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AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere

appimage.org

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Re: AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere

#231

Post by fit2rule »

So .. I have project on my plate which is basically a firmware updater for a project based around the ESP8266 (see http://magicshifter.net/ if you're interested).

My question to anyone who knows the answer: would it be possible to write an app (in Linux of course) which access the /dev/tty.FORESP8266 and writes/reads raw blocks, such that it could be bundled into AppImage and run on, basically, OSX and Windows as a Linux app - and still have the raw i/o access it needs to perform a firmware update?

If so, I'm willing to expend the time to learn how to use it and build this app .. it seems to me to be a more interesting approach than using, for example, Qt to build a cross-platform serial i/o app ..

Re: AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere

#232

Post by draw_down »

otabdeveloper wrote: post #41

Seems unnecessarily complicated. A script like this gets you 95% of the way there: mkdir AppDir mkdir AppDir/bin mkdir AppDir/data cp $INSTALLDIR/app AppDir/bin cp -r $INSTALLDIR/data AppDir cp `ldd AppDir/bin/app | grep -o '\W/[^ ]*'` AppDir/bin cat AppDir/app #!/bin/bash SCRIPT_PATH=$(dirname $(readlink -f $0)) $SCRIPT_PATH/bin/ld-*.so.2 --library-path $SCRIPT_PATH/bin $SCRIPT_PATH/bin/app $* EOF (Sometimes I wonde…

> A script like this gets you 95% of the way there

Ohhh, but that five percent!

Re: AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere

#233

Post by hobarrera »

> "As a user, I want to download an application from the original author, and run it on my Linux desktop system just like I would do with a Windows or Mac application."

Has anyone ever said such a thing? My guess would be the exact opposite: users like the comfort of installing via the OS package manager, rather than hunting for binaries on the internet.

Re: AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere

#234

Post by digi_owl »

chei0aiV wrote: post #211
anonbanker wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/g/, the technology troll board of 4chan, has a meme of "install gentoo" whenever someone says "which is the best distribution to install for a new user?" Those users usually come back about a week later hating everyone for putting them with such a difficult OS. Calculate Linux has effectively removed most of this barrier, though, making Gentoo really easy to maintain for newbies. The Gentoo Handbook is an amazing to…

Why hasn't Gentoo made the same changes Calculate Linux has?

Because it would pigeonhole the distro.

Calculate basically takes Gentoo and precompiles it with certain defaults.

This means that the Calculate maintainers have made certain choices for the user, while Gentoo proper would have left them up to the user.

Re: AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere

#235

Post by anonbanker »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #223
anonbanker wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/g/, the technology troll board of 4chan, has a meme of "install gentoo" whenever someone says "which is the best distribution to install for a new user?" Those users usually come back about a week later hating everyone for putting them with such a difficult OS. Calculate Linux has effectively removed most of this barrier, though, making Gentoo really easy to maintain for newbies. The Gentoo Handbook is an amazing to…

re /g/ Haha. That is pretty evil given my experiences starting with command line Linux back in the day. Far as learning, I've heard that before about Gentoo. Thought about doing it at some point. Right now, kind of mixed between learning BSD or Linux as the security enhancements I create might need to temporarily stay proprietary to support their development. BSD vs GPL you know. I mean, I'd give back bug-fixes or fe…

there are two solutions for reducing deployment/build time. First is to use distcc on all machines (so when idle, they contribute to the building of any packages). Second solution is to build one master image, quickpkg it, and then deploy the binaries. I use a combination of both; all binaries are compiled for sandy bay architechture, so I get most of the benefits (though haswell/broadwell gets faster VLC/ffmpeg if I recompile), and they build at night when nobody's around.

Re: AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere

#236

Post by [deleted] »

anonbanker wrote: post #235
nickpsecurity wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

re /g/ Haha. That is pretty evil given my experiences starting with command line Linux back in the day. Far as learning, I've heard that before about Gentoo. Thought about doing it at some point. Right now, kind of mixed between learning BSD or Linux as the security enhancements I create might need to temporarily stay proprietary to support their development. BSD vs GPL you know. I mean, I'd give back bug-fixes or fe…

there are two solutions for reducing deployment/build time. First is to use distcc on all machines (so when idle, they contribute to the building of any packages). Second solution is to build one master image, quickpkg it, and then deploy the binaries. I use a combination of both; all binaries are compiled for sandy bay architechture, so I get most of the benefits (though haswell/broadwell gets faster VLC/ffmpeg if I…

[deleted]

Re: AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere

#237

Post by striking »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #228
lisivka wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry, but if YOU, the author, will ship MY GPLed library with YOUR application, then YOU are FORCED to open YOUR code under MY terms. Understand? Don't steal my code, please. Don't bundle it with your proprietary app without my written permission.

What does the GPL or using libraries have anything to do with the topic discussed?

Bundling a GPL library with your application, even as a shared object file, is not allowed unless your application is also under the GPL.

Furthermore, the application seems to include parts of Linux and certain other GPL'd code files while trying to maintain an MIT license.

This is rife with licensing concerns, only one of the many concerns I have with it.

Re: AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere

#238

Post by arnorhs »

slavik81 wrote: post #159
arnorhs wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you two are discussing separate sides of the same coin. or to clarify: people with a naive understanding of a problem will always feel like people who don't design solutions that are overly complex. people with a deeper understanding of a problem will always feel like people who don't design solutions that are overly simplistic.

I've successfully refactored way too much code that was needlessly complex to agree. Better understanding of a problem frequently leads to simpler solutions. It doesn't always lead to more complexity.

Whether people who are bad at programming, or at least inexperienced, write overly complicated code or not has got nothing to do with what I said.

Except that there's word-choice correlation.

Re: AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere

#239

Post by cben »

matzipan wrote: post #169
riquito wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't share common dependencies you're doomed to have security hazards. Consider it this way: if you install package FOO with its dependencies A,B and C, and FOO's developer thinks it's "feature complete", the package will never be updated, but every time a vulnerability is disclosed in his dependencies you'll be it. For _every_ program maintained this way.

My argument is that you'd have cross-distribution appimage maintainers who would press a button and rerun the build script with the new library if it's needed.

So appimage becomes yet another distro? (with the somewhat unique property that you can overlay it over other distros)

Re: AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere

#240

Post by matzipan »

cben wrote: post #239
matzipan wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My argument is that you'd have cross-distribution appimage maintainers who would press a button and rerun the build script with the new library if it's needed.

So appimage becomes yet another distro? (with the somewhat unique property that you can overlay it over other distros)

More like app ecosystem.
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