Appimage: Difference between revisions

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[https://appimage.org/ AppImage] is a monolithic packaging format for linux applications. It contains all dependencies in one file that is composed of an executable with a tacked on filesystem.
[https://appimage.org/ AppImage] is a monolithic packaging format for linux applications. It contains all dependencies in one file that is composed of an executable with a tacked on filesystem.


<!--T:2-->
== Usage ==
On most distros, all one has to do is download the <code>.AppImage</code> file, make it executable <code>chmod +x $AppImage</code>, and execute it. This doesn't work in NixOS out of the box though, as AppImage files usually (if not always) depend on certain libraries commonly found on other Linux distributions to exist on certain paths; such as <code>/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2</code>.


== Usage ==
=== Run ===<!--T:2-->


=== Run ===<!--T:3-->
On most distros, all one has to do is download the <code>.AppImage</code> file, make it executable <code>chmod +x $AppImage</code>, and execute it. This doesn't work in NixOS out of the box though, as AppImage files usually (if not always) depend on certain system libraries in hardcoded paths.<!--T:3-->


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Revision as of 18:23, 1 August 2024

AppImage is a monolithic packaging format for linux applications. It contains all dependencies in one file that is composed of an executable with a tacked on filesystem.

Usage

Run

On most distros, all one has to do is download the .AppImage file, make it executable chmod +x $AppImage, and execute it. This doesn't work in NixOS out of the box though, as AppImage files usually (if not always) depend on certain system libraries in hardcoded paths.

$ nix-shell -p appimage-run
$ appimage-run $AppImageFile

Packaging

See the nixpkgs manual on wrapping AppImage packages. In short, the AppImage is extracted and any dependencies are added as nix build dependencies.

Following example is a derivation for the program Quba, which is also distributed as AppImage.

{
  lib,
  appimageTools,
  fetchurl,
}:

let
  version = "1.4.0";
  pname = "quba";
  name = "${pname}-${version}";

  src = fetchurl {
    url = "https://github.com/ZUGFeRD/quba-viewer/releases/download/v${version}/Quba-${version}.AppImage";
    hash = "sha256-EsTF7W1np5qbQQh3pdqsFe32olvGK3AowGWjqHPEfoM=";
  };

  appimageContents = appimageTools.extractType1 { inherit name src; };
in
appimageTools.wrapType1 {
  inherit name src;

  extraInstallCommands = ''
    mv $out/bin/${name} $out/bin/${pname}
    install -m 444 -D ${appimageContents}/${pname}.desktop -t $out/share/applications
    substituteInPlace $out/share/applications/${pname}.desktop \
      --replace 'Exec=AppRun' 'Exec=${pname}'
    cp -r ${appimageContents}/usr/share/icons $out/share
  '';

  meta = with lib; {
    description = "Viewer for electronic invoices ";
    homepage = "https://github.com/ZUGFeRD/quba-viewer";
    downloadPage = "https://github.com/ZUGFeRD/quba-viewer/releases";
    license = licenses.asl20;
    sourceProvenance = with sourceTypes; [ binaryNativeCode ];
    maintainers = with maintainers; [ onny ];
    platforms = [ "x86_64-linux" ];
  };
}

Configuration

Register AppImage files as a binary type to binfmt_misc

You can tell the Linux kernel to use an interpreter (e.g. appimage-run) when executing certain binary files through the use of binfmt_misc, either by filename extension or magic number matching. Below NixOS configuration registers AppImage files (ELF files with magic number "AI" + 0x02) to be run with appimage-run as interpreter.

Since NixOS 24.05, there is a binfmt option:

programs.appimage = {
  enable = true;
  binfmt = true;
};

This way AppImage files can be invoked directly as if they were normal programs