A while ago I attempted to create an AppImage from a Debian package, but gave up on Debian. I’ve since published a Flatpak and submitted an RPM package for review. I have found this script which attempted to convert the Debian package to an AppImage. Would it be possible to convert an RPM source or binary package into an AppImage with something similar?
==Code to make deb, convert to appimage. install appimage, run appimage.==
cd ~
mkdir -p appimages/myapp.AppDir
It has a dependency which it gets from the RPM repositories. Would that have to be built in? If so, that would need me to rebuild the RPM including compiling several utilities, which would probably make it impractical.
I may or may not be able to help you. Well, help Debian you. Go here
Pull down any other than 3.6.5 as I’m trying to fix that. Debian package previous set RPATH to $origin which is not cool, but seems to have been needed for AppImage.
You then want to go here
and pull down the matching appimage.json file. Also pull down appimage-instructions.txt
I use deb2appimage. Other than this page there is zero documentation that I can find.
It works pretty well.
The reason you want to pull down a matching .json file is, depending on what you are packaging, there is a butt-load of things to copy in. This will not change, even if you find an RPM tool. A package utility ass-u-me-s whatever you didn’t list as a dependency when you built your package already is on the platform.
Thanks for your comprehensive reply. I hope you won’t think I’ve wasted your time, but since posting this I’ve reconsidered, and I’m not going to pursue my attempt to create an AppImage.
I wanted to try a clever packaging idea and possibly support it by publishing an app. However:
There seems to be quite a lot involved, even if the app already exists as a package of a different type.
Apart from you there seems to be very little activity on here, so not much hope of support.
My app depends on a complex utility. I don’t know whether that could be satisfied with a “requires” statement - presumably an AppImage has no access outside its container. If not, it would require compiling several C programs which I haven’t got the skills to tackle.
I’m not aware of any repository where potential users might discover the app.
It’s already available in a different format, so I’m not sure there is much advantage in also offering it in this format.
Look for a package in your RPM based distro look for appimaged. It provides rpm2appimage. I’m actually thinking about using it for RedDiamond because I don’t build Wayland support in on any platform other than Fedora.
Discovery is handled here
External linkage:
Only documentation I know of is here:
There used to be a web page somewhere with libraries you can expect listed. Got no idea where it is today.
As to external linkage, the high priests will brand you a heretic for using it, but I had an F-up with mine a few days ago and it reached out to the OS finding what it needed.
The phrase “core system libraries” is incredibly fuzzy, some might even say fungable. It gets far worse with some platforms using that bug riddled god-awful Wayland. You physically have to use the OS libraries because every desktop on every distro has a different compositor.
Wayland is a sh*t design.
Some distros are having honest discussions, despite the developer’s reputation about including Xlibre. When I’m billable I tend to work in the embedded systems/medical device field. NXP and a host of other ARM SOC/SOM vendors have tried to force Wayland into their BSP and a not insignificant number of us have been looking at how to yank that hand polished turd out of the Yocto recipes to replace it with Xlibre. When you have a single touch screen you don’t need the 3-legged arthritic hippo that is Wayland.
I was on the team that brought the first one of these to life. It has a CPU but no GPU because we were shooting for 10 days of run-time with the battery. Not having a graphics processor is common in the embedded systems world. Those things aren’t free and they draw power. A battery is a finite power supply.
Sorry, I’ll put soap box away now. I have extreme hatred of business interests forcing Wayland into a market that doesn’t need it. Just another failed “One Ring to Rule Them All” experiment. A desktop is no place for Wayland. You can’t even save a window position and restore it on next execution! Have to have a different hack for every compositor.
there seems to be very little activity on here, so not much hope of support.