AppImage

AppImage
Developer(s) Simon Peter
Initial release 2004 (2004)
Stable release
6 / September 11, 2016 (2016-09-11)
Development status Active
Written in C
Operating system Linux
Type Software download system / package format
License MIT License
Website appimage.org

AppImage is a format for distributing portable software on Linux without needing superuser permissions to install the application.[1] It tries also to allow Linux distribution-agnostic binary software deployment for application developers,[2] also called Upstream packaging. Released first in 2004 under the name klik, it was continuously developed since then, renamed in 2011 to PortableLinuxApps and 2013 to AppImage.

Description

Objectives

AppImage strives to be an application deployment system for Linux with the following objectives: simplicity, binary compatibility, distro agnosticism, no installation, no root permission, being portable, and keeping the underlying operating system untouched.[3]

Properties

AppImage does not install the application in the traditional Linux sense by putting its various files in the distro's appropriated places in the file system. Instead, like its predecessors klik and portablelinuxapps, no such installation actually takes place. The AppImage file is just its compressed image; this is mounted when it runs.

It uses one file per application. Each one is self-contained: it includes all libraries the application depends on that are not already part of the targeted base-system. An AppImage is an ISO 9660 file with zisofs compression containing a minimal AppDir and a tiny runtime. An AppImage applications can be added to a live CD by adding only one file to the live CD.

AppImage files are simpler than installing an application. No extraction tools are needed, nor is it necessary to modify the operating system or user environment. Regular users on the common Linux distributions can download it, make it executable, and run it.

History

klik

klik installing an application

AppImage's predecessor klik was designed in 2004 by Simon Peter.[4] The client-side software is GPL licensed. klik integrated with web browsers on the user's computer. Users downloaded and installed software by typing a URL beginning with klik://. This downloaded a klik "recipe" file, which was used to generate the .cmg file. In this way, one recipe could be used to supply packages to a wide variety of platforms. With klik only eight programs could be run at once because of the limitation of mounting compressed images with the Linux kernel, unless FUSE was used. The file was remounted each time the program is run, meaning the user could remove the program by simply deleting the .cmg file. A next version, klik2, was in development; and would natively incorporate the FUSE kernel module, but it never reached past the beta stage.[5] Around 2011, the klik project went dormant and the homepage went offline for some time.[6]

PortableLinuxApps

Simon Peter started a successor project named PortableLinuxApps with similar goals around that time.[2] The technology was adapted for instance by the "portablelinuxgames.org" repository, which provides hundreds of mostly open-source video games.[7]

AppImage

Around 2013, the software was renamed again from portableLinuxApps to AppImage; the license became the MIT license. AppImage is the format and AppImageKit is a concrete open source implementation. The development happens in a GitHub repository with latest changes from 2017.[8]

Reception and usage

Klik was in 2007 the inspiration for Alexander Larsson's glick project, the precursor of Flatpak which was released in 2016.[9]

Linus Torvalds' dive log application Subsurface started to use AppImage around 2015. Subsurface's traditional packaging was changed to a portable, self-contained, distro-agnostic AppImage, as binary software deployment for the Linux users of the various Linux distributions turned out to be problematic.[10][11][12]

MuseScore started in April 2016 to use AppImage builds for software deployment for all Linux flavors.[13]

Krita, a digital painting free and open-source software application, is also deployed using AppImage from version 3.0 in May 2016.[14][15]

digiKam, an open source photo management application, also includes an AppImage bundle from version 5.3.0, released in November 2016.[16]

Network World's Bryan Lunduke noted on March 31, 2017 positively the Linux distribution-agnostic packaging of OpenShot with AppImage.[17]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Mobily, Tony (2006-04-07). "Free Software Magazine interview with Simon Peter". Free Software Magazine.
  2. 1 2 Peter, Simon (2010). "AppImageKit Documentation 1.0" (pdf). PortableLinuxApps.org. pp. 2–3. Retrieved 2011-07-29. The AppImage format has been created with specific objectives in mind: Be Simple [...], Maintain binary compatibility [...], Be distribution-agnostic [...], Remove the need for installation [...], Allow to put apps anywhere [...], Do not require recompilation [...], Keep base operating system untouched [...], Do not require root [...]
  3. ↑ AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere on youtube.com by Peter Simon (June 2016)
  4. ↑ "Slashdot - Point-and-klik Linux Software Installation?". slashdot.com.
  5. ↑ Screen capture video of Klik2 on video.google.com (archived)
  6. ↑ "klik - Linux Software Download". Archived from the original on 2007-06-26.
  7. ↑ "Portable Games for Linux".
  8. ↑ "AppImageKit". github.com.
  9. ↑ Experiments with run-timeless app bundles by Alex Larsson (2007)
  10. ↑ Linus Torvalds (2014-08-29). "Q&A with Linus Torvalds" (video). DebConf 2014 Portland. debian.net. 6:28. Retrieved 2016-05-14. I have seen this first hand with the other project I'm involved with, which is my dive log app. We make binaries for Windows and OSX, we basically don't make binaries for Linux. Why? Because making binaries for Linux desktop applications is a major fucking pain in the ass.
  11. ↑ Torvalds, Linus. "This is just very cool.". Google+. I finally got around to play with the "AppImage" version of +Subsurface, and it really does seem to "just work".
  12. ↑ Hohndel, Dirk (2015-11-25). "This is just very cool.". Google+. I, as the app maintainer, don't want my app bundled in a distribution anymore. Way to much pain for absolutely zero gain. Whenever I get a bug report my first question is "oh, which version of which distribution? which version of which library? What set of insane patches were applied to those libraries?". No, Windows and Mac get this right. I control the libraries my app runs against. [...] With an AppImage I can give them just that. Something that runs on their computer.
  13. ↑ Weiss, Isaac. "MuseScore 2.0.3 is released". MuseScore.org. MuseScore. Retrieved 2016-04-05.
  14. ↑ "Krita 3.0 Released". Krita.org. Krita. 2016-05-31.
  15. ↑ "Krita Appimage for cats".
  16. ↑ "digiKam 5.3.0 is published". www.digikam.org. Retrieved 2016-12-30.
  17. ↑ Bryan Lunduke (Mar 31, 2017). "Linux video editor OpenShot 2.3 impresses: New tools, fast performance". Network World. Retrieved 2017-04-02. Interestingly, OpenShot is distributed via appimage. That means they provide a single binary that can be run on just about any modern Linux distribution. I personally tested this out on openSUSE Tumbleweed with great success—but it should run just as easily on Debian, Fedora or others. I love this approach to distributing software directly from the developers.
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