How to open appimage linux

How to Install AppImage on Ubuntu: A Step-by-Step Guide

The majority of Linux users have no issues installing or removing applications. Every distro you use will have a package manager that can handle anything. But as the Linux community grows, developers try to keep things even more straightforward and stable for end-users and developers.

Table of Contents

Recently, we have seen the rise of Snap and Flatpak. I have talked about both here and here. These app development frameworks solve some of the problems that Linux app developers have faced for a long time.

Appimage also aims to solve numerous issues. It solves many issues regarding using the software on Linux distros. One of the significant problems for Linux users is to get an app specific to their distro, and the same for developers. They have to build their app for different Linux distros.

One file equals One app

appimage files contain the required libraries or dependencies—no other package needed to be installed to run any appimage. Instead, the application may ask the user to integrate the application into the system to launch it from the app menu. I will talk about appimage integration later in this article.

How to install appimage on Ubuntu?

appimage is the simplest way to run an app on Linux. Almost all Linux distributions can run appimage perfectly fine. Whther it be installing Appimage on Ubuntu or any other distro, you just need to download one file and it’ll run without installation.

Running appimage –

And that’s pretty much it. All you need to do is make the appimage executable either from the command line or right-click the file >> properties >> permissions and check ‘Allow executing file as program”.

To make appimage executable from the command line, open the terminal and type the following command –

sudo chmod +x name.appimage

Integrate appimage with system

appimage apps are designed to pack all the app-specific libraries and dependencies with them and work like portable Windows applications. Just click it, and it will run.

If you want to integrate an appimage with your system and open it from the apps menu like any other application, it is completely possible.

Many applications, when run, ask the user to integrate them with the system. And clicking on ‘Yes’ runs the application and creates an entry in the applications menu. But this functionality is only available if the developer of the app has provided that option.

There is an optional daemon called appimaged. If installed, this daemon will look for appimage files in the most commonly used directories and register the appimage apps automatically.

To install appimaged, use the following commands –

wget "https://github.com/AppImage/appimaged/releases/download/continuous/appimaged-x86_64.AppImage" chmod a+x appimaged-x86_64.AppImage ./appimaged-x86_64.AppImage --install

Once done, the terminal will prompt you to log out and log back in to complete the installation. Or you can restart your system.

Now any appimage in the following directories will be registered with the system. From now on, you won’t even need to make any file executable; download any app image and open it from the apps menu.

How To Migrate WordPress Manually To New Host

Any website migration is regarded as one of the most difficult operations. Fortunately, WordPress provides a plethora of backup plugins to help and automate the entire backup and migration process. However, WordPress is constructed in such a way that manually migrate WordPress could not be simpler.

• $HOME/Downloads (or its localized equivalent, as determined by G_USER_DIRECTORY_DOWNLOAD in glib)
• $HOME/.local/bin
• $HOME/bin
• $HOME/Applications
• /Applications
• [any mounted partition]/Applications
• /opt
• /usr/local/bin

Uninstall appimage from Ubuntu

appimage app is just a simple file, and when you run it, it does not store even a single file in the system installation directory or anywhere else. As I mentioned above, certain apps may ask for confirmation to integrate appimage with the system to easily open it from the apps menu. If you confirm it, it’ll register the app with the system and link it with the appimage file.

If you have installed appimaged, you do not have to do anything extra to integrate or remove any app. Just downloading an appimage will register the app with the system menu, and deleting the file will disintegrate it automatically.

Update appimage

appimage file is an entire app. If an app developer releases a new version of the app, users can download the new version and delete the older version. That’s how you can update it.

But if you want to update the current app, you can try to do so using the AppImageUpdate package provided by the AppImage developer. This package only updates an app if the update information is available in the file.

Download AppImageUpdate from the app market and run it like any other appimage file.

Now select the app you want to update, and it’ll be updated. appimage updates are really fast because only the portion of the app that has changed is updated, not the entire app.

Conclusion

So that is how you can run an appimage file. Running an entire application from a single file is a great advantage. If the project continues, I hope to get an even better way to update any application.

Also, the application website lists 900+ applications, but there is no search option to find a specific app. It’ll be better to have a snap-like store and get all the applications properly sorted out and easily findable.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I install AppImage in terminal?

You don’t need to “install” an AppImage file. AppImage files are designed to be portable and self-contained, which means they don’t require installation like traditional software packages. Instead, you can download the AppImage file and make it executable to run it.

How do I add AppImage to an app?

If you want to add an AppImage file as an application shortcut in your system’s app launcher or menu, you can create a desktop entry for the application.

