Browser-laptop: Provide an AppImage for Linux
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.
probonopd
All 25 comments
@probonopd I think this would be awesome 馃槃 Any help is appreciated
Once of the challenges will be maintenance. If it's easy enough, we can consider adding this to our build automation. I know we'd already like to do that with snaps (see our docs for more info)
cc: @posix4e
bsclifton
on 21 Aug 2017
Sure, since you are already using Travis CI I would propose to use that for automatic AppImage generation, too. There are many examples of real-world applications already doing exactly that.
Alternatively, you could use the Open Build Service which would even update the bundled dependencies for you automatically.
probonopd
on 21 Aug 2017
Love it. I think we mainly use jenkins since the muon build requires building chromium. We are looking for ways of providing a better experience to the community in regards to this. I'd love for more feedback. Tell me more about your usecase is it just personal. Perhaps email me at posix4e at google and we can discuss this in detail?
posix4e
on 22 Aug 2017
My use case: Run the Live ISO of any major Linux distribution, download an AppImage, run the application - without installation. As for how to do it, please have a look at the examples linked above. I am happy to help if you run into any issues. Plus, AppImage developers are on #AppImage on irc.freenode.net.
probonopd
on 22 Aug 2017
I have uploaded a appimage preview package for 32 and 64 bit to my personal bucket (http://storage.googleapis.com/posis-brave-mirror/
posix4e
on 23 Aug 2017
Wow @posix4e thanks for making these. The AppImage is 270 MB large, much larger than any browser I have seen as an AppImage before. Is this expected, or is it maybe by mistake? (I didn't analyze the content of the AppImage yet.) How did you make it?
probonopd
on 23 Aug 2017
Yea i think it might be the gtk stuff.
posix4e
on 24 Aug 2017
I would love a Brave appimage. I was actually intending to open an issue kindly requesting it. Please, please make a Brave appimage. Adorable browser.
ghost
on 9 Sep 2017
DId you see the preview image? Would you be willing to help/beta test?
posix4e
on 10 Sep 2017
What is the status on this? Any chance that the AppImage will see the light of day?
probonopd
on 21 Dec 2017
@probonopd we have some preview images did you try them out?
posix4e
on 21 Dec 2017
http://storage.googleapis.com/posis-brave-mirror/ is not letting me access the files @posix4e
probonopd
on 21 Dec 2017
As for the "raw x86-64 binaries", I am getting on Ubuntu 16.04:
me@host:~$ /home/me/Brave-linux-x64/brave
[9363:9389:1221/224923.003601:FATAL:nss_util.cc(631)] NSS_VersionCheck("3.26") failed. NSS >= 3.26 is required. Please upgrade to the latest NSS, and if you still get this error, contact your distribution maintainer.
Aborted
Woops forgot to pay the bill one sec
posix4e
on 22 Dec 2017
<Message>
Your Google account is not currently enabled for this operation. Please check https://console.developers.google.com/billing to see if you have a past due balance or if the credit card (or other payment mechanism) on your account is expired. You can find additional information at https://developers.google.com/storage/docs/signup
</Message>
<Details>
The billing account for the requested project is disabled in state 'closed'
</Details>
</Error>
Try now
posix4e
on 22 Dec 2017
posix4e
on 22 Dec 2017
Thanks for the link, I can download from there. With 270 MB in size it is _way_ larger than other AppImages of browsers such as Beaker Browser. Why is that?
probonopd
on 23 Dec 2017
We ship gtk still
posix4e
on 23 Dec 2017
Why brave appimage is not official ?
https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/blob/master/docs/linuxInstall.md
cmatomic
on 14 Jan 2018
I can not see what is inside the appimage, very strange this appimage is not possible to extract it.
cmatomic
on 14 Jan 2018
@cmatomic with recent AppImages (built with recent versions of appimagetool or linuxdeployqt) it should be possible to extract the AppImage using the --appimage-extract command line option. For older AppImages, you should be able to loop-mount them to inspect their contents.
@posix4e are you interested in making the AppImage official? Can I help with anything?
probonopd
on 10 May 2018
Will there be new versions on http://storage.googleapis.com/posis-brave-mirror/?
probonopd
on 16 Jul 2018
I should do this. Wanna grab a time to chat about how we can work together on it? Email me at posix4e at gmail
posix4e
on 16 Jul 2018
Closing in favor of https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/1060
bsclifton
on 9 Sep 2018
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Most helpful comment
@probonopd I think this would be awesome 馃槃 Any help is appreciated
Once of the challenges will be maintenance. If it's easy enough, we can consider adding this to our build automation. I know we'd already like to do that with snaps (see our docs for more info)
cc: @posix4e