QGIS » QGIS Application

Feature Request: Please provide an AppImage bundle for QGIS v3 (also for nightly builds)

AppImage is an application binary format for Linux which has some uniq features. Some of them here:

• Can run on many different Linux distros un-changed ("Create Once, Run Anywhere")
• Everything is bundled into one file following the "One App = One File" paradigm
• Doesn't need any "installation" step and works "out of the box"
• Doesn't need any pre-installed framework (unlike Snap or Flatpak)
• Doesn't need root privileges to run
• Runs from any location (even USB thumbdrives or shared network folders)
• Does not touch your native system package manager-controlled installations
• Does not mess with your system's installed libraries
• Can run different versions of the same app -- including the system-installed one -- side by side without conflict (great for debugging, bug triaging and translation teams)
• Can optionally run in a Firejail or other sandbox
• Can optionally include an "updateinfo" string which allows users to automatically apply binary delta updates once a new version is released
• Can optionally include a GPG signature signed by the developer/packager of an application
• Can optionally be listed on the [AppImageHub](https://appimage.github.io/apps/) to help with the general visibility for an application

AppImages can automatically be built from GitHub sources by integrating with Travis CI, controlled by a .travis.yml script. The creation can automatically be triggered
(a) upon making a tagged release ("release build"), or
(b) upon each commit/push to the repository ("contiuous build"), or
(c) on a regular calendar-based timescale ("nightly build"), or
(d) any combination of the previous ones.

An AppImage can even be generated by processing pre-built binaries; best if these binaries are .deb packages for Ubuntu Trusty, because then the resulting AppImage will run on the widest-possible range of distros (actually tested with more than 100 Live ISO images).

If you are interested, surely the AppImage format and toolkit developers will be willing to help you create such a package. They can help with providing/modifying a shell script to QGIS which converts your pre-built Trusty packages.

You can also ask for support and helping hands in the #AppImage channel on Freenode).