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I never really liked AppImages. Until I got one recently that asked if it was allowed to be in my menu... Game changer! Now, if they would just automatically m

I never really liked AppImages. Until I got one recently that asked if it was allowed to be in my menu... Game changer! Now, if they would just automatically move to a ~/apps folder, be executable and indeed, in the menu. My love for AppImage would grow orders of magnitude. Even more if they could self update. Right now, snaps are the only universal packaging format that really gives me a smooth experience (install experience that is.)

devenblake 6y ago
You could always just rig up a couple Bash aliases and change where your menu works. Say for example appimg() { chmod +x $1; mv $1 ~/apps/ } and then bind a key sequence to `$(ls ~/apps/ | dmenu)`.
- incrudible 6y ago
  Not to dismiss your reply, but I've always thought that the "just open the terminal and..." kind of solution that is always brought up is holding Desktop Linux back. There's a workaround for almost everything. Wherever there is a workaround, the problem becomes less severe. As a result, it is less likely to get fixed. There is nothing preventing AppImages to work like app containers on Mac OS except lack of integration that comes out-of-the-box. Advocating for that integration becomes more difficult, when you can "just open the terminal and...".
  - vinay427 6y ago
    I posted this above, but at least for me, this project seems to do the trick: https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher I did use a terminal to install the AUR package on my system, however. ;)
gibspaulding 6y ago
There is a snap for Signal as well (signal-desktop). So far it's been working for me!
vinay427 6y ago
This solves this problem for me quite well: https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher It asks whether an AppImage should be integrated (with .desktop files, etc.) upon launching one and does everything automatically, even on my system running Arch+i3 where I except little to work automatically.
1_player 6y ago
How are snaps universal and smoother than Flatpak? For once, they're only really supported by Ubuntu and not its derivatives.
- loudtieblahblah 6y ago
  imho - after the insertion of flatpak, appimage, snaps, and in some cases dockerimages... i fail to see what problems we've solved. it seems to me we've just duplicated the problems of competing packaging standards across distros, except now they all take up more resources and disk space than before. it may have made a couple of devs lives easier, but the average linux desktop now is messier than a Windows XP SP1 desktop. We have apps from official repos, downloaded DEBS and/or RPMs, flatpak apps, appimages that dont' integrate into menus, snaps (if you're locked into Ubuntu), maybe a docker image or two. Nevermind half these apps are probably Electron based regardless of their crappy packaging.
  - scaladev 6y ago
    Just switch to Arch. I know it's become a meme distro, but the AUR really is amazing. I don't have AppImages, snaps, Flatpak, or anything of the sort on any of my systems. Everything is either installed from the official repositories, or automatically built as proper packages and installed the same way.
    - mbushey 6y ago
      This is exactly what I did. Snap's are basically docker gone wrong. Snaps are sandboxed, blocking access to NFS shares which I use extensively. Under Ubuntu, Chromium is usually broke (apt-get installs a deb that then installs a snap); You have to install either a debian .deb or use a PPA to make it work. I love that Ubuntu is directly including ZFS, but the distro has gotten so bad that I don't want to go near it anymore. Arch works, and works well.
  - akvadrako 6y ago
    > imho - after the insertion of flatpak, appimage, snaps, and in some cases dockerimages... > i fail to see what problems we've solved. Any of those can be installed on most big distros, so you only need to release one for your app. Though I would use only docker for services and only flatpak or appimage for apps. Snap is proprietary; only Canonical runs a server.
zaarn 6y ago
If you use the KDE Discover, it's pretty smooth as well. Searched for "Signal", found the app, clicked on install, waited, then clicked on open. Signal App opened. Uses Flatpak in the Background and handles updates too.
whatatita 6y ago
I've used AppImageLauncher to do just that. When an AppImage is opened with AIL, it moves it to a configurable ~/app directory and creates a "start menu" entry for it. I've never though about it but I guess it also makes them executable, since I've never had to do that myself. It doesn't handle removing the AppImage, but you can always just delete the file from ~/apps.
- maverick74 6y ago
  For reference, what whatatita is talking about is at: https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher/releases https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher/releases ;)
elric 6y ago
I've been a big fan of AppImage since I discovered that Firejail has AppImage support. Makes it super easy to do, for instance, bandwidth shaping for a single application, or to disallow network traffic etc.

