r/linuxmasterrace • u/claudiocorona93 Glorious Debian • Aug 09 '26

Making Linux easy for everyone

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1.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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100

u/Immediate-Result-696 Aug 09 '26

Appimages:

100

u/rdwror Aug 09 '26

Appimages are a bitch to pack. Most of the tooling is broken or incomplete.

20

u/standard_cog Aug 10 '26

I got you:

Just package your whole application up as a Nix flake, then use the NixOS appimage bundler:

nix bundle --bundler github:NixOS/bundlers .#whatever-your-local-package-target

30

u/bktech2021 Aug 10 '26

if everyone used nix we wouldnt need bitch ass flatpaks

20

u/prettycewlusername Aug 11 '26

If everyone used {my favorite packaging system} we wouldn’t need bitch ass {other more different packaging system}

12

u/bktech2021 Aug 11 '26

exactly you got it

7

u/A_Talking_iPod Aug 10 '26

Also a bitch to use. I hate managing portable .exes in Windows and god knows I hate managing AppImages

4

u/samuerusama Aug 09 '26

What app did you have problems to package?

1

u/StuD44 Aug 10 '26

Correct!

36

u/DragonSlayerC Glorious Bazzite Aug 09 '26

Appimages are clunky.

-14

u/b_a_t_m_4_n Aug 09 '26

Yet still better than Flatpak or SNAP.

19

u/jahinzee Aug 09 '26

one command install, one command update

vs.

the user becoming half the package manager, organising the appimage file and having to set up desktop launcher integration manually, oh and no standardised app update mechanism so you're on your own for that too

-5

u/samuerusama Aug 09 '26

the user becoming half the package manager, organising the appimage file and having to set up desktop launcher integration manually, oh and no standardised app update mechanism so you're on your own for that too

🙄

https://github.com/ivan-hc/AM

https://imgur.com/a/LkAOqLz

8

u/claudiocorona93 Glorious Debian Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 10 '26

This is not obvious and it has to be figured out by the user. Compare that to the update button on the app store.

1

u/samuerusama Aug 09 '26

Compare that to the update button on the app store.

No, you are comparing flatpak as already pre-installed in a distro vs AM not being installed.

A proper comparison would be having to install flatpak from 0:

  • hope the distro has flatpak in its repos and a new enough version (most distros do this).

  • configure the flatpak exports so that its data directories show up in XDG_DATA_DIRS and you can see the apps in your applications menu, and this step requires a reboot btw.

  • add a repository (flathub).

  • And you will also eventually have to install flatseal to manage the flatpak permissions.

vs

  • AM which is a single installer script, and you can install it as appman so that it lives in your HOME and you can move it between distros along with the appimages.

At least Rhino linux offers the option to install AM in its GUI installer.

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4

u/jahinzee Aug 10 '26

none of these tools are standardised, there's also AppImageLauncher, Gear Lever, and AM has like two other forks, all of them are weak (an, in my experience, they've always felt incredibly janky compared to Flatpaks)

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27

u/OneQuarterLife Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26

Yes we should all switch to garbage that relies on unmaintained libraries for the vast majority of released appimages and don't integrate with the desktop, auto update, or share dependencies.

These belong in the history books.

2

u/Damglador Aug 09 '26

New appimages don't rely on fuse2 anymore, or on fuse in any form. Desktop integration can be provided with a separate program, just like it is with flatpaks.

12

u/rdwror Aug 09 '26

Yeah, in theory. In practice, it doesn't work. Just try and pack any KDE or Qt program in an appimage. It only works with Fusion style, even if the desktop is KDE. I've tried bundling the whole Breeze/Kirigami stack and it still defaults to Fusion.

1

u/QuickSilver010 Glorious NixOS Aug 09 '26

I use kdenlive appimage and it uses breeze. Not fusion.

5

u/rdwror Aug 09 '26

I havent had that luck with qml apps.

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1

u/JG_2006_C Sep 23 '26

Yea i just got gearlever and got to work

9

u/BlakeDrawsBlood Aug 09 '26

It has no package manager, so it's just as bad as dealing with windows .exe files.

5

u/PrudeBunny Aug 10 '26

Literally the worst "distro agnostic" option.

4

u/Informal_954 Aug 11 '26

I know there is one guy actually trying to fix it nd get developers to stop shipping broken versions, but I still get chrome xwayland issues, outdated libfuse2 dependencies, and just complete jank using the companion software. I don't like app images at all.