Bounty on building an AppImage installer [2 XMR] · Issue #1222 · haveno-dex/haveno (github.com)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by k4r4b3y@monero.town to c/monero@monero.town

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[-] prancing389@monero.town 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I discourage the implementation of AppImage creation because it's a cheap and dirty way to tick the box for Linux compatibility, yet this does not translate into usability for the Linux user. Some cons to this half-baked shortcut IMHO are:

packages don't update with operating system updates using native package managers like apt or yum so updates are clumsy and in some cases have broken my system.
packages don't integrate with operating system menu hierarchy.
it can tend to circumvent the quality controls inherent in the package introduction processes of these distributions, therefore reducing it's overall reliability as a tool. (it's also a great way to sneak malicious code on to your machine, btw)

What you end up with is a broken app, which may not break your system entirely at first. Any of those that continue to attempt to correct these broken apps can either get lucky and fix the app, or make things worse and really break the Operating System. It is for these reasons I urge the developer community to avoid using snap, AppImage, or Flatpak and stick to releasing binaries for specific distributions like .deb or .rpm.

I'd rather wait a year longer for it than have you check off your "Linux compatibility" box and never look at it again.

I'm not a programmer, so if you find any statements factually incorrect, I'll beg your forgiveness in advance and ask that you don't bite my head off in your reply, just politely point out and correct factual misstatements and save your energy for writing code for binary installation package files like .deb or .rpm.

Sincerely,

Prancing389

[-] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 3 points 3 months ago

packages don't update with operating system updates using native package managers like apt or yum so updates are clumsy and in some cases have broken my system.

Sorry? AppImages shouldn't be able to break your system, at all. For example it does not affect the installed system packages, except a tiny bit when you install AppImageLauncher because that comes as a system package.

packages don't integrate with operating system menu hierarchy.

Check out AppImageLauncher.

It is for these reasons I urge the developer community to avoid using snap, AppImage, or Flatpak and stick to releasing binaries for specific distributions like .deb or .rpm.

I think you are in the exact opposite here. These solutions are exactly for protecting the system from package dependency inconsistency. Installing such an app won't install any more system packages, and especially won't possibly lock system package versions to some old version. They don't affect the system package manager's state. The entire reason for these being manageable without sudo permission, as a regular unprivileged user is that they don't modify the system, but only the installation in your home directory.
As much as I don't approve of snap, and dislike the resource consumption of flatpak, what you are saying is simply not true.

[-] k4r4b3y@monero.town 1 points 3 months ago

The entire reason for these being manageable without sudo permission, as a regular unprivileged user is that they don't modify the system, but only the installation in your home directory.

Yes, and therefore AppImages are great for use in TailsOS and Qubes-Whonix.

[-] tusker@monero.town 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Appimage is a great way for developers to release a binary that works on all linux systems right away. It is a burden on devs to create multiple packages.

Then distributions or users can take the appimage and build a package that integrates properly.

It is also trivial to integrate an appimage into your system by just creating a file that your desktop will read and create a menu item.