AppImage
 work in progress |
AppImages allow a simple executable-like experience, but the problem is that many AppImages require glibc, and Alpine Linux uses musl.
Installation
First you need fuse for AppImages to work; then, modprobe it.
# apk add fuse # modprobe fuse
Optional, but recommended: install gcompat package for glibc compatibility.
# apk add gcompat
Download AppImage
Download your AppImage to the user's directory. The ~/.local/bin location is suitable, further to XDG Base Directory Specifications. ~/bin is another common location.
Create the above mentioned directory, if necessary. It is good practice to ensure that the location for your AppImages appears in the user's $PATH for executables so that the AppImages could be launched from a shell (aka 'terminal') without needing to specify their path. To check, from a user's prompt:
$ echo $PATH
For AppImages to appear in an app launcher, additionally, a .desktop file with the AppImage's name would need to be created or found upstream and used if licence permits, placing it in ~/.local/share/applications.
Usage
You have to make the downloaded AppImage executable so that you can launch it:
$ chmod +x Example.AppImage
To execute it, for example, when the current working directory of your user prompt is the directory where the AppImage is stored, then you can instruct your shell that the AppImage to be launched is located in that same directory by using the prefix ./:
$ ./Example.AppImage
If the AppImage was stored in the user's $PATH for executables, neither navigating to the shell to use the ./ prefix nor stating the path as a prefix would be necessary to execute it:
$ Example.AppImage