether the feature suits the machine, and then switches itself On — with a notification — or Off. A PC that has been upgraded from Windows 10, or that was seen running developer tools during evaluation, has it off already, which is why most people never meet it.
To check and to turn it off: Settings → Privacy & security → Windows Security → App & browser control → Smart App Control settings, and choose Off.
That this is the error at all is the strongest argument for signing the Windows build, and it is the one being weighed.