AppRun

A framework to create portable application bundles to be used on GNU/Linux systems

NOTE: If you're planing to pack your application as an AppImage please use appimage-builder.

Motivation

To make an application bundle that could be used on different GNU/Linux systems the packager must face different challenges which include:

• absence of forward compatibility in libraries loaded from the system (i.e.: libc),
• absolute interpreter paths in scripts shebang and elf executables,
• application specific environment variables,
• and fixed paths in binaries.

We aim to provide an effective solution for those problems.

Features

• Forward and backward compatible bundles.
• Private environment variables setup.
• Private interpreters.
• Path mappings (override paths in binaries).

Todo

• Support libstdc++ runtime switching

Limitations

• Don't work on statically linked executable (those are portable anyway).
• Execution flow should not leave the bundle to ensure the private environment is preserved.
• Path mappings only work on a hooked libc functions

Setup

git clone https://github.com/AppImageCrafters/AppRun.git
mkdir -p AppRun/build

cd AppRun/build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

Useful links

• Usage Instructions
• libc switching at runtime
• private environment variables
• path mappings
• License