Appimages are an insecure packaging system with very limited use cases. Please use Flatpak instead! - trytomakeyouprivate/dont-use-appimages
Appimages totally suck, because many developers think they were a real packaging format and support them exclusively.
Their use case is tiny, and in 99% of cases Flatpak is just better.
I could not find a single post or article about all the problems they have, so I wrote this.
This is not about shaming open source contributors. But Appimages are obviously broken, pretty badly maintained, while organizations/companies like Balena, Nextcloud etc. don't seem to get that.
There are AppImages out there that self-update
, but GearLever also solves the update issue. And if you don't want to use GearLever, there are other updaters like AppImageUpdate.
The lack of repositories
Appimages don't even have a central place where you can find them, not to mention download them.
This is blatantly wrong - AppImageHub exists for this very reason. There are also GUI frontends like AppImagePool which makes it easy to discover/download/install them.
Lack of Sandboxing
That is a fair point, however, AppImage never claimed to be a sandboxing solution, and for some use-cases this can even be seen as an advantage (any Flatpak user would've at some point run into annoying sandboxing limitations - such as password manager and browser integration, or themeing woes). But there are other sandboxing options out there, such as using containers, and IMO, using a proper container is a better option for sandboxing. Or even better, use a VM if you're actually running an untrusted app.
Random location
[..] A necessary step would be mounting the entire /home non-executable. This is no problem for system apps, or Flatpaks, but where do you put Appimages now?
There would need to be a standard directory to put such files in, which is normally the PATH. But this is also the easiest attack goal for malware, so PATH would be non-executable as well.
I completely disagree with making the entirety of /home as non-executable, when $HOME/.local/bin is recommended by the XDG standard as a place to store executables. As long as $HOME/.local/bin is in the XDG spec, I'll continue storing my executables there. If you disagree, go argue with the XDG guys.
Duplicated libraries
This is a fair point but "they include all the libraries they need" is the entire point of AppImage - so mentioning this is pointless.
If users would really install every Software as Appimages, they would waste insane amounts of storage space.
Then it's a good thing that they don't right? What's the point of making hypothetical arguments? Also, this is 2024, storage is cheap and dedicating space for your applications isn't really a big deal for most folks. And if storage space is really a that much of a concern, then you wouldn't be using Flatpak either - so this argument is moot and only really valid for a hypothetical / rare use-cases where storage is a premium. And again, in such a use case, that user wouldn't be using Flatpaks either.
Finally, some distros like Bazzite already have the above integrations built-in (GearLever/AppImagePool), so you don't even need to do anything special to get AppImages integrated nicely in your system, and there's nothing stopping other distros adding these packages as optional dependencies - but it's kinda moot at this point I guess since Flatpak has already won the war.
Personally, I'm pro-choice. If AppImage doesn't work for you, then don't use it, as simple as that. Stop dictating user choice. If AppImage is really as bad as you claim, then it'll die a natural death and you don't have to worry about it. What you really need to worry about is Snap, which has the backing of Canonical, and some dev houses new to the Linux ecosystem seem to think packing stuff as Snap is an acceptable solution...
I agree with you on all but one point: I detest the argument that "storage is cheap".
While true, it's of no value to have 10 times the storage when all your apps grow 10 times in size. You can still only do as much as before but had to upgrade in between. This also means, it leaves behind people who simply can't afford an upgrade and who have an otherwise running system.
On top of that, we live in a time where we should not waste resources, since the world already suffers enough.
I am therefore still a fan of optimizing software to be as efficient as possible.
That being said: carefully used AppImages solve one such issue for me. Not every application I use needs constant updates. I want to stay at a specific version. That's easy with AppImages.
This is a fair point but "they include all the libraries they need" is the entire point of AppImage - so mentioning this is pointless.
"Bloat" is one big topic around these newer packaging formats so definitely not a pointless thing to bring up imo. I don't think it should be as big of a topic as it is (the actual issue here is fairly minor imo) but it is definitely talked about.
And flatpak (and snap I think) have much better tools to mitigate the space use issues.
