this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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I just found out about AppImageLauncher, a package handler for AppImages. It organizes them, creates desktop files for you and handles updates and removal.

Integrate AppImages to your application launcher with one click, and manage, update and remove them from there. Double-click AppImages to open them, without having to make them executable first.

Much better than having to create all the desktop files myself, and having to figure out what to put in them for it to work correctly (I'm looking at you, qBittorrent and magnet links).

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The best launcher you can get for AppImages is to just drop the thing and move to Flatpaks that don't take 2 seconds to launch apps.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Some apps are only available as appimages.

Neverthrless you should ask the maintainer and work towards flatpaks.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As someone who tried to maintain a large application flatpak I would say it’s pain in the ass to work with and things break often. The way it’s configured and how permissions are set needs to be simplified.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Have you tried nix? I wonder if it works better.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Looking at you Bitwarden.

Appimage and snap. Why no flatpak?

There is a flatpak, but I’m pretty sure it’s a community version.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Appimage and snap. Why no flatpak?

I know why. They're most likely running into this scenario as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The community flatpak of Bitwarden doesn't have this issue.
Because it only lets you copy to the clipboard, lol.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Because it only lets you copy to the clipboard, lol.

Fair enough. :P

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Some apps are only available as appimages.

Yeah I know, I was just joking around, still AppImages are annoying.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s not. These are opinions. Snap on the other hand… THAT is bad.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I can agree with that

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

From the "universal package formats" that's the one I've had issues with when using it on a distro not specifically mentioned to work, it was supposed to be universal! Though not sure if that's an issue with whoever packaged the app or anything specific with AppImage. Poor experience anyway.

Also no repo model. I like package manager to deal with shit. We have sorta solutions for that but not quite like snaps and flatpaks.

Also the dependencies stuff is weird. They advice you to think of the oldest (LTS?) distro you think the app will be used on and use deps compatible with that one. Which just seems, I dunno, icky, for lack of better word.

But for a random one-off app, I think it's fine. I prefer flatpak but it's fine, I wouldn't avoid it or anything.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Ah ok. That makes sense. Thank you for taking the time to write out a long reply

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago