Linux | Support AppImage packaging

[tmontes]

See mu-editor/mu#579.

[tmontes]

SELF-NOTE:

• Keeping track of the PyQt AppImage packaging example shared in the latest Mu-Moot: https://appimage-builder.readthedocs.io/en/latest/examples/pyqt.html

[tmontes]

SELF-NOTE:

• I hackishly hand packaged puppy into an AppImage, recently, using PBS with promising results.
• Guided by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy63jwjpNg4.
• Moving to NEXT.

[probonopd]

Guided by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy63jwjpNg4.

Please be sure to test the resulting AppImage on a variety of Linux Live ISOs, especially on the oldest still-supported Ubuntu (currently bionic).

Doing this "by hand" rather than using one of the AppImage generation tools means that you have to take manual care of all dependencies that are not part of the (oldest) target system in a recent enough version.

So using something like https://github.com/niess/python-appimage#for-applications-developers may ultimately be easier.

[tmontes]

Thanks for your input! :)

Please be sure to test the resulting AppImage on a variety of Linux Live ISOs, especially on the oldest still-supported Ubuntu (currently bionic).

Not an easy thing to do, I gather... Especially on a voluteer driven context. Any suggestions on automating such testing? :)

Doing this "by hand" rather than using one of the AppImage generation tools means that you have to take manual care of all dependencies that are not part of the (oldest) target system in a recent enough version.

So using something like https://github.com/niess/python-appimage#for-applications-developers may ultimately be easier.

Agreed, of course. That's the key ingredient for successful distribution: pup is currently relying on Python Build Standalone for most of it. Looks promising. The future will tell...

[tmontes]

Closing for next alpha release, looking to experiment with the next Mu release. Work continues on #184.