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I really dislike AppImage when it's the only way to get an app. I find it quite annoying to get set up on my system in such a way that it behaves like a normal

I really dislike AppImage when it's the only way to get an app. I find it quite annoying to get set up on my system in such a way that it behaves like a normal piece of installed software (I run a fairly basic i3 setup with dmenu for app launching). I mostly just keep an unorganised "AppImage" folder now full of random clicky items I can launch. It's like being on an early 2000s iMac. Flatpak has been good when I've used it; it works more similarly to how apt functions, and seems to need less faffing to get going on my system. Snap is almost good. I found the documentation for how to actually make snaps incredibly frustrating (hard to explain, it was like lots of little steps were missing) and I find the permissions model with them more awkward. I tried installing Gitea on my home server via snap the other day, and promptly got annoyed enough to just give up, as I wasn't that invested in it.

techntoke 8y ago
I use i3wm and Rofi (similar to dmenu). Pacman from Arch and apk from Alpine are so much easier at managing packages. Until they can make a containerized distro that works basically the same, then I don't see a good use case for changing, unless you want to try something out in a more isolated environment (and even then there is Docker).
- cprecioso 8y ago
  Do you mean Ubuntu Core?
  - techntoke 8y ago
    No. I've not had much luck with Ubuntu Core and use Arch generally, Alpine for Docker, and have had better luck with other distros for embedded Linux.
zdragnar 8y ago
Are you using dmenu or i3-dmenu-desktop? If you're using the latter, I'm pretty sure you can create .desktop files for AppImage apps so they're added to the list: https://build.i3wm.org/docs/i3-dmenu-desktop.html#DESCRIPTION https://build.i3wm.org/docs/i3-dmenu-desktop.html#DESCRIPTIO... For myself, I've only needed to use AppImage once, and that's for a program that I only bother using from a terminal anyway; other than not showing up in dmenu out-of-the-box, I haven't had any other complaints.
michaelmrose 8y ago
You can create your own desktop files if you like and shove them in ~/.local/share/applications if you want the app to show up when you list apps instead of binaries. Example when you launch i3-dmenu-desktop instead of dmenu_run. As an aside I suggest you check out rofi. Its a better looking, more featureful alternative to dmenu. Compared to dmenu it offers -Themes -The option to show as a window in the middle of the screen or dmenu style at the bottom/top -Optional icons -slightly faster at showing apps vs binaries compared to i3-dmenu-desktop -Configurable hotkeys -The ability to launch a typed command in a terminal with a hotkey -The ability to launch a typed command as is or complete from a history much like a shell history. Example I have it set to run as is with Enter or complete first choice for history with control+Enter -A built in tool to list/switch windows, select from a list of applications like i3-dmenu-desktop, list available ssh connections https://github.com/DaveDavenport/rofi https://github.com/DaveDavenport/rofi

techntoke 8y ago

I use i3wm and Rofi (similar to dmenu). Pacman from Arch and apk from Alpine are so much easier at managing packages. Until they can make a containerized distro that works basically the same, then I don't see a good use case for changing, unless you want to try something out in a more isolated environment (and even then there is Docker).

cprecioso 8y ago
Do you mean Ubuntu Core?
- techntoke 8y ago
  No. I've not had much luck with Ubuntu Core and use Arch generally, Alpine for Docker, and have had better luck with other distros for embedded Linux.

zdragnar 8y ago

Are you using dmenu or i3-dmenu-desktop? If you're using the latter, I'm pretty sure you can create .desktop files for AppImage apps so they're added to the list: https://build.i3wm.org/docs/i3-dmenu-desktop.html#DESCRIPTION https://build.i3wm.org/docs/i3-dmenu-desktop.html#DESCRIPTIO... For myself, I've only needed to use AppImage once, and that's for a program that I only bother using from a terminal anyway; other than not showing up in dmenu out-of-the-box, I haven't had any other complaints.

michaelmrose 8y ago

You can create your own desktop files if you like and shove them in ~/.local/share/applications if you want the app to show up when you list apps instead of binaries. Example when you launch i3-dmenu-desktop instead of dmenu_run. As an aside I suggest you check out rofi. Its a better looking, more featureful alternative to dmenu. Compared to dmenu it offers -Themes -The option to show as a window in the middle of the screen or dmenu style at the bottom/top -Optional icons -slightly faster at showing apps vs binaries compared to i3-dmenu-desktop -Configurable hotkeys -The ability to launch a typed command in a terminal with a hotkey -The ability to launch a typed command as is or complete from a history much like a shell history. Example I have it set to run as is with Enter or complete first choice for history with control+Enter -A built in tool to list/switch windows, select from a list of applications like i3-dmenu-desktop, list available ssh connections https://github.com/DaveDavenport/rofi https://github.com/DaveDavenport/rofi