(any Flatpak user would’ve at some point run into annoying sandboxing limitations - such as password manager and browser integration, or themeing woes)
While I overall do prefer Flatpak over AppImage these days, the sandboxing has indeed been giving me more trouble than I think it is worth so far.
It makes appimages less worse than Flatpaks though, so its only "badness reduction" for me.
There are AppImages out there that self-update
, but GearLever also solves the update issue. And if you don't want to use GearLever, there are other updaters like AppImageUpdate.
The first is what I mentioned, such updates can be perfectly done by a central package manager. Did you ever try to seal off a Windows install using Portmaster, where every installed app needed network access for their individual update services? Just no...
Ans to the repos, yeah maybe, havent looked if they are as secure as a linux repo. But the concept of "it is acceptable to download software from random websites" allows for malware to fit in there. Only if you will never find a .flatpak file it is possible to be sure its malware.
But there are other sandboxing options out there, such as using containers, and IMO, using a proper container is a better option for sandboxing. Or even better, use a VM if you're actually running an untrusted app.
All worse than bubblewrap. Containers are either manual af (like with bubblejail) or if you refer to Distrobox/Toolbox, unconfined by default. They have no portal integration and no GUI configuration apps. So it may work somehow but probably worse, more resource heavy and there simply already is something better.
Same for VMs. Keep an eye on Kata containers, but this is about least privilege, not some QubesOS system that will not run in a tablet, for example. Android uses containers, is damn secure, and runs on phones.
[non executable stuff]
This is about protecting against malware. Linux Desktops are built on a different logic. Any unconfined software can download a binary to localbin, copy a random desktop entry from usrshareapps to your local folder, edit the exec line and add that binary to it.
Or just manipulate your .bashrc, change the sudo command to read input, save to file, pipe input to sudo. Tadaa, sudo password stolen.
That concept of "users can change their home but not the system" is poorly pretty flawed. So any directory that is writable without any priveges is insecure, if you dont trust every single piece of software you run.
Agree that Snaps are a problem. Its only really problematic when repackaging is illegal though, of course annoying but the Spotify flatpak is a repackaged snap. Same as with appimages.
I should write the same about snaps, but I feel they are covered WAY better.
Oooh yes, let's throw some mud in the gaping holes of this packaging solution, spit and tape the rest to make it do something it was not designed to do. Brilliant idea! ☺️
I agree with this, but as an app developer, can I just say, Flathub’s documentation is an absolute abomination. It is so bad, that I’ve tried 3 times to publish an app and have given up each time. I can build a local Flatpak just fine, but getting it on Flathub is just so convoluted and bad.
AppImages are ridiculously easy to build and distribute, just a pain to actually use. And even then, they’re not that much of a pain.
AppImage is great at what it does - provide an ultra-low effort packaging solution for ad-hoc app distribution that enables a developer who won't spend the time to do rpm/deb/flatpak packaging. There are obvious problems, security and otherwise, that arise if you try using it for a large software collection. But then again some people use things like Homebrew and pacstall unironically so ...
But then again some people use things like Homebrew and pacstall unironically so …
Thank you for mentioning this! Unfortunately a quick search on the internet didn't yield any pointers. Would you mind elaborating upon the security problems of Homebrew(/Linuxbrew)? Thanks in advance 😊!
I mean, I'm not saying they aren't. I think the original argument is valid. I just think they're better than the alternative, which isn't Flatpak but self-extracting .sh files.
oh boy here we go I strongly disagree with this article
While complex .tar archives (like firefox) may seem messy, they integrate many different things. An installer script takes care of placing a .desktop entry, you can have an updater script, a LICENSE, README and more. Those are all missing with Appimages.
.tar ARE messy, sometimes they don't work right, dep conflicts, etc. An installer script can be shipped with an appimage anyways. Moot point IMO
Apps installed with the system package manager get their .desktop Entry in /usr/share/applications, installed Flatpaks get their entry linked to ~/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/applications/, user overrides and other installs can be put in ~/.local/share/applications/.
Appimages have no desktop entry, so they have (currently) no icon on Wayland and they don't appear in your app list. Desktop entries are a standard, used by everytthing but Appimages.
see above
Instead users follow strange habits like placing the files on their desktop, which is a highly discouraged "Windows workflow" (symbolic image) and not even supported on many Desktop Environments, most notably GNOME.
