lucas-developer/appimagekit

Package desktop applications as AppImages that run on common Linux-based operating systems, such as RHEL, CentOS, openSUSE, SLED, Ubuntu, Fedora, debian and derivatives. Join #AppImage on irc.freenode.net

AppImageKit

Copyright (c) 2004-17 Simon Peter [email protected] and contributors.

Using AppImageKit you can package desktop applications as AppImages that run on common Linux-based operating systems, such as RHEL, CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian and derivatives.

The AppImage format is a format for packaging applications in a way that allows them to run on a variety of different target systems (base operating systems, distributions) without further modification.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppImage

AppImageKit is a concrete implementation of the AppImage format and provides tools such as appimagetool and appimaged for conveniently handling AppImages.

appimagetool converts an AppDir into a self-mounting filesystem image. appimaged is a daemon that handles registering and unregistering AppImages with the system (e.g., menu entries, icons, MIME types, binary delta updates, and such).

appimagetool usage

A precompiled version can be found in the last successful Travis CI build, you can get it with:

wget "https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/releases/download/continuous/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage"
chmod a+x appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage

Usage in a nutshell, assuming that you already have an AppDir in place:

./appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage some.AppDir

Detailed usage:

Usage:
  appimagetool [OPTION...] SOURCE [DESTINATION] - Generate, extract, and inspect AppImages

Help Options:
  -h, --help                  Show help options

Application Options:
  -l, --list                  List files in SOURCE AppImage
  -u, --updateinformation     Embed update information STRING; if zsyncmake is installed, generate zsync file
  --bintray-user              Bintray user name
  --bintray-repo              Bintray repository
  --version                   Show version number
  -v, --verbose               Produce verbose output
  -s, --sign                  Sign with gpg2
  -n, --no-appstream          Do not check AppStream metadata

If you want to generate an AppImage manually, you can:

mksquashfs Your.AppDir Your.squashfs -root-owned -noappend
cat runtime >> Your.AppImage
cat Your.squashfs >> Your.AppImage
chmod a+x Your.AppImage

AppImage usage

Running an AppImage mounts the filesystem image and transparently runs the contained application. So the usage of an AppImage normally should equal the usage of the application contained in it. However, there is special functionality, as described here.

Command line arguments

If you invoke an AppImage built with a recent version of AppImageKit with one of these special command line arguments, then the AppImage will behave differently:

• --appimage-offset prints the offset at which the embedded filesystem image starts, and then exits. This is useful in case you would like to loop-mount the filesystem image using the mount -o loop,offset=... command
• --appimage-extract extracts the contents from the embedded filesystem image, then exits. This is useful if you are using an AppImage on a system on which FUSE is not available
• --appimage-mount mounts the embedded filesystem image and prints the mount point, then waits until it is killed. This is useful if you would like to inspect the contents of an AppImage without executing the contained payload application
• --appimage-version prints the version of AppImageKit, then exits. This is useful if you would like to file issues
• --appimage-updateinformation prints the update information embedded into the AppImage, then exits. This is useful for debugging binary delta updates
• --appimage-signature prints the digital signature embedded into the AppImage, then exits. This is useful for debugging binary delta updates. If you would like to validate the embedded signature, you should use the validate command line tool that is part of AppImageKit

Special directories

Normally the application contained inside an AppImage will store its configuration files whereever it normally stores them (most frequently somewhere inside $HOME). If you invoke an AppImage built with a recent version of AppImageKit and have one of these special directories in place, then the configuration files will be stored alongside the AppImage. This can be useful for portable use cases, e.g., carrying an AppImage on a USB stick, along with its data.

• If there is a directory with the same name as the AppImage plus .home, then export $HOME.
• If there is a directory with the same name as the AppImage plus .config, then export $XDG_CONFIG_HOME.

appimaged usage

appimaged is an optional daemon that watches locations like ~/bin and ~/Downloads for AppImages and if it detects some, registers them with the system, so that they show up in the menu, have their icons show up, MIME types associated, etc. It also unregisters AppImages again from the system if they are deleted. If firejail is installed, it runs the AppImages with it.

A precompiled version can be found in the last successful Travis CI build, you can get it with:

wget "https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/releases/download/continuous/appimaged-x86_64.AppImage"
chmod a+x appimaged-x86_64.AppImage

Usage in a nutshell:

./appimaged-x86_64.AppImage --install

Or, if you are on a deb-based system:

wget -c "https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/releases/download/continuous/appimaged_1.0_amd64.deb"
sudo dpkg -i appimaged_*.deb
systemctl --user enable appimaged
systemctl --user start appimaged

It will register the AppImages in with your system from the following places:

• $HOME/Downloads
• $HOME/.local/bin
• $HOME/bin
• /Applications
• /isodevice/Applications
• /isofrom/Applications
• /run/archiso/img_dev/Applications
• /opt
• /usr/local/bin

Run appimaged -v for increased verbosity.

Detailed usage:

Usage:
  appimaged [OPTION...] 

Help Options:
  -h, --help          Show help options

Application Options:
  -v, --verbose       Be verbose
  -i, --install       Install this appimaged instance to $HOME
  -u, --uninstall     Uninstall an appimaged instance from $HOME
  --version           Show version number

NOTE: It may be necessary to restart (or xkill) dash, nautilus, to recognize new directories that didn't exist prior to the first run of appimaged. Alternatively, it should be sufficient to log out of the session and log in again after having run appimaged once.

If you have AppImageUpdate on your $PATH, then it can also do this neat trick:

Here is an easy way to get the latest AppImageUpdate onto your $PATH:

APP=AppImageUpdate
nodeFileName=$(wget -q "https://bintray.com/package/files/probono/AppImages/$APP?order=desc&sort=fileLastModified&basePath=&tab=files" -O - | grep -e '-x86_64.AppImage">' | cut -d '"' -f 6 | head -n 1)
wget -c "https://bintray.com/$nodeFileName" -O "$APP"
chmod a+x "$APP"
sudo mv "$APP" /usr/local/bin/

Building

NOTE: The AppImage project supplies binaries that application developers can use. These binaries are built using the CentOS 6 Docker on Travis CI build system in this repository. As an application developer, you do not have to use the build system. You only have to use the build systems when contributing to AppImageKit, when needing another architecture than x86_64, or when trying to reproduce our binaries.

On a not too recent Ubuntu:

git clone -b appimagetool/master --single-branch --recursive https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit
cd AppImageKit/
sudo bash -ex install-build-deps.sh
bash -ex build.sh