Nightly Subsurface AppImage for most Linux distributions

[Miika Turkia]

On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 7:17 PM, Dirk Hohndel <dirk at hohndel.org> wrote:
>
>> On Oct 17, 2015, at 8:44 AM, probono <probono at puredarwin.org> wrote:
>>
>>> We make binaries for Windows and OS X.
>>
>> subsurface-4.5.exe for Windows is 83.5 MB in size, Subsurface-4.5.dmg
>> for Mac weighs in at 38.3 MB. Both bundle not only the application
>> itself, but also the required Qt libraries that the application needs
>> to run. Also included are dependency libraries like libssh2.1.dylib
>> and libzip.2.dylib.
>>
>>> We basically don't make binaries for Linux. Why? Because binaries for Linux desktop applications is a major f*ing pain in the ass. Right. You don't make binaries for Linux. You make binaries for Fedora 19, Fedora 20, maybe there's even like RHEL 5 from ten years ago, you make binaries for debian stable, or actually you don't make binaries for debian stable because debian stable has libraries that are so old that anything that was built in the last century doesn't work. But you might make binaries for debian... whatever the codename is for unstable. And even that is a major pain because (...) debian has those rules that you are supposed to use shared libraries.
>>
>> So why not use the same approach as on Windows and OS X, namely, treat
>> the base operating system as a platform on top of which we tun the
>> application we care about. This means that we have to bundle the
>> application with all their dependencies that are not part of the base
>> operating system. Welcome application bundles,
>> https://blogs.gnome.org/tvb/2013/12/10/application-bundles-for-glade/.
>>
>> Here https://github.com/probonopd/AppImages/releases is is an AppImage
>> of Subsurface, built from the latest git sources in an automated
>> process (https://github.com/probonopd/AppImages/blob/master/recipes/subsurface.sh).
>> Just download, chmod a+x, and run. With 73.3 MB,
>> Subsurface_4.5.0_x86_64.AppImage is roughly in line with the binaries
>> for Windows and OS X. With some more hand-tuning, the size could
>> probably be brought further down.
>
> This is AWESOME. I have been hoping that someone would do that. I had looked
> at the AppImage stuff but just don't have the time to try all the cool stuff.

Gotta agree in here. Great job.

I took a very quick glance at the AppImage, and noticed that if you
strip the subsurface binary, you can shave off some of the size.
However, this is not a significant as I first thought as the AppImage
is compressed. You also seem to have subsurface binary there twice
(under usr/bin and usr/lib), so I assume that will also shrink the
package, or am I missing something.

> Amazing. Wonderful. More power to you. Let's work together and create
> a well tested and optimized AppImage for Subsurface-4.5 and another one
> for the daily build.

I suppose we should need to multiply that by two, one AppImage for
32bit and second for 64 bit systems.

miika