SUGGESTIION - common update config source

[AtomicRobotMan0101]

Saw this after watching The Linux Experiment.

IMMEDIATELY suggested to the Linux Mint Team to investigate including it in the next release... its obvious, necessary and it works.

..........

My ONLY thought so far is for a repository of known update links (somehow). E.g. OrcaSlicer.

I was noodling with the AppManager and felt IF the update feature could automatically suck down a list of high-popularity apps this would ease that process (I do this for my qBitorrent sources... arrrr)

We could have a page (xml, text, whatever) that the app downloads every ??week??. Page updated by humans to start, before automating....

.........

On portability... ZOUNDS! GREAT IDEA. I use SyncThing to keep about 30 office workstations up to date and this would ease the rollout of solutions very nicely indeed.

I also use a home PC, a NAS "server" and a laptop, so this portability will let me keep all those pesky AppImages the same with a universal config, all sync'd with SyncThing.

.........

KUDOS to the team. I will 100% donate.

[kem-a]

Hi, thanks for the heads up! Great that you find this small utility useful.

AppImages lucking central app store is a major gap between all available formats. Everyone in appimage community is aware of it, but nobody wants to step up and implement it, because it will cost money and resources. All other formats have big tech behind them, like RedHat (flatpaks), Canonical (snaps), but appimages are community derived tech. There have been many attempts to make centralized appimage store, like AppImage Hub or appimage.io, but they all fail miserably, mainly because of two major issues:
1.web pages UI desing, that is static without true backend, API and search
2. and most importantly published links to apps are unreviewed and unmaintained, apps are often abandoned or even deleted leaving orphaned links.

This all leaves very bad experience for new users, a feeling that appimages are not worth the effort, that it is something nobody actually uses.

There is also an attempt to bundle appimagehub into an app AppImage Pool that partially solves poor appimage store frontend issue, but project haven't been updated since 2023 and app doesn't work.

But, dialing down the scope it could be possible to implement favorites feature, a location where user could pin/tag/add favorites apps, share those with import/export or store the list in a simple json or yaml file. Favorites file then can be stored in custom user chosen location, for example, on NAS drive, Nextcloud sync folder etc. so the file is shareable across multiple devices. Of course, this is structure could work for few hundred, max a thousand apps, going further would require small sql db backend.

[AtomicRobotMan0101]

I was thinking even more simple yet again.

The whole appStore concept(s) reeks of effort and that is not where I saw the value in this great little app. All too hard.

I've been playing with AppManager all day on a few systems. Thinking about its value. This is why I suggested it to the Mint team. Its core concept is simple and pure - a true virtue in the world of bloat. SOMETIMES I see a thing an know its pure gold... this is one of those.

The app already keeps a registry of the apps (oh, thats cumbersome) it has installed (or managed). Perhaps the AppManager could fire off a daily/weekly/periodic anonymised list of installed apps as a YAML.

(make it opt-out or such... privacy, yaddda yadda yadda)

Gather the exports up and this would give us a simple listt-o-popularity. We would/could have a human review this for update links (in the interim), populate it with the correct links for each of the top 200 (?) apps and export it as a Git page.

The AppManager would grab that exported XML/YAML periodically and update its own internal registry.

I suggested this method only because I've already added the update link once for BambuStudio. Why would 5000 users update exactly the same info? It would be near magical to noobs if it knew this info. It would work like the autoupdates they are becoming dependant upon.

We would start with zero data and simply let the audience update it manually over the next few weeks (I already do this with updates to TLDR project - yes, I help with that, amongst others).

Better, if Bambu DID change the location of the update link, AppManager Central would know of it and propagate it quickly. It could also alert the dev team (or bot) if the link becomes inoperative, or if users update to the "new" link (we would see the drift, statistically).... Example: we would see this change in initially 1, then 5, then 50 users.... "ah! that must be the new link... propagate it!"

..........

Apologies for my enthusiasm. I see appManager as a remarkably clever solution to somethings thats been bugging me for years.

[DetachHead]

just my 2 cents as i also share @AtomicRobotMan0101's enthusiasm

AppImages lucking central app store is a major gap between all available formats. Everyone in appimage community is aware of it, but nobody wants to step up and implement it, because it will cost money and resources.

This all leaves very bad experience for new users, a feeling that appimages are not worth the effort, that it is something nobody actually uses.

