appimaged

This is an experimental implementation of the optional AppImage daemon, appimaged, in Go.

Initial setup

Assuming you are using a 64-bit Intel machine (amd64, also known as x86_64), you can use our pre-compiled binaries. To try it out, boot a Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, elementary OS, KDE neon,... Live ISO and run:

# Remove pre-existing conflicting tools (if any)
systemctl --user stop appimaged.service || true
sudo apt-get -y purge appimagelauncher || true
rm -f ~/.config/systemd/user/default.target.wants/appimagelauncherd.service
systemctl --user daemon-reload

# Clear cache
rm "$HOME"/.local/share/applications/appimage*

# Optionally, install Firejail (if you want sandboxing functionality)

# Download
mkdir -p ~/Applications
wget -c https://github.com/$(wget -q https://github.com/probonopd/go-appimage/releases/expanded_assets/continuous -O - | grep "appimaged-.*-x86_64.AppImage" | head -n 1 | cut -d '"' -f 2) -P ~/Applications/
chmod +x ~/Applications/appimaged-*.AppImage

# Launch
~/Applications/appimaged-*.AppImage

Removal

systemctl --user disable --now appimaged.service || true
rm ~/.config/systemd/user/appimaged.service
rm ~/.local/share/applications/appimagekit*.desktop
rm ~/Applications/appimaged-*-x86_64.AppImage

Notes

Do not remove "~/Applications/appimaged*.AppImage". The service is running from this location (unless you want to do the uninstallation process)

The extension of AppImage files MUST be case-sensitive to be recognized by appimaged service.

Folders being watched for AppImage files:

/usr/local/bin
/opt
~/Applications
~/.local/bin
~/Downloads
$PATH, which frequently includes /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/sbin, and other locations

https://github.com/probonopd/go-appimage/releases/tag/continuous has builds for 32-bit Intel, 32-bit ARM (e.g., Raspberry Pi), and 64-bit ARM.

Features

Implemented

Registers type-1 and type-2 AppImages
Detects mounted and unmounted partitions by watching DBus
Significantly lower CPU and memory usage than other implementations
Error notifications in case applications cannot be launched for whatever reason
If Firejail is on the $PATH, various options for running applications sandboxed via the context menu
Updating applications via the context menu
Opening the containing folder via the context menu
Extracting AppImages via the context menu
Announces itself on the local network using Zeroconf (more to come)
Real-time notification based on PubSub when updates are available, as soon as they are uploaded
Quality checking of AppImages and notifications in case of errors (can be extended)
Launch Services like functionality, e.g., being able to launch the newest version of an AppImage that we know of

Envisioned

Seamless P2P distribution using IPFS?
Decentralized PubSub using IPFS?
Web-of-trust (based on a Social Graph)?
Blockchain?
...

Building

If for whatever reason you would like to build from source:

scripts/build.sh appimaged