Who discourages it? I personally prefer this myself, lack of desktop icons is a common complain for stuff like GNOME...
This is both a usability and a security issue. Traditional Linux apps, even if they are cross platform, don't have updater services, as package managers are way better at doing that.
I disagree that this is better. A personal issue but I Much prefer when apps can update themselves.
This means, packing as an Appimage either requires to implement an updating service, on a platform that doesn't need that, or to have no updates at all.
Instead users need to follow an RSS feed, get a mail, or manually check for updates, which is horrible UX. Then how do they update?
Is this really a massive issue? There have been appimage stores in the past. Self updating appimages really isn't that hard either. If this was a massive issue, you could do something like obtanium for android which could easily automate the process.
Appimages don't even have a central place where you can find them, not to mention download them. This is extremely insecure. Modern Application stores and every well made Linux repository uses cryptographic (mostly gpg) verification, which secures the authenticity of the software. You can be sure you downloaded the real package.
I'd argue it makes little difference. But yes, Downloading things from the internet is more unsafe then downloading from a repo or a "curated" service. So we can grant one here.
There is no updating mechanism. On Android you may also update by downloading .apk files, but once installed, the .apk needs to be signed with the same key, otherwise updates are blocked. With Appimages... you just delete the old .appimage file, download the new one, change the name to remove the version and hope your .desktop entry didn't break.
This is how you get malware.
the risks seem blown out of proportion here. As long as you are downloading from the same place, the risks are significantly smaller in reality, not gone, but smaller.
They are not well maintained
There is a well known "bug" on modern Ubuntu, where Appimages lost their "works on every Linux Distro", because they are built for the outdated libfuse2, while Ubuntu now uses libfuse3. The fix is to install the outdated version of libfuse (!), and this is still not fixed.
An application format, that is incompatible with the latest version of its core dependency, is broken.
This is a very minor issue, i've had way more issues with traditional repo packages then I have had with appimages.
Lack of Sandboxing
...
I find this to be a benefit myself, I have had countless headaches with flatpak applications and their sandboxing. everything from devices not being recognized, weird storage issues and more.
Appimages bloat the system. They include all the libraries they need, and unlike system packages or Flatpaks, they don't share a single libary. If users would really install every Software as Appimages, they would waste insane amounts of storage space.
This also completely discourages efficient and up to date packaging, and the attached risk of outdates libraries is hidden away in that .appimage archive.
and? When you need only a couple appimage files, space I find is smaller then flatpak, it only becomes when you need a lot of applications.
Appimages are not needed
Flatpak solved many Linux desktop issues at once
...
None of these provide reasons as to why appimages aren't needed. Appimages still offer a lot, for one I can just download and run it I don't need to worry about installing and uninstalling application when I just want to try it, I don't need to muck about trying to get an app into flathub or starting my own repo, when a user has a problem, I can just tell them to run the new appimage instead of trying to get them to compile it.
Appimages also let me do fine grained control over the dependencies. No unexpected runtime updates, I can compile the deps with flags/features I want to support, and disable flags/features I don't want to support, Users don't need to download a stupid appstore or use CLI (not a single appstore i've used to date isn't hot garbage, I hope cosmic-store will be different).
I agree with much of this. However, regardless of which platform you're on. it's best to follow the design patterns of that platform.
Putting binaries on your desktop is not in keeping with Linux design patterns, nor are self-updating apps. I think those are fair points.
Having dozens of apps all using their own update mechanism introduces unnecessary complexity, which can be exploited. This has been a problem on Mac and Windows over the years. On Mac, for example, a common solution to this is the Sparkle framework, which devs can use in their app to manage self-updating; but Sparkle itself has been exploited, so then you have apps out there running god-knows-what-version of Sparkle in their bundles, leaving users vulnerable with no good way to identify or remediate it. This is why I typically disable any self-updating feature in any apps I use.
Dont know where user installed tar archives (with statically linked binaries or including deps) would have dep conflicts, maybe if they are not statically linked.
