Using AppImages in Puppy...

[Mike Walsh]

Afternoon, all.

I know there's been mention of using AppImages on the Forums before. I've tried getting hold of some of these and trying them out before now, but could never figure out how to actually download and use them.

Well, now I have.....and thought I'd pass the info on for anybody else who might be interested.

The main site, here:-

http://appimage.org

.....is more about the nuts'n'bolts of the AppImage system, and how developers can get involved. The actual download site is here:-

https://bintray.com/probono/AppImages

There's 19 pages of downloads, for a total of some 460 packages so far. These are all 64-bit only, so I've been trying things out in Tahr64.

Even when you land on the downloads pages, it's not immediately apparent how to obtain them. What you need to do is as follows:-

a) Click on the app name underneath the icon, to the right.

b) On the next page, click on the 'Files' tab at the end of the row.

c) The actual download will be at the top of the list on the next page.

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When you've downloaded them, you can transfer 'em to a separate flash drive. The whole idea of these things is that they're completely portable; you can take them with you anywhere, and run them on any Linux OS. This is the Linux equivalent to the PortableApps.com site for Windows stuff (many of which will happily run under WINE).

Before you can use them, you need to make 'em executable. I find the easiest way to do that is just to right-click->Properties->Tick all 3 of the 'Execute' checkboxes->Refresh. That'll make 'em executable.

So far, I've tried the following:-

Audacity
Blender
Etcher (this is an app for writing stuff to flash drives and SD cards)
Fotoxx
GIMP 2.9 (this is the developer version; they warn you it could be full of bugs!)
LibreCAD
QCad
SimpleScreenRecorder
Stellarium
Thunderbird, and.....
Vivaldi.

These all run straight off. Stellarium has a wee moan about the OpenGL version in use, but does condescend to run. Out of the above bunch, that's the only glitch.

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I also tried

LMMS
Iridium (a Chromium 'clone'), and
VLC.

LMMS & VLC just point blank refused to run. (Probably QT-related, TBH.) The Iridium browser (not one I've tried, but I thought it might be worth a go) gave the usual bitch about not running as root; which was totally expected.

Chromium is available, too, but I didn't bother, since the newest versions won't run on Tahr64; the glibc is just not new enough to keep Chromium happy.....as peebee's found out.

The real surprise out of this lot is Vivaldi. Since it's another Chromium 'clone' (by former Opera employees), I was expecting the moan about 'not running as root'. Not so! It starts up, and runs straight away without a single complaint. I'm posting from it now.

I've always wanted a Linux portable browser (except this isn't 'portable' in the same sense as the Windoze versions at PortableApps.com, where you can actually carry all your settings with you).....and although I've said in the past that Vivaldi is a wee bit garish for my personal taste, since this is working I'll have a play around with it, and see if I can't calm things down a bit..!

The only downside I can see to running Vivaldi like this is that you can't do any maintenance on it. You can't update the installed version of Flash, because it's an all-in-one 'binary' packed in a totally unique format. The installed version of Pepper is 23.0.0.205, which is already several versions out-of-date.

This is one of those rare occasions where the wisdom of the Mozilla-based browsers (and to some extent, Windows), becomes apparent. Flash lives in one, fixed location, accessible by all common progs/apps.

The majority of apps are quite happy being older versions. No need to update as long as they do what you want them to do. But browsers do need to be kept up-to-date....

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I'm really rather impressed by all this, I must admit.. I've only tried a handful of the available apps, but 85-90% of what I have tried have just fired up immediately, without any protest.

The next challenge will be to see what (if anything) will run in Slacko64.....

Enjoy.


Mike.

(EDIT:-) Turns out that any machine you run these portables on, each app sets up it's usual ~/.cache & ~/.config folders, so that it'll run with all your personalizations next time you use that computer with these AppImages. Vivaldi also sets up a directory inside ~/.config called 'vivaldi-snapshot'. I believe this allows you to shut down immediately, without closing tabs; it remembers what was open.

Perhaps Oscar can confirm whether or not this is usual behaviour for Vivaldi. I know he quite likes this one, and has been using it for a while; it's still very early days for me.

(I've also updated Pepper, since Vivaldi creates the 'pepperflashplugin-nonfree' directory in /usr/lib... I'd forgotten about that one!)

[musher0]

Thanks for your guidance and test notes on these AppImages, Mike Walsh.

BFN.