devenblake 6y ago

You could always just rig up a couple Bash aliases and change where your menu works. Say for example appimg() { chmod +x $1; mv $1 ~/apps/ } and then bind a key sequence to `$(ls ~/apps/ | dmenu)`.

incrudible 6y ago
Not to dismiss your reply, but I've always thought that the "just open the terminal and..." kind of solution that is always brought up is holding Desktop Linux back. There's a workaround for almost everything. Wherever there is a workaround, the problem becomes less severe. As a result, it is less likely to get fixed. There is nothing preventing AppImages to work like app containers on Mac OS except lack of integration that comes out-of-the-box. Advocating for that integration becomes more difficult, when you can "just open the terminal and...".
- vinay427 6y ago
  I posted this above, but at least for me, this project seems to do the trick: https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher I did use a terminal to install the AUR package on my system, however. ;)

gibspaulding 6y ago

There is a snap for Signal as well (signal-desktop). So far it's been working for me!

vinay427 6y ago

This solves this problem for me quite well: https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher It asks whether an AppImage should be integrated (with .desktop files, etc.) upon launching one and does everything automatically, even on my system running Arch+i3 where I except little to work automatically.

1_player 6y ago

How are snaps universal and smoother than Flatpak? For once, they're only really supported by Ubuntu and not its derivatives.

loudtieblahblah 6y ago
imho - after the insertion of flatpak, appimage, snaps, and in some cases dockerimages... i fail to see what problems we've solved. it seems to me we've just duplicated the problems of competing packaging standards across distros, except now they all take up more resources and disk space than before. it may have made a couple of devs lives easier, but the average linux desktop now is messier than a Windows XP SP1 desktop. We have apps from official repos, downloaded DEBS and/or RPMs, flatpak apps, appimages that dont' integrate into menus, snaps (if you're locked into Ubuntu), maybe a docker image or two. Nevermind half these apps are probably Electron based regardless of their crappy packaging.
- scaladev 6y ago
  Just switch to Arch. I know it's become a meme distro, but the AUR really is amazing. I don't have AppImages, snaps, Flatpak, or anything of the sort on any of my systems. Everything is either installed from the official repositories, or automatically built as proper packages and installed the same way.
  - mbushey 6y ago
    This is exactly what I did. Snap's are basically docker gone wrong. Snaps are sandboxed, blocking access to NFS shares which I use extensively. Under Ubuntu, Chromium is usually broke (apt-get installs a deb that then installs a snap); You have to install either a debian .deb or use a PPA to make it work. I love that Ubuntu is directly including ZFS, but the distro has gotten so bad that I don't want to go near it anymore. Arch works, and works well.
- akvadrako 6y ago
  > imho - after the insertion of flatpak, appimage, snaps, and in some cases dockerimages... > i fail to see what problems we've solved. Any of those can be installed on most big distros, so you only need to release one for your app. Though I would use only docker for services and only flatpak or appimage for apps. Snap is proprietary; only Canonical runs a server.

zaarn 6y ago

If you use the KDE Discover, it's pretty smooth as well. Searched for "Signal", found the app, clicked on install, waited, then clicked on open. Signal App opened. Uses Flatpak in the Background and handles updates too.

whatatita 6y ago

I've used AppImageLauncher to do just that. When an AppImage is opened with AIL, it moves it to a configurable ~/app directory and creates a "start menu" entry for it. I've never though about it but I guess it also makes them executable, since I've never had to do that myself. It doesn't handle removing the AppImage, but you can always just delete the file from ~/apps.

maverick74 6y ago
For reference, what whatatita is talking about is at: https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher/releases https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher/releases ;)

elric 6y ago

I've been a big fan of AppImage since I discovered that Firejail has AppImage support. Makes it super easy to do, for instance, bandwidth shaping for a single application, or to disallow network traffic etc.