The self updating stuff and desktop icons is personal opinion and not the common way on Desktop Linux, so I skip that.
you could do something like obtanium for android which could easily automate the process.
That is called a package manager, with a repo, with gpg signing etc. On Android (which I mentioned) updates are secure. Let alone the point that appimages are not updated in a regular way, they are just replaced.
I'd argue it makes little difference. But yes, Downloading things from the internet is more unsafe
No the difference is huge. If you are used to downloading software from websites, a faked website can easily lead to downloaded malware. Flathub can be added with a click and flatpak is included in distros, which means no hunting on the internet and no accidental clicks.
And as I said, until nobody downloads .flatpak packages online, and there may be an occasion where this is normal behavior, people will believe malware links are legit.
the risks seem blown out of proportion here. As long as you are downloading from the same place, the risks are significantly smaller in reality, not gone, but smaller.
Appimages are distributed everywhere, just as .exe files for Windows. This means they are favored by developers used to Windows and Mac, and those will not add them to a repo instead.
So a faked website of whatever etcher or something is easy.
The fact that Linux malware is not a thing, while Appimages clearly give the headstart for that, is a miracle.
I find this to be a benefit myself, I have had countless headaches with flatpak applications and their sandboxing. everything
Flatpaks are not secure because their sandboxes are weakened to not have such issues. This is due to apps not following secure standards, and until that is fixed they are insecure or broken or both. (Apps need to write configs in the container, they should use portals etc.)
Linux is only somewhat secure because everything is FOSS and comes from repos.
This is broken by appimages, that can easily distribute malware and thus fix the "my malware is not running on that distro" issue.
Every software that can write to your .bashrc can easily catch your sudo password.
Another moot issue. $HOME/.local/bin is an XDG standard, so unless we pretend that XDG standards aren't "one of the major standards" this is just wrong.
Yes linux experts would put them there. As mentioned in that text malware would also install itself there, so on secure systems this should be only writable by root/ some elevated group privilege.
But apart from that users put them on the desktop, or in some random folder, I mean that dir is hidden for a reason.
Or put it in that PATH and then link to the desktop, resulting in a broken link when you remove the app.
When you need only a couple appimage files, space I find is smaller then flatpak, it only becomes when you need a lot of applications.
If something is not scaleable its not a good concept. The fact that you will only install a couple of appimage apps is enough proof.
On modern atomic distros users can rely purely on flatpak.
Btw see the linked dedup checker. You may download more dependencies but they are linked between each other and not actually take up so much space.
I don't need to worry about installing and uninstalling application when I just want to try it
We need to overthink those habits. You dont just "try an app", you run unsandboxed code from an unverified origin. As mentioned above, this could be totally fine, and also add a function to your bashrc that catches your sudo password (the next time you use it) and sends it to a server.
The secure way to do that is completely unpractical.
Get a GPG app or use the cli, create a personal key. Secure the access permissions, as gpg always complains on Fedora for example.
When correct, load the key into gpg/kleopatra/kgpg
Verify the key with your internal key (yeah gpg is overcomplicated)
Download the appimage, and a signed hash (most of the time its done like that)
Verify the signed hash
Sandbox the appimage using bubblejail (doesnt work) or firejail (no idea if it works, and its insecure)
Repeat on every damn update (if it doesnt have a builtin updater)
This is unusable. And repositories do this automatically without anything you need to do. For sure you could "extra check the website" and say "
Also app data will be everywhere, often in its traditional location, while there is no package manager at all to delete them. Flatpaks store all their stuff (when devs care and not just ignore that, cough Cryptomator) in their container and data can be easily removed during uninstallation, GUI stores show a popup to delete data and I also made a small script to do that.
And that "try it out" app will either have no desktop entry or that entry needs to be manually and will be still there after uninstalling.
I don't need to muck about trying to get an app into flathub or starting my own repo, when a user has a problem, I can just tell them to run the new appimage instead of trying to get them to compile it.
This may be a reason, but this is only for testing then. But for sure, when its a small project, getting it on Flathub may be much efford.
I can imagine the developer experience is easiser. Flatpaks are simply very "defined" and need all that metadata and more to be complete. But needing to use available runtimes is a good thing mostly, its basically supporting a specific distro.
