Question about AppImage building

[kenderipa]

Hello, I have a question regarding AppImage building. I'm trying to build an AppImage with several executables (so no sharun, if my understandind is correct) that are prebuilt (from a .deb file). How do I bundle a library that has not found listed by ldd?

[kenderipa]

Probably a stupid question. Just install the libraries on PC (testing locally), right?

[Samueru-sama]

Hi, you can build an appimage with several executables using sharun.

See:

• https://github.com/pkgforge-dev/android-tools-AppImage

• https://github.com/pkgforge-dev/gpu-screen-recorder-AppImage

This is done by checking the ARGV0 env variable which is set by the appimage runtime and documented here.

most of our appimages use a common AppRun that handles this automatically.

The great thing of this is that you don't have to be passing extra arguments to use the several different binaries in an appimage, just rename or symlink the appimage to the name what you want to launch and run that.

that are prebuilt (from a .deb file). How do I bundle a library that has not found listed by ldd?

We normally don't build from deb packages, instead most of the projects are build on archlinux using either the archlinux package binary or building it manually.

I think there is only one appimage that uses a deb file and that is cursor due to being a proprietary application.

[Samueru-sama]

@kenderipa That's an application that depends on 32bit libraries.
While that is supported on sharun, it is not supported in quick-sharun and I'm afraid there has not been a single 32bit app packaged with sharun, the only person I know that tried failed.
For apps with 32bit dependencies I recommend you use runimage instead, we use for Lutris as well as apps that are too complicated like virt-manager.

Thanks! Can I actually compile stuff for installation in the RunImage? Both Lutris and virt-manager just get install from repositories.

Yeah, you should be able to use the make-aur-package script in runimage without issue.

[kenderipa]

Yeah, you should be able to use the make-aur-package script in runimage without issue.

So I'm getting the following: [ ERROR ][2025.11.19 07:58:37]: Failed to mount RunImage in UnionFS overlay mode!

Script: (copied more or less from your virt-manager repo):

NFSIISE-Appimage.sh

#!/bin/sh

set -eux

export ARCH="$(uname -m)"
#VERSION="$(cat ~/version)"
URUNTIME="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pkgforge-dev/Anylinux-AppImages/refs/heads/main/useful-tools/uruntime2appimage.sh"
PACKAGE_BUILDER="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pkgforge-dev/Anylinux-AppImages/refs/heads/main/useful-tools/make-aur-package.sh"
#export ADD_HOOKS="self-updater.bg.hook"
export OUTPUT_APPIMAGE=1
#export OUTNAME=NFSIISE-"$VERSION"-"$ARCH".AppImage
export DESKTOP=/usr/share/applications/nfs2se.desktop
export ICON=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/nfs2se.png
export RIM_ALLOW_ROOT=1

echo '== download base RunImage'
curl -o runimage -L "https://github.com/VHSgunzo/runimage/releases/download/continuous/runimage-$ARCH"
chmod +x runimage

#ls /usr/share/applications/
#ls /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/

run_install() {
  set -e

  # Enable multilib
  echo "Enabling multilib repository..."
  echo -e "\n[multilib]\nInclude = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist" | tee -a /etc/pacman.conf
  pacman -Sy
  
  EXTRA_PACKAGES="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pkgforge-dev/Anylinux-AppImages/refs/heads/main/useful-tools/get-debloated-pkgs.sh"
  INSTALL_PKGS=(
    base-devel
    cmake		
    curl               
    git                
    libx11
    libxrandr
    libxss
    minizip
    ninja
    pulseaudio
    pulseaudio-alsa
    wget
    xorg-server-xvfb
    zsync
    yasm
    lib32-libglvnd
    lib32-mesa
    lib32-nvidia-utils
  )

  rim-update
  pac --needed --noconfirm -S "${INSTALL_PKGS[@]}"

  wget --retry-connrefused --tries=30 "$EXTRA_PACKAGES" -O ./get-debloated-pkgs.sh
  chmod +x ./get-debloated-pkgs.sh
  ./get-debloated-pkgs.sh --add-opengl --prefer-nano opus-mini gdk-pixbuf2-mini librsvg-mini

  # remove llvm-libs but don't force it just in case something else depends on it
  pac -Rsn --noconfirm llvm-libs || true
  # same for glycin and others
  pac -Rsn --noconfirm glycin || true
  pac -Rsn --noconfirm x265 || true
  pac -Rsn --noconfirm lib32-glibc lib32-fakechroot lib32-fakeroot || true

  echo '== shrink (optionally)'
  pac -Rsndd --noconfirm wget svt-av1 gocryptfs jq gnupg
  rim-shrink --all
  pac -Rsndd --noconfirm binutils perl

  pac -Qi | awk -F': ' '/Name/ {name=$2}
  	/Installed Size/ {size=$2}
  	name && size {print name, size; name=size=""}' \
  		| column -t | grep MiB | sort -nk 2

