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Docker container that aims to help build an AppImage on multiple architectures using linuxdeploy

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andy5995/linuxdeploy-build-helper-container

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linuxdeploy Build Helper Container

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

Latest version: v3-focal

v3-jammy is also available if for some reason you require a more recent version Ubuntu.

Available architectures

amd64
arm64

Usage

Make a docker sub-directory within your project and copy .env and docker-compose.yml to it. Add custom variables to suit your needs. Add your numeric user and group id to the corresponding variables in .env. You can find them by using:

id -u
id -g

To build the AppImage:

docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml run --rm build

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.

You can see an example of an AppImage build script at rmw/packaging/appimage/pre-appimage.sh. Add the /path/to/script in your custom .env file.

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).

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 bash andy5995/linuxdeploy:v3-focal

Locally

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, edit the PLATFORM variable in docker-compose.yml, or export it when running docker-compose:

PLATFORM=linux/arm64 docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml pull build

To pull the image for the corresponding architecture. Then run docker-compose by preceding it again with the PLATFORM variable:

PLATFORM=linux/arm64 docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml run --rm build

Alternatively, you can export the variable:

export PLATFORM=linux/arm64

And then run the docker-compose commands without preceding them with the variable.

In a GitHub Runner

See test.yml

linuxdeploy Plugins

These plugins are installed in the container:

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 versions 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.