Flatpak through CLI is fine (I would like to have a standalone small store just for flatpak), Discover is nice too. The Linux Mint store also seemed fine but not much experience. (Linux Mint has some Wayland support now, so there is a secureblue Cinnamon spin, have to try that). The Cosmic store is just a stub currently, lets see!
Now I WILL get judged for this but hear me out... AppImages are useful for apps that will not get on Flathub. If you have an app that cannot get on Flathub (like a pirated Minecraft Launcher), you will be thankful developers are using AppImages for them. In this case, they're unlikely to use snaps (alt repos for snap are possible but difficult from what I've heard) and maintaining a flatpak repo just seems like overkill for a single program. So for cases like these, I'm glad to see these packaged as appimages
TIP: Flatpak have a build-in way for creating USB, check out the "flatpak --help".
But the point is with Appimage all that have to be installed is FUSE, which is expected to be installed on most installs when you go to a friend or work where Linux is used.
When I was first getting into Linux, Flatpak wasn't a thing quite yet. I ended up installing software in all of the following ways:
A .run file. Simplify3D (commercial 3D printer slicer) did this, it was kind of a literal word for word translation of the Windows .exe installer system. Please don't do this. See also install.sh. Just don't do this.
A .tar.gz file full of the executable and its assets with no further elaboration. This happened a few times but I really remember FTL: Faster Than Light did this when I bought the game directly from them rather than on Steam, and they were nice enough to link it to a Steam key for me. This'll work if you're handing out a thing you made to a couple other people, don't distribute like this please.
Clone my git repo. I'm going to type this slowly so that it will best be understood: Git is for people who are contributing to code, not for people who just want to run it. Do not ask end users to compile from source.
Ubuntu PPAs. This one seems to have died; it's been a couple years since I've seen anyone suggest adding a PPA. Good, they somewhat sucked.
Pip. There are way too many end-user applications that are distributed with Python's package manager. No. Bad.
Alien. For a brief time the driver for my printer was only distributed as a .rpm, I was on a .deb based system. There's a thing called Alien that lets you do that.
Loose .debs. Haven't encountered this one in awhile either, but...could be worse.
-Snap. No. Just. No.
Compared to almost all of these I'd prefer an AppImage. For example, go look at the process of getting an up to date copy of Chirp, the amateur radio programming software. The instructions are kind of "build it yourself," they are flawed and borderline incorrect, and include no uninstall instructions. I would vastly prefer they just package the damn thing as an AppImage.
Compared to AppImage, I almost always prefer a Flatpak. Flathub is built into my distro's GUI app center and is almost transparent to the user. Using Flatpaks with the terminal is complete rectal pus, but for most end users who prefer to do things graphically Flatpak works pretty well most of the time. It is not completely seamless, like Flatpak seems to suffer from all the drawbacks of sandboxing with none of the benefits.
If you are distributing to a wide audience, use Flatpak or publish to the various standard repos. If you're a little niche thing that might distribute 200 or 300 copies ever, AppImage is probably simpler. Otherwise just...keep your repo private.
The only use case for Appimages
If users want to carry applications around on a thumbdrive, or run on a fully immutable system like TAILS, Appimages may be needed. But this is the only target, and it is not a standard use case.
I guess I agree. This is precisely the case where I have ever used them. Namely to have a portable executable of my password manager on a stick together with a backup of the password database.
Counterpoint: I don't like having more than one package manager on my system, which means things like Flatpaks and Snaps are out. With AppImages, I just double-click on the executable and off it goes.
I get that multiple package managers can be suboptimal (though I don't have a problem with it as long as the integration is good).
But it still seems like a much, much better solution than just not having these applications managed by a package manager, as is the case with AppImages.
True. I would consider another package manager if it integrated into my system nicely and if I had more than a few applications outside my regular package manager. But I only have like two AppImages on my PC anyway, so I don't mind updating them manually when I need to run them.
So you prefer to not have any updates or secure verification, because you dont want a second package manager?
Dude you are the second package manager, and if you dont follow the whole gpg verification process I described in another comment, that is less secure.
