linuxdeploy Build Helper Container

A docker container that aims to help build an AppImage on multiple architectures using linuxdeploy.

Available architectures

amd64
arm64
arm/v7

(The appimage plugin doesn't yet support 'ppc64le' or 's390x')

Example usage

docker run -t \
--rm \
-e HOSTUID=$(id -u) \
-e VERSION=test \
-v $PWD:/workspace \
-w /workspace \
andy5995/linuxdeploy:latest packaging/appimage/pre-appimage.sh

This is meant to be run from the source root of your project. Using the command above, your current directory will be mounted in the container at /workspace.

When the container starts, 'root' changes the UID of user 'builder' (a user created during the build of the Dockerfile) to HOSTUID. This allows builder to build your project and create the AppImage without root privileges (the resulting files will be owned by you).

The only argument given after the name of the docker image in the docker run command is the path/name of the script that builds your projects and includes the command to call linuxdeploy. You can see an example at rmw/packaging/appimage/pre-appimage.sh.

You may use sudo in your script to install packages or do other things.

If you would like to look around the container, you can use

docker run -it --rm --entrypoint sh andy5995/linuxdeploy:latest

Locally

If you want to clean your project build directory, you can add -e CLEAN_BUILD=true to the docker run arguments, and use something like this in your script:

# Clean build directory if specified and it exists
if [ "$CLEAN_BUILD" = "true" ] && [ -d "$BUILD_DIR" ]; then
  rm -rf "$BUILD_DIR"
fi

# Setup project for building, run ./configure, ./autogen.sh, cmake, etc
if [ ! -d "$BUILD_DIR" ]; then
  meson setup "$BUILD_DIR" \
    -Dbuildtype=release \
    -Dstrip=true \
    -Db_sanitize=none \
    -Dprefix=/usr
fi

To build for other architectures, you may need to use qemu with docker. There may be other ways, but you can check out this document for starters. If you are set up to build on other architectures, add --platform=linux/<arch> to the docker run arguments.

In a GitHub Runner

See tests.yml

linuxdeploy Plugins

These plugins are installed in the container:

• linuxdeploy-plugin-gtk
• linuxdeploy-plugin-qt

Note

The container runs Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossil). See this discussion for more details on why I chose that version of Ubuntu.

Some 'GITHUB_...' variables will not work inside the container.

Recent version of cmake, meson, and ninja are installed to '/home/builder/.local/bin' which is the first path in PATH (installing them with apt will probably offer no benefit).

If you want to see more details about the container or what packages are pre-installed, look at the two Dockerfiles in this repository. If you'd like more packages pre-installed, please open an issue.

Contributing

Ok, but it's a good idea to open an issue and ask about a change before starting work on a pull request. Someone, or myself, may already be working on it, or planning to. Also, please consult this guide before you submit a pull request.