AppImages > Development > pkg2appimage


pkg2appimage

pkg2appimage is a tool that lets you generate AppImage files from existing packages. An AppImage is a self-running bundle that contains an application and everything it needs to run that cannot reasonably expected to be part of each target system.

This can include libraries that are not commonly available on target systems, resources such as translations, icons, fonts, and other auxiliary files. pkg2appimage makes it easy to take an existing package (e.g., a deb) and turn it into an AppImage.

Authors: AppImage


Usage

pkg2appimage is available as an AppImage which means "one app = one file", which you can download and run on your Linux system while you don't need a package manager and nothing gets changed in your system. Awesome!

AppImages are single-file applications that run on most Linux distributions. Download an application, make it executable, and run! No need to install. No system libraries or system preferences are altered. Most AppImages run on recent versions of Arch Linux, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and other common desktop distributions.

Running pkg2appimage on Linux without installation

Unlike other applications, AppImages do not need to be installed before they can be used. However, they need to be marked as executable before they can be run. This is a Linux security feature.

Behold! AppImages are usually not verified by others. Follow these instructions only if you trust the developer of the software. Use at your own risk!

Download the pkg2appimage AppImage and make it executable using your file manager or by entering the following commands in a terminal:

chmod +x ./*.AppImage

Then double-click the AppImage in the file manager to open it.

Sandboxing pkg2appimage

If you want to restrict what pkg2appimage can do on your system, you can run the AppImage in a sandbox like Firejail. This is entirely optional and currently needs to be configured by the user.

Updating pkg2appimage

If you would like to update to a new version, simply download the new pkg2appimage AppImage.

The pkg2appimage AppImage also can be updated using AppImageUpdate. Using this tool, pkg2appimage can be updated by downloading only the portions of the AppImage that have actually changed since the last version.

Integrating AppImages into the system

If you would like to have the executable bit set automatically, and would like to see pkg2appimage and other AppImages integrated into the system (menus, icons, file type associations, etc.), then you may want to check the optional appimaged daemon.


Note for application authors

Thanks for distributing pkg2appimage in the AppImage format for all common Linux distributions. Great! Here are some ideas on how to make it even better.

Pro Tips for further enhancing the pkg2appimage AppImage

Thanks for shipping AppStream metainfo inside your AppImage. Please open a pull request on https://github.com/AppImage/appimage.github.io/blob/master/data/pkg2appimage if you have changed it and would like to see this page updated accordingly.

If you would like to see a donation link for the application here, please include one in the AppStream data.

History of this page

Edit the input for this page