Most shortsighted answer of the day. Great now you have this outdated executable on your system and you mabye are not even sure this was installed through appimage, because how should you know when your launcher is not telling you anything?
golfclap
We're also regularly debating Flatpak here. That password managers don't tie into the browser and the desktop themes don't apply. It's also not the best solution and regularly confuses newer users.
That native messaging portal is probably developed somewhere. But for sure, also apps installing themselves "partly" as an extension of another, like Zotero and Libreoffice. This could be done though, okay.
Themes generally just work on KDE at least. At least light/dark themes, which may not really be the fanciest of choices
I'd be happy if people just cut down on advertising Chrome/Firefox and LibreOffice via Flatpak to new users. They should use the packaged version. That's why we have distributions, to make the whole system a smooth experience and everything tie together.
Flatpak is slowly getting there and I think at least some distros have it preconfigured so the default GTK themes are in place.
Ultimately, I'd like sandboxing to be available natively in Linux, at least for desktop applications. And we can talk about a packaging format that is available to the user, allows pulling software directly from the upstream project, includes libraries and runtimes.
Themes not applying is wrong packaging, not flatpaks fault.
Flatpaks limitations are real but you should install as flatpak first and if not working, then use the native package or nix. And limitations in flatpaks should be advertised.
But with this approach you take over the answering questions to newbies... Why doesn't the webcam show up in the videoconferencing? Why doesn't my GTK / QT themes apply to some software and it's a 2 page tutorial with lots of command line commands to fix that? Why can't I install Firefox add-ons and on Windows and MacOS everything just works? Why is Linux so complicated and regularly stuff doesn't work?
I had this argument multiple times now. There is an easy solution: Do it the other way around until you know what you're doing and about the consequences. Distributions are there for a reason. They put everything into one package and do testing to make sure everything works together. They provide you with security patches if you choose the right distro. LibreOffice and a Browser even come preinstalled most of the times. If you do away with all of that, it's now your job to tie the software into your desktop, your job to handle the sandboxing if there is addons that need to pierce the sandbox. Your job to make sure the Flatpak publishers do quick updates and keep the runtimes up-to-date if a security vulnerability arise within an used library...
I'm not directly opposed to using Flatpak. I'm just saying there are some consequences that aren't that obvious. There are valid use-cases and I also use Flatpak. But in my experience hyping some of the available technologies without simultaneously explaining the consequences is regularly doing a disservice to new users.
I don't get why we didn't just do it macOS style; bundle everything into one directory with a standardised structure and wire up file managers etc. to run the correct executable inside it.
Proper, integrated packaging is obviously preferred (though as a NixOS user I disagree that that implies an FHS) but this is about "stand-alone" packages. You're missing the point.
As a humble linux user of the last year or two my experience has been that anything that is not in the Debian repo is a confusing nuisance. Nobody told me how to get appimages to integrate with my desktop. I had to rummage the internet and learn how. Compare this to a single click in Gnome software or simple command in the terminal for apps in the repo. I also installed flatpak, so I could get programs that weren't available in the repo but nobody told me I would have to install and rummage Flatseal to enable them to work properly, that it would make my backups and restores take 900% longer and would rinse my data when they need updating. It's been annoying enough that I've ended up learning how to install from source as well. Maybe it's cool that I've learned how to do all this new stuff but to be honest I just feel like I've had to do loads of extra head-scratching and unnecessary work. I did it willingly because I've been committed to not being held back from using open source software but I couldn't expect my friends and family to do any of this, so if I do get them onto Linux I can't recommend these programs to them.
Current tier list:
Debian repo
.deb downloaded from a website!
Enjoy using application, go for a bike ride.
Make sure I'm free for a couple of hours, install from source.
So Flatseal is used to harden flatpaks, not weaken them, normally.
that it would make my backups and restores take 900% longer and would rinse my data when they need updating.
You mean their storage space? Yes, biggest problem. Not very well solved tbh compared to android where all apps are also sandboxed but they have sizes of 30MB or something.
Flatpaks should be preferred over many other formats though, as they just work, dont touch the system and are more secure, unlike Appimages.