IMO the problem isn't really a lack of a centralized app store, but rather a lack of decent appimage support in distros. appmanager itself is a huge step in the right direction, and i think the only real issue standing in the way of widespread adoption is that no distros have built in appimage installation and auto-updating. even a distro just shipping appmanager pre-installed would probably go a long way.

while a centralized app store would be a nice-to-have for linux users who have become acustomed to that sort of thing from other package managers, i doubt it really matters to users who are new to linux and feel overwhelmed by all the different packaging solutions. to them, they are more likely to expect the same sort of experience they're used to on windows or macOS: downloading an easily installable executable from the developer's website, which appmanager already supports

speaking from my personal experience as a user coming from windows, appimages + appmanager is exactly what i always wanted from .exe's, and speaking from my experience as an app developer, i am so sick of jumping through hoops to get my apps listed on app stores.

so appimages not only improve the experience for users coming from windows/macos, but for developers too. i really think the only issue preventing appimages from becoming more popular is simply the lack of appmanager (or something like it) coming preinstalled on a major distro. (although the developer tooling for creating appimages could be better too)

[AtomicRobotMan0101]

If I may offer one more reinforcement to this excellent statement....

My company is a designer company. 35 people, of which ~10 have strong opinions that "We Love Apple" (it pretty revolting!) :-)

I've moved a good chunk of the team over to Mint. I dual boot their macOS macbooks. They absolutely LOVE it. (via rEFInd if interested, with a sweet theme for trendiness)

One thing they first said, as part of this trial/migration, is they are confused AF by the seeming multitude of ways to install stuff. Fair enough. APT, AppImages, Flatpack, Store (Software Manager), debs, compiling from sauce.... its too much for them. They aren't techos.

When I found AppManager, I popped it on the 3D CAD dudes and the Big Boss's machines. Boy did they LOVE that.... to them it was EXACTLY how Apple works...

One downloads a blob. Clicks it. It asks if you want to "install" it (yes) and it creates the menus and everything, just by sliding the icon over. Deletion is the same. Basic, simple, guaranteed.

Bingo.

AppManager also now does updates. I sent the app dev a message a while back and offered a suggestion, which they seems to implement overnight! Yikes! Aaaannnnnyyyway, the AppManager now handles the top 1000 or so most popular appImages automatically.

I'd imagine they keep some sort of stats on installs so they can easily add more sources/packages as they become popular.

I'd 100% support and suggest the Mint Devs take a close look at the project for incorporation into the distro. It solves a lot of problems quite neatly.

[xlc-dev]

Hi @kem-a, I'm a professional webdev and would like to make a proper website a la flathub for AppImages. @Samueru-sama sent me to you to discuss. Do you have any ideas and would you like me to work on it? that would solve the centralized appstore issue and everything won't look so dated anymore.

[kem-a]

Hi @xlc-dev. Welcome aboard! Yes, we definitely need a proper web store for AppImages. I have attempted to create something with typescript and astro, but I'm not sure if that is the correct direction to take, but it's a working prototype. I can share repo if you wish to have a look.

In general what we need is to decide a proper architecture (suggestions are welcome), backend, API, frontend and hosting service (there is an option to host on my local server for starters).

Target is to have as little maintenance as possible, so no binary hosting and no manual reviews for apps, just fetching and storing app metadata, icons, screenshots, download urls etc. and runing nightly automated scripts to update data, clean database and perform some maintenance.

In my head the hardest part is backend architecture how to properly wire it all up. I hope I didn't scare you :)

[Samueru-sama]

and no manual reviews for apps

This is a bad idea, don't repeat AppImageHub where you have totally broken apps where the person just puts a bare binary without any deployment of dependencies.

[kem-a]

Implementation plan would be similar to that of flathub. That is, first, create a first batch of apps (scrap metadata, populate app profile). Any individual would be able to submit his app (possibly through AppManager, since it would have tested working app and already available metadata). Other potential sources would be Package Forge :), then AM. Second phase, app owner can claim app profile and thus takes responsibility of published app (possibly through GitHub login).

There might be some automated scripts to verify if app launches on X number of systems and some other sanity checks, but definitely no manual reviews.

[xlc-dev]

Hi @kem-a, any way (maybe discord?) to have a way to talk to you that is a bit more convenient than this discussion? I've got my ideas too but Talking over Github is quite inconvinient hahah

[kem-a]

Hi @kem-a, any way (maybe discord?) to have a way to talk to you that is a bit more convenient than this discussion? I've got my ideas too but Talking over Github is quite inconvinient hahah

Sure, PM me on Discord @kem-a

[DetachHead]

IMMEDIATELY suggested to the Linux Mint Team to investigate including it in the next release... its obvious, necessary and it works.

IMO while a centralized appimage "app store" is a nice-to-have, i don't see it as a requirement for a distro to have decent appimage integration and auto-updates. appmanager itself is proof of that

i opened linuxmint/mintupdate#998 last year to discuss how linux mint could introduce appimage auto updates without the need for a centralized app store