AppImage

AppImages allow a simple executable-like experience, but the problem is that 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 for glibc compatibility.

# apk add gcompat

Download your AppImage to the user's directory: launching it as root is typically a security risk and unnecessary. The ~/.local/bin location is suitable, further to XDG Base Directory Specifications. ~/bin is another common location. Create the 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.

You have to make the AppImage executable so that you can launch it.

$ chmod +x Example.AppImage

Usage

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