I highly recommend to watch this talk that some commenter mentioned
Thanks for the links. I really want flatpak to work for me because I like the sandboxing but the storage thing is a bit of a killer for me at the moment and I could not for the life of me get Digikam, Shotwell or Rawtherapee to hand image files over to GIMP with the flatpak versions, whereas the repo versions were fine out of the box. Also, I feel like flatpak programs are much slower to open but that might just be me.
I’m not a fan of alternative packaging solutions. Never been. If it’s not in Debian’s repositories then I don’t bother with it. Some would say that’s close minded as not all packaging solutions are bad but when you use a stable distribution like Debian the native packaging solution is a lot easier to maneuver and troubleshoot than flatpaks and the like.
Flatpaks dont touch the system, which makes them a perfect addition to a Debian Base. Tbh I think Windows is the best example that this works, stable, boring base, and no software is stable for no reason. They outsource the work and the software even installs and updates in random ways, but it is always up to date which never breaks the system.
But to be fair I am not a Debian user. I would consider it when being an admin for many clients that want a stable system. But I would install all apps from Flathub then, to have them up to date and not years old.
What the hell are you talking about? Did you even read the post? They literally praise native package managers, statically linked binaries and even .tar archives over appimages. If you don't have any actual arguments against their point, you don't have to make shit up, you know? Using BS ad hominem to dismiss someones opinion isn't a great look.
Lucky kids. I remember when I switched to Linux and encountered my first app store (Synaptic). That was already such a huge improvement over random .exes, and app stores today are way, way better.
i think those kids got a point -- app stores are easier than finding random executables on the web
it can sometimes be a pain to find the original developper's website to get a legitimate copy of the software from, especially for non-technical users.
the main issue with app stores is that they're often closed ecosystems, where there's only one app provider. that's not the case with flatpatk!
And yours is from people who are missing any security awareness and think windows is great because you can double click any executable and don’t need to waste any thought on isolation and privileges.
AppImages as a universal packaging format seem fun in that I've had loads of issues getting them to run properly on different systems. I'm sure they're handy for some stuff but haven't personally enjoyed them.
Some of these apps can't work as flatpaks at all, because they require more access to the system, e.g. Davinci Resolve. AppImage allows that. I mean, heck, even Ubuntu runs a virtual filesystem in order to allow its Snap Firefox to access the Dictionary that lives "outside" its sandboxing. So, yes, there are cases where AppImages do serve a purpose. Not most cases, but a lot of cases.
Totally agree with basically every point here. You hit the nail on the head. App images are the .exe's of the Linux world and I don't understand how someone can say they love app images but hate Window's portable exe's. Even Windows doesn't have nearly as many portable executable as they once did. And when they do, most people (even those who prefer app images) prefer an exe with a Windows installer.
Anyways, this is all to point out why I avoid app images if at all possible
As someone who didn't have a computer and had to install everything on a USB drive at some point, I absolutely LOVE portable .exe's. Don't see why anyone would have a problem with it. Don't see a problem with aopimages either.
By the way, if you guys are interested here is a talk comparing Appimages Snaps and Flatpaks by Richard Brown, one the devs at Suse, a big contributer to openSuse and the guy who spearheaded the Desktop variante of MicroOS (the immutable openSuse Tumbleweed).
He isn't to keen on appimages either because of a miriad of technical issues.
Appimages are awesome for the regular user. Single file, just double click to run anywhere. Snap and Flatpak should die a quick death and all the work should be used to improve Appimages. There's no other concept for the end user as simple and clear as this.
They mimic the apple application format to some degree and it is a great way to distribute. The real detriment is sandboxing but with more support this could be included.
Why do I hear the argument about no .desktop entries in every thread like this? Creating a .desktop file is a requirement for the appimage creation tools to work, and appimaged installs it in the system menu immediately. It's seamless.
I'm confused. You call flatpaks bloated but AppImages have to bundle everything with them and there's no dedupping or sharing libraries between them, unlike with flatpak. Unless the devs assume you have certain libraries and certain versions of them, which kinda ruins the point of AppImages. How come you think flatpak would be more bloated than AppImages as a packaging format?
has no idea how much it has to download to update
That's actually the dedupping stuff in action. It knows you might need this much at maximum, but realized you only needed to download a lot less since you already had most of it downloaded beforehand. It's funny but I can't see it as a big issue tbh.