[mikeslr]

Hi Mike & All,

I was curious to see if the Chromium AppImage would work. It failed to start, indicating either to run it as a normal user or specify an alternative "user-data-dir" for storage. As the AppImage is a "binary" we can't modify, I wonder if it were possible to start it via a "wrapper"? and, if so exactly how? Coding is not my strong suite.

There may be others. VLC comes to mind. Maybe. I remember some discussion from a "DebianDog" thread about VLC.

mikesLr

[chapchap70]

Hi Mike & All,

I was curious to see if the Chromium AppImage would work. It failed to start, indicating either to run it as a normal user or specify an alternative "user-data-dir" for storage. As the AppImage is a "binary" we can't modify, I wonder if it were possible to start it via a "wrapper"? and, if so exactly how? Coding is not my strong suite.

There may be others. VLC comes to mind. Maybe. I remember some discussion from a "DebianDog" thread about VLC.

mikesLr

Maybe you can make use of the debug switch? Try running from the terminal:

Code: Select all

/directory/path/appimagefilename -d

[dancytron]

Hi Mike & All,

I was curious to see if the Chromium AppImage would work. It failed to start, indicating either to run it as a normal user or specify an alternative "user-data-dir" for storage. As the AppImage is a "binary" we can't modify, I wonder if it were possible to start it via a "wrapper"? and, if so exactly how? Coding is not my strong suite.

There may be others. VLC comes to mind. Maybe. I remember some discussion from a "DebianDog" thread about VLC.

mikesLr

Maybe you can make use of the debug switch? Try running from the terminal:

Code: Select all

/directory/path/appimagefilename -d

Try the external script I use in Debian Dog (I use a script because I want to be able to upgrade it without overwriting the changes). You'll have to change the path of course.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable --user-data-dir=/root/chrome/user --disk-cache-dir="/root/chrome/cache" --disk-cache-size=10000000 --media-cache-size=10000000 --no-sandbox

removing all the extra stuff, it should still run with.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable  --no-sandbox

[chapchap70]

Hi All,

The reasoning for using an appimage is so that you can click on the file wherever it may be eg: /root/spot/Downloads/appimagefile in Fatdog and when you reboot into something like Linux Mint, you can click on the same file and it will work there too. If it fails to run, the debug switch might give a clue as to why it failed.


The only 32 bit appimage file I have found and posted about is MuseScore.

Fortunately, MuseScore is working with an ap called Applmage which is an installer that is supposed to work on all platforms.

Download https://musescore.org/en/download/muses ... 6.AppImage and make it executable. You should be able to run it from anywhere simply by clicking on it. If you put it outside your savefile, you can try it with multiple puppies. The only one I got it to work with is Lupu 5.287 though. I would try it with a fresh Lupu first. I couldn't get this to work with the savefiles I was using to try to configure, compile, and build from source or debian.

Edit: To get sound to work, go to edit>preferences>I/O> and make alsa your sound driver. Not sure if that is exact. (I am not posting from Lupu 5.287 because the kernel is too old for my wifi card.)

Code: Select all

# /root/Downloads/musescore-i686.AppImage -d
global share: </tmp/.mount_92Yjp3/share/mscore-portable-2.0/>
configured localeName <system>
real localeName <en_US>
load translator </tmp/.mount_92Yjp3/share/mscore-portable-2.0/locale/mscore_en_US>
load translator </tmp/.mount_92Yjp3/share/mscore-portable-2.0/locale/instruments_en_US>
load translator </tmp/.mount_92Yjp3/share/mscore-portable-2.0/locale/instruments_en_US> failed
load translator <qt_en_US> from </tmp/.mount_92Yjp3/lib/qt5/translations>
load translator <qt_en_US> failed
read shortcuts from <:/data/shortcuts.xml>
initScoreFonts 0x985c780
DPI 72.000000
Information for screen: "LVDS-0"
  Available geometry: 0 0 1024 x 600
  Available size: 1024 x 600
  Available virtual geometry: 0 0 1024 x 600
  Available virtual size: 1024 x 600
  Depth: 24 bits
  Geometry: 0 0 1024 x 600
  Logical DPI: 96
  Logical DPI X: 96
  Logical DPI Y: 96
  Physical DPI: 119.54
  Physical DPI X: 117.16
  Physical DPI Y: 121.92
  Physical size: 222 x 125 mm
  Refresh rate: 60 Hz
  Size: 1024 x 600
  Virtual geometry: 0 0 1024 x 600
  Virtual size: 1024 x 600
/tmp/.mount_92Yjp3/AppRun: line 18: 15301 Segmentation fault      "${APPDIR}/bin/mscore-portable" "$@"

So while in Precise 5.7.1, I get a Segmentation fault at line 18 in a file that looks like was created in the /tmp directory. Maybe this info will be useful for someone. I don't know what to do with it. VLC may have failed for a totally different reason than what was assumed.

