• Ephera@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    So, like, dumb question. People here assumed that I mean AppImages, whereas I actually meant just a statically linked binary. Is that really the only reason why AppImage exists? So, that dynamically linked applications can be distributed like statically linked ones?

    • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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      5 months ago

      You cannot statically link everything. Take graphics libraries and APIs for example, do you statically link against nvidia’s or mesa’s opengl?

      • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        Sure, but presumably AppImage/Flatpak/Docker cannot help with that either…?

        • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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          5 months ago

          This is the problem those tools try to solve. They package everything else upon which software might depend that can’t simply be linked into a single binary.

        • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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          4 months ago

          Flatpak solves the problem with targetable platform versions, you just update the manifest for your app every like 6-12 months to target the new one

          • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            Ah, interesting. So, it’s different from just statically linking against the latest driver lib every 6-12 months, because the Flatpak runtime gives you a bit of a guarantee that there won’t be breaking changes in the meantime.

            • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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              4 months ago

              Bingo, and if the latest mesa breaks your app for example, you can target an older one until it’s fixed instead of end users having to fuck around downgrading system packages

    • Ananace@lemmy.ananace.dev
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      5 months ago

      The majority of AppImages I’ve seen have been dynamically linked, yes. But it’s also used for packaging assets.

      • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        Yeah, alright, packaging assets makes sense. I’ve always been fine with just a .tar.gz, but having it be a singular file without compression is cool.

        I guess, since AppImage emulates a filesystem, you can also have your application logic load the assets from the same path as if the assets were installed on the OS, so that’s also cool.

    • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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      5 months ago

      You cannot statically link everything. Take graphics libraries and APIs for example, do you statically link against nvidia’s or mesa’s opengl?