Here are the general steps to create a desktop entry for an AppImage file –

Please create a new file in a text editor and save it with a .desktop extension. For example, you can use the following command to create a new file called myapp.desktop:

nano myapp.desktop

Add the following lines to the desktop entry file, replacing with the name of the application –

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=
Exec=/path/to/appimage-file.AppImage %U
Icon=/path/to/icon-file.png

The Exec line should point to the location of the AppImage file, and the %U allows you to pass URLs to the application as arguments. The Icon line should point to the location of an icon file for the application.

Make the desktop entry file executable by using the following command –

Move the desktop entry file to the appropriate location in your system. The exact location may vary depending on your system and desktop environment, but typically it’s one of the following directories –

/usr/share/applications/ (for system-wide application shortcuts)
~/.local/share/applications/ (for user-specific application shortcuts) Refresh your app launcher or menu to see the new application shortcut.

That’s it! You should now be able to launch the application by clicking on its shortcut in the app launcher or menu.

How to install AppImage in Windows?

To run an AppImage file in Windows, you must use a third-party tool called “AppImageLauncher”. Here are the general steps to install and use AppImageLauncher in Windows –

Download the latest version of AppImageLauncher from the official website –

Install AppImageLauncher by running the downloaded installer. After installation, right-click on the AppImage file you want to run and select “Open With” > “AppImageLauncher”. The first time you run an AppImage file with AppImageLauncher, it will ask you if you want to integrate the AppImage file with your system. Click “Yes” to integrate it.

Once integrated, AppImageLauncher will create a shortcut for the AppImage file in your system’s app launcher or menu. To run the application, click on its shortcut in the app launcher or menu.

That’s it! You should now be able to run AppImage files in Windows using AppImageLauncher. Not all AppImage files may be compatible with Windows, so some applications may not work as expected.

Источник

How to Open AppImage in Ubuntu

AppImage is a convenient way for the developers to provide the software to most Linux distributions by packing the software in just one file rather than creating multiple packages for multiple Distributions.

If you are familiar with .deb packages, then AppImage is a simple concept to understand. Yes, it’s a way of installing software on Linux. It is a “Universal software package” format. So why is a tutorial required for using it? Because it is not as convenient as installing .deb packages (by double-clicking them or from terminal using GDebi), but with AppImage, you need to follow some steps to install the software.

AppImage doesn’t follow the traditional way of installing software. It doesn’t install the software. It is a compressed image containing all dependencies and libraries required to run specific software. The AppImage is executed, and then you can run the software. There are no extractions or installations required. So many people always ask the question, “how do I open AppImage in Ubuntu?”. Now, let’s start the tutorial and get a thorough explanation on installing and opening an AppImage quickly.

In this section, we will explain two different methods to open AppImage in Ubuntu.

Download the .appimage File

There is a plethora of software which you can easily download in .appimage format. GIMP, Scribus, OpenShot, and BlenSor are few famous names that are available as .appimage files.

Making the File Executable

The downloaded image won’t have execution permission by default. So, here’s how you can make it executable (no root privilege required):

Right-click on the downloaded .appimage file and navigate to the properties menu.

Go to the properties menu and select the permission tab then check Mark the “Allow executing files as a program.”

Finally, all of your AppImages will execute without having any trouble.

Making the File Executable Using Terminal

First, open the Terminal from the search menu or by pressing CTRL, ALT, and T simultaneously and use this command:

The system will execute your file, so now you can run the file by double-clicking on it. Otherwise, you can use the below command to open it:

If you are looking for uninstalling the AppImage, then open Linux terminal use the below command:

In the above commands, “Downloads” is a directory where the AppImage software is present, and the software name is the software. The “rm- f” command tells the system to remove the files from the system forcefully.

Essential Factors of .appimage File

1. If the AppImage file is poorly packed, it won’t run even with the executable permissions. The file should include all the dependencies required for the software to run.
2. Some AppImage files will require desktop integration, and that software will then act as any other regular installed software. It will be searchable through the applications menu.
3. Initially, the .appimage file is in the download folder, but it is good to transfer it to the software file. You can also move it to the home directory.
4. In some cases, there will be no option available to update the software automatically. So, there is a command-line option to check for an update. However, it depends on the developer whether the option is given or not.

Wrapping Up

AppImages is an excellent way of using software across multiple Linux Distributions. We also hope that this update feature may get improved so that it can become more convenient for the users. If you like this tutorial, then make sure to visit our website because we regularly upload the informative tutorial like this one.

About the author

Prateek Jangid

A passionate Linux user for personal and professional reasons, always exploring what is new in the world of Linux and sharing with my readers.

Источник