[chapchap70]

I also found this...

https://musescore.org/en/node/105331

[bigpup]

From the first post.

There's 19 pages of downloads, for a total of some 460 packages so far. These are all 64-bit only

So need to be using a 64bit Puppy version.

Puppy still could be missing something needed as a dependency or have some other issue.

Puppy does not completely follow the normal Linux operating system layout.

[bigpup]

c) The actual download will be at the top of the list on the next page.

When I look at the list of Applmages for a program.

The newest version is down near the bottom of the list.

Example for Chromium:
https://bintray.com/probono/AppImages/Chromium#files
At top of list:
Chromium-49.0.2594.0-x86_64.AppImage

Near bottom of list:
Chromium-55.0.2843.0-x86_64.AppImage

That one near the bottom of the list seems to be the newest one.

That could be a factor in how well it works.
Maybe the newest one is the bug fixed one

In Xenialpup64 7.0.8.4
I downloaded the Chromium-55.0.2843.0-x86_64.AppImage
It starts up OK, but I get the known Puppy issue.
You are running as root.
You can not do that in Chromium thing.
Probably need to apply the Puppy work around for that.

[bigpup]

I tried VLC.
Tried some other stuff.

Started it in terminal.
Got the this cannot be run as root thing.

This running as root seems to be an issue in a lot of these.

So, Puppy is going to need some way of working around this issue.

LibreOffice started and worked with no problem.

So ,seems if a program will not have issues, running as root, it works.

[Mike Walsh]

@bigpup:-

When I look at that page, all I see is Chromium 55. No sign of 'Version 49'. I don't know where you got that from...





Like I said, top of the list...

EDIT:- Hmm. You appear to have found a different page to the one I landed on. If you follow the instructions I gave, the page above is the page I find...



It's a rather peculiar site to navigate around..!


Mike.

[Semme]

Aboard PM, I see the same as BP. Are you holding a cache Mike?

[Mike Walsh]

No idea, Semme.....

Quite possibly. Let me clear m'cache, and see what's what. I don't automatically clear it all the time.....mostly when I do anything sensitive in the browser (like banking.)

I do it manually; I don't have it set up to do so automatically. I'm not that paranoid!

Nope; makes no difference, mate. Still get the same page coming up. Mind you, you're all on FireFox, aren't you? (Not that I see what difference that should make; a browser's a browser, after all.....)

This was only for information, anyway.


Mike.

[Semme]

Tahr 605-32 -- PaleMoon, Firefox and Slimjet all render the page as BP and myself view it. No biggie..

[drunkjedi]

Someone must have clicked the "Updated" or "Name" column heading to sort file accordingly....

[Semme]

"Updated" does indeed flip those listings. Do we care? No.

[bigpup]

Anyone got an idea on how to get around this "will not run, if you are running as root" thing?

[chapchap70]

Try this in a terminal

Code: Select all

su - spot

then start the program from there.

[riedzig]

Many more appimages that start in Xenialpup64 7.0.7 (not tested all their functions):

Atom
AzPainter
Calibre
Digikam (only 5.3.0)
EncryptPad
FBReader
FlowBlade
Hugin (only 2.0)
Ipe
IrScrutinizer
Kdenlive
Marble
MrWriter
Okular (starts with a blank page when used as "open with" or "run action")
Skanlite
XnView
Xara Xtreme
SublimeText
Peruse
Avidemux
Openshot
Natron
MediaInfo
Leafpad
Krita
KeePassXC
Kate
Inkscape
FontForge
Darktable
BlueGriffon
BlueFish
Ktube
SerPlayer
MuseScore (only randomly selected nightlies)
PhotoFlow
QCTools
Peek

[Mike Walsh]

Mmm. That's good to know. Especially that Pup's slightly unusual implementation of many Linux 'standards' doesn't prevent stuff like this from working correctly.

Nice one.

I did try FlowBlade in Tahr64 605, but it claimed the glibc was too old..! (It's 2.19; FB only wants 2.15, fer Chrissakes.....)


Mike.