Appimages come with the library dependencies, flatpaks come with that + multiple versions of the runtimes and drivers. Flatpaks make the most sense if all you use it's that, otherwise you will have 5 different versions of mesa, gnome runtime, video codec libraries and other runtimes for little reason.
Static binaries, or dynamic binaries whose project has documentation on what dependencies they need, are better than appimages. This is because appimages are a container with the actual files inside, creating a layer of abstraction, and appimages require libfuse to work.
Imagine the case in NixOS, where dynamically-linked binaries don't work out of the box. You can patch or package these binaries, or just quickly use something like steam-run to emulate traditional Linux bin and lib paths, it works. With appimages, it won't work unless you already have libfuse in your system, so you have to extract the appimage first.
Still, flatpaks as the only official alternative isn't great for many reasons, and CLI/TUI programs are out of the equation. What is better is the devs distributing unpackaged binaries, jars, etc, and optionally flatpaks. Either way, Nix's repository is huge so I don't usually feel the need to run anything that isn't a nix package.
Eh, I've always felt these solutions are complementary, or supplementary, rather than a "versus". Each one, in particular cases, covers gaps the others can't cover. The only one that's unneeded is Snap.
For example, I like Flatpak. I like that I can get software from an authorized hub, much like with a package manager. I like that the releases of the apps in the hub are mostly well documented.
But no matter how nice Flatpak seems to be, its overreliance on "portals" and "buses" and "seals" comes associated with trying to over-engineerize my system too much for its own good. Every app I have ever tried on Flatpak, for example, doesn't support audio, apparently because I have the godly, eternal, battle-tested ALSA and not the manchild's crap that is PulseAudio. But since apparently PulseAudio is the GNome / Microsoft approved way to do audio on Linux, I'm supposed expected to have it. What's next? systemd-flatpakd?
OTOH, I picked up the AppImage for Freetube and not only do I get audio but it loads and runs noticeably faster than the Flatpak version. And since it's an official release I know where can I trustably get an update from. Literally no downsides!
But I sure as hell am not going to go for an AppImage for an app from which I expect more integration with my desktop activity, such as say a code editor or an advanced image / model viewer. Not if I can help it. Because I am going to be expecting to be able to stuff like drag and drop, have a correct tray icon, etc.
So that means I have to keep an eye on both solutions.
Hey, at least I'm avoiding Snap!
Now if there's an AppImage for Steam somewhere.... maybe...
But since apparently PulseAudio is the GNome / Microsoft approved way
I think I understand your point.
Pulseaudio is outdated, Pipewire AND Pulseaudio are now needed. Maybe also just Pipewire, and you can somehow fake Pulseaudio?
I never used a system without Pulseaudio, and Fedora has both (?) Or just Pipewire.
Pulseaudio is the old stuff that apps want to use, pipewire is the new cool stuff (I recommend qpwgraph) which allows like everything.
Aaand it is not overcomplicated, it isolated apps and introduces a permission system. Privileged programs that channel the requests and permissions, and sometimes need user interaction. Its actually less chaotic, the problem simply is that Flatpak ALSO tries to run all apps everywhere. And apps are mostly not up to date, so Flatpaks have randomly poked holes everywhere.
Today I worked on hardening configs for my apps. I maintain a list of recommended ones here. I will just put my overrides in my (currently still private) dotfiles, will upload them some day.
I am for example now Wayland only. Not all apps want to, but with the correct env vars (which I just globally set for all flatpaks, hoping it will not mess with anything), all apps use it.
This makes the system way faster, and applying different vars on the apps is very easy with Flatpak.
Literally no downsides!
Not true. It still has no updating mechanism, the binary may be official, but the rest are random libraries that may not be well versioned or controlled, etc etc.
The post is specifically about upstream supported Appimages, while Flathub is mainly maintained by the same 4 peolple (it is crazy). The request is for upstream devs to maintain Flatpaks.
But for sure not everything is nice. Runtimes are too huge, outdated apps cause huge library garbage, downloads are inefficient, ...