Search prebuilt Arch Linux binary repositories and turn any package into a self-contained AppImage — with one click.
No pacman. No compiling. No Arch install required. Arch2AppimageGUI pulls
packages straight from the mirrors as .pkg.tar.zst, bundles their
shared-library dependencies, and hands the result to appimagetool. It runs on
any Linux distro.
Searching “firefox” across all eight repositories at once — every result is a prebuilt binary, one click from becoming an AppImage.
- Search a merged index across every enabled prebuilt-binary repo.
- Pick a package and click Build AppImage.
- Arch2AppimageGUI resolves the dependency closure, downloads the package plus
the libraries it needs, assembles an AppDir, prunes the libraries that must
come from the host (glibc, the GPU driver, etc.), writes a
.desktop/icon/AppRun, and runsappimagetool. - Out comes
name-version-x86_64.AppImage.
Because search only covers repos that ship prebuilt binaries, every result is genuinely one-click buildable — no dead ends where a package would need to be compiled from source.
All eight are enabled by default (toggle any of them in ⚙ Repos). Every one ships prebuilt binaries, so nothing is ever compiled from source. Package counts below are approximate (x86_64, at the time of writing) — together they index ~30,000 packages.
| Repo | What's in it | ~Packages | Database |
|---|---|---|---|
| core | Official Arch — base system | 300 | geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/core/os/x86_64 |
| extra | Official Arch — the main desktop/app set | 14,900 | geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/extra/os/x86_64 |
| multilib | Official Arch — 32-bit compatibility | 270 | geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/multilib/os/x86_64 |
| chaotic-aur | Popular AUR packages, prebuilt | 3,200 | cdn-mirror.chaotic.cx/chaotic-aur/x86_64 |
| archlinuxcn | Large community binary repo | 4,800 | repo.archlinuxcn.org/x86_64 |
| arch4edu | Science / education / CUDA / ROCm | 1,600 | mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/arch4edu/x86_64 |
| blackarch | Security & pentest tools | 5,000 | ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/blackarch/blackarch/os/x86_64 |
| archstrike | Security / forensics | 750 | mirror.archstrike.org/x86_64/archstrike |
Deliberately excluded: distro repos (Manjaro, Garuda, EndeavourOS) drift from Arch package versions and cause dependency skew; optimized rebuilds (ALHP, CachyOS) add no new packages, only recompiled ones.
Adding another prebuilt-binary repo is one entry in
a2a/config.py — a name, its .db URL, and (optionally) a
package base URL. The .db and package files live in the same directory in a
pacman repo, so the base URL is derived automatically.
- Linux (x86_64). The build step assembles Linux binaries, so it must run on Linux — WSL2 works too.
- Python 3.9+ with Tk (
tkinter) for the GUI. Most distros ship this aspython3-tk/tk. - A way to read
.pkg.tar.zst, in order of preference (Arch2AppimageGUI picks whatever is available):- Python 3.14+ (native zstd in
tarfile), or - the
zstandardmodule, or bsdtar(libarchive) /zstdonPATH.
- Python 3.14+ (native zstd in
appimagetoolis downloaded automatically and run with--appimage-extract-and-run, so FUSE is not required.
Prebuilt, self-contained binaries are attached to every release:
| Platform | File | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | Arch2AppimageGUI-x86_64.AppImage |
Bundles its own Python + Tk. chmod +x and run. |
| Windows | Arch2AppimageGUI.exe |
Single-file GUI. (The build itself targets Linux — see below.) |
Note: the Windows
.exeruns the search/UI, but assembling an AppImage requires a Linux userland, so the actual build step needs Linux (or WSL2). The Linux AppImage is the fully self-contained option.
git clone https://github.com/Captain-Beefheart/Arch2AppimageGUI
cd Arch2AppimageGUI
./run.sh # launches the GUIor directly:
python3 Arch2AppimageGUI.py # GUIThe same engine is available headless:
./run.sh search firefox # search all enabled repos
./run.sh build firefox # build ~/firefox-*.AppImage
./run.sh build mpv --repo chaotic-aur -o ~/AppImages
./run.sh build htop --no-deps # don't bundle dependencies
./run.sh repos # list configured repos
./run.sh sync --force # refresh the repo databasesArch2AppimageGUI resolves each package's %DEPENDS% transitively and downloads
the dependency packages, except the parts of every Linux userland that are
guaranteed to be present (glibc, gcc-libs, coreutils, …). After extraction it
prunes any remaining libraries on the AppImage
excludelist
— libraries that are tightly coupled to the host kernel, loader, or GPU driver
and must not be shipped. AppRun then points LD_LIBRARY_PATH at the bundled
libraries, falling back to the host for the pruned ones.
This is the same philosophy as pkg2appimage, adapted to work from package
metadata so it doesn't depend on the target libraries being installed on the
build host.
Note: bundling is best-effort. Some large or deeply integrated applications (heavy GTK/Qt stacks, anything poking at system services) may need tweaks. Uncheck Bundle dependencies to produce a lean AppImage that relies on the host's libraries, which is often all you need on a full desktop.
- Repo databases:
~/.cache/arch2appimage/db/ - Downloaded packages:
~/.cache/arch2appimage/pkg/ appimagetool:~/.cache/arch2appimage/tool/- Config:
~/.config/arch2appimage/config.json
Databases refresh automatically after 12 hours (configurable), or immediately
with sync --force.
Arch2AppimageGUI.py entry point (GUI with no args, CLI with args)
run.sh launcher
a2a/
config.py repo definitions + persisted settings
repos.py download + parse pacman .db, build/search index
deps.py transitive dependency resolution
extract.py .pkg.tar.zst extraction (zstd fallback chain)
excludelist.py host-provided libraries not to bundle
appdir.py AppDir assembly (.desktop, icon, AppRun, prune)
appimage.py fetch + run appimagetool
builder.py the one-click pipeline
cli.py command-line interface
gui/
arch2appimage_gui.py Tk GUI
MIT — see LICENSE.