Doesn't this defeat the purpose?

Creating AppImages
1

I read the following on the github AppImageKit page:

“Note that the binaries must not be compiled on newer distributions than the ones you are targeting. In other words, if you are targeting Ubuntu 9.10, you should not use binaries compiled on Ubuntu 10.04.”

Am I missing something? I thought the whole purpose of creating an AppImage was to have an application can run on most any Linux platform. But if I have to build the AppImage on a same or older version of a target distribution, what have I gained?

2

This is how platforms work. You also cannot compile on Windows 10 and expect it to run on XP, but the other way around.

3

There seems to be a ‘window’ where it’ll work, because if you compile on a platform too old, it won’t work on a newer platform. Though that could be mitigated with a patch someone posted - haven’t tried it yet.

4

I don’t think that would be much of a problem if you compile it with all of the dependencies, not just ones that aren’t usually in a distro.

For instance, I have a Win 98 program that’s an all enclosed exe file that will work on Win 10 64 bit.

In all honesty, I think I would rather have a “heavier” file and make sure that it would work, then it go so far down the line and then suddenly not work as those dependencies that it assumes that are there in the distro are no longer there.

5

I guess there are different target scopes.
Linux main streams “debian”, “rpm based”, distro type or distro agnosticity.

I was under impression if you target ubuntu distro users, you should narrow down to applicable version range and that become the target scope.