Appium-desktop: Please provide Appium AppImage for Linux

[probonopd]

Please provide an Appium Desktop AppImage for Linux on https://bitbucket.org/appium/appium.app/downloads/ (similar to the existing Windows and macOS downloads).

Providing an AppImage would have, among others, these advantages:

• Works for most Linux distributions (including Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, CentOS, elementaryOS, Linux Mint, and others)
• One app = one file = super simple for users: just download one AppImage file, make it executable, and run
• No unpacking or installation necessary
• No root needed
• No system libraries changed
• Just one format for all major distributions
• Works out of the box, no installation of runtimes needed
• Optional(!) desktop integration with appimaged
• Binary delta updates, e.g., for continuous builds (only download the binary diff) using AppImageUpdate
• Can GPG2-sign your AppImages (inside the file)

Here is an overview of projects that are already distributing upstream-provided, official AppImages.

Many of these are Electron-based, since electron-builder as support for generating AppImages built in. In fact, AppImage is already configured in the Appium source.

[dpgraham]

We're working on our first beta release right now and the Linux AppImage is on the list of release targets.

If you wanted to get your hands on it now, you can try running the packaging script npm run package from a Linux machine and get a copy of the AppImage

[dpgraham]

Hi @probonopd, I just did a pre-release of Appium 1.0.0-beta. It has a .AppImage binary attached.

[probonopd]

Thanks @dpgraham, running well for me on Ubuntu 16.04.

[dpgraham]

Great to here!

[jlipps]

@probonopd any chance you can give us some screenshots of a few of the different views in action? i don't have easy access to a linux desktop at the moment and it'd be nice to include some in the docs when we make them.

[probonopd]

KDE neon User Edition 5.9

Ubuntu 16.04

Antergos Linux release 17.1

[probonopd]

By the way, on CentOS 7 I get:

/tmp/.mount_qOloXL/usr/bin/appium-desktop: error while loading shared libraries: libXss.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Workaround/solution: https://github.com/probonopd/AppImages/issues/127#issuecomment-278427441

[jlipps]

Awesome, thanks @probonopd

[dpgraham]

Great. Thanks @probonopd!

[pascencio]

Manjaro 4.9:

I had this error:

No native production dependencies
⚠️  Packaging using asar archive is disabled — it is strongly not recommended.
Please enable asar and use asarUnpack to unpack files that must be externally available.
Packaging for linux x64 using electron 1.4.13 to release/linux-unpacked
Unhandled rejection Error: Exit code: ENOENT. spawn icns2png ENOENT
    at /home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder-util/src/util.ts:75:16
    at exithandler (child_process.js:212:5)
    at ChildProcess.errorhandler (child_process.js:224:5)
    at emitOne (events.js:96:13)
    at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:191:7)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:213:12)
    at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:367:16)
    at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:80:11)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:104:9)
From previous event:
    at exec (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder-util/src/util.ts:53:3)
    at /home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/src/targets/LinuxTargetHelper.ts:167:28
    at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
    at runCallback (timers.js:672:20)
    at tryOnImmediate (timers.js:645:5)
    at processImmediate [as _immediateCallback] (timers.js:617:5)
From previous event:
    at LinuxTargetHelper.createFromIcns (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/out/targets/LinuxTargetHelper.js:216:11)
    at /home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/src/targets/LinuxTargetHelper.ts:54:25
From previous event:
    at LinuxTargetHelper.computeDesktopIcons (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/out/targets/LinuxTargetHelper.js:84:11)
    at new LinuxTargetHelper (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/src/targets/LinuxTargetHelper.ts:17:23)
    at getHelper (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/src/linuxPackager.ts:32:18)
    at outDir (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/src/linuxPackager.ts:61:122)
    at mapper (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/src/targets/targetFactory.ts:15:16)
    at LinuxPackager.createTargets (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/src/linuxPackager.ts:61:7)
    at createTargets (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/src/targets/targetFactory.ts:22:12)
    at /home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/src/packager.ts:231:41
From previous event:
    at Packager.doBuild (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/out/packager.js:351:11)
    at /home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/src/packager.ts:159:38
    at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
    at runCallback (timers.js:672:20)
    at tryOnImmediate (timers.js:645:5)
    at processImmediate [as _immediateCallback] (timers.js:617:5)
From previous event:
    at Packager.build (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/out/packager.js:257:11)
    at /home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/src/builder.ts:217:33
    at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
From previous event:
    at build (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/out/builder.js:70:21)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/patricio/Descargas/appium-desktop-1.0.0/node_modules/electron-builder/out/cli/build-cli.js:71:41)
    at Module._compile (module.js:571:32)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:580:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:488:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:447:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:439:3)
    at Module.runMain (module.js:605:10)
    at run (bootstrap_node.js:423:7)
    at startup (bootstrap_node.js:147:9)
    at bootstrap_node.js:538:3

[dpgraham]

Hi @pascencio,

You need to install icns2png on your Linux machine.

We use electron-builder to build Appium Desktop. This document has information on how to get things up-and-running: https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/wiki/Multi-Platform-Build#linux

I should probably make a note of this in the README

[pascencio]

Thanks @dpgraham !

That worked for me.

[BShivShankar]

Install appium in Linuxmint/ubuntu, here is the step by step process to install appium in linux mint via terminal by software tester

https://techsouljours.blogspot.com/2018/03/install-appium-in-linux-mint.html

[dpgraham]

Nice, thanks @BShivShankar!

[probonopd]

Install appium in Linuxmint/ubuntu, here is the step by step process to install appium in linux mint via terminal

...or just download the AppImage, make it executable, and run it.