Brave-browser: Provide an AppImage for Linux

[bsclifton]

Carried over from https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/10250

Description

I would like to try out your browser but without letting it change repositories or libraries in my system.

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

• Applications packaged as an AppImage can run on many 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
• Works out of the box, no installation of runtimes needed
• Optional desktop integration with appimaged
• Optional binary delta updates, e.g., for continuous builds (only download the binary diff) using AppImageUpdate
• Can optionally GPG2-sign your AppImages (inside the file)
• Works on Live ISOs
• Can use the same AppImages when dual-booting multiple distributions

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

If you are interested, I am happy to help you make it happen. Just let me know.

Latest status

@posix4e has set this up for browser-laptop; it was never officially released though

[probonopd]

Please let me know if I can assist you with this in any way. Does Brave build on Ubuntu 14.04 (trusty), the oldest currently still-supported LTS release of Ubuntu?

[bsclifton]

@probonopd it should build there without a problem 😄 Unlike browser-laptop before, the build process involves grabbing all of the Chromium code (which takes ~1 hour) and then compiling it all (which may take ~6 or more hours)

You can check the binaries on our release page if you want to avoid the build / setup required:
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases

[azubieta]

Please :smile:

[probonopd]

Are the packages on https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases suitable for Ubuntu 14.04?

Then we could use https://github.com/AppImage/AppImages pkg2appimage to convert the deb to AppImage without having to recompile.

[bsclifton]

@probonopd yes- those should be fine. They're not signed though- if you want to get the signed packages, please check out the notes here:
https://brave-browser.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installing-brave.html#linux

[probonopd]

On that page it mentions Ubuntu 16.04+ though while I am looking to support all still-supported LTS releases of Ubuntu, which currently includes 14.04.

[posix4e]

18.04 is the current lts

[probonopd]

Yes, 14.04 is no longer supported. 16.04 (Xenial) is now the oldest still-supported LTS, and hence the one that should be considered the baseline target system.

[probonopd]

I am happy to help the Brave team make an AppImage. Just let me know.

[posix4e]

Amazing, I've been looking for help. Please email me at
[email protected] and we can take it from there.

[posix4e]

Sorry for the delay. I talked to the brave people and we are good to hook up travis

• [ ] Hook up travis on a fork and verify it works
• [ ] Open a new issue to merge into the brave travis account
• [ ] Profit

[azubieta]

@posix4e let's know if you need some assistance.

[probonopd]

I have started working on it but keep running into issues building Brave (even before beginning to AppImage-ify it). Any hints appreciated.

• Travis build script: https://github.com/probonopd/brave-browser/blob/patch-1/.travis.yml
• Travis build log: https://travis-ci.com/probonopd/brave-browser

[posix4e]

Travis support helping at all?