  VERSION=$(pacman -Q virt-manager | awk '{print $2; exit}')
  echo "$VERSION" > ~/version

  echo '== create RunImage config for app (optionally)'
  cat <<- 'EOF' > "$RUNDIR/config/Run.rcfg"
  RIM_CMPRS_LVL="${RIM_CMPRS_LVL:=22}"
  RIM_CMPRS_BSIZE="${RIM_CMPRS_BSIZE:=25}"
  RIM_SYS_NVLIBS="${RIM_SYS_NVLIBS:=1}"
  RIM_NVIDIA_DRIVERS_DIR="${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}/runimage_nvidia"
  RIM_SHARE_ICONS="${RIM_SHARE_ICONS:=1}"
  RIM_SHARE_FONTS="${RIM_SHARE_FONTS:=1}"
  RIM_SHARE_THEMES="${RIM_SHARE_THEMES:=1}"
  RIM_HOST_XDG_OPEN="${RIM_HOST_XDG_OPEN:=1}"
  RIM_BIND="/usr/share/locale:/usr/share/locale,/usr/lib/locale:/usr/lib/locale"
  RIM_AUTORUN=virt-manager
  EOF

  rim-build -s temp.RunImage
}
export -f run_install
RIM_OVERFS_MODE=1 RIM_NO_NVIDIA_CHECK=1 ./runimage bash -c run_install
./temp.RunImage --runtime-extract
rm -f ./temp.RunImage
mv ./RunDir ./AppDir
mv ./AppDir/Run ./AppDir/AppRun

# debloat
rm -rfv ./AppDir/sharun/bin/chisel \
  ./AppDir/rootfs/usr/lib/libgo.so* \
  ./AppDir/rootfs/usr/lib/libgphobos.so* \
  ./AppDir/rootfs/usr/lib/libgfortran.so* \
  ./AppDir/rootfs/usr/bin/rav1e \
  ./AppDir/rootfs/usr/*/*pacman* \
  ./AppDir/rootfs/var/lib/pacman \
  ./AppDir/rootfs/etc/pacman* \
  ./AppDir/rootfs/usr/share/licenses \
  ./AppDir/rootfs/usr/lib/udev/hwdb.bin

# Make AppImage with uruntime
export VERSION="$(cat ~/version)"
export OUTNAME=virt-manager-"$VERSION"-anylinux-"$ARCH".AppImage
export OPTIMIZE_LAUNCH=1
pacman -S --noconfirm zsync
wget --retry-connrefused --tries=30 "$URUNTIME" -O ./uruntime2appimage
chmod +x ./uruntime2appimage
./uruntime2appimage

mkdir -p ./dist
mv -v ./*.AppImage* ./dist
mv -v ~/version     ./dist

echo "All done!"

[Samueru-sama]

Yeah, you should be able to use the make-aur-package script in runimage without issue.

So I'm getting the following: [ ERROR ][2025.11.19 07:58:37]: Failed to mount RunImage in UnionFS overlay mode!

Script: (copied more or less from your virt-manager repo):
NFSIISE-Appimage.sh

I'm actually having a bigger issue with runimage rn, check the CI runs of virt-manager to see.

[kenderipa]

Yeah, you should be able to use the make-aur-package script in runimage without issue.

So I'm getting the following: [ ERROR ][2025.11.19 07:58:37]: Failed to mount RunImage in UnionFS overlay mode!
Script: (copied more or less from your virt-manager repo):
NFSIISE-Appimage.sh

I'm actually having a bigger issue with runimage rn, check the CI runs of virt-manager to see.

Looks like you got it working :)

[Samueru-sama]

Looks like you got it working :)

nope

Contacted Max to see what is going on.

[kenderipa]

@Samueru-sama, I have another question. I'm trying to build a VLC AppImage optimized for Blu-ray playback. For that I've copied KEYDB.cfg (http://fvonline-db.bplaced.net/) to /etc/xdg/aacs (see https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=176924). However, VLC never finds it. My script:

#!/bin/sh
set -eu
ARCH=$(uname -m)
VERSION=$(pacman -Q vlc | awk '{print $2; exit}')
export ARCH VERSION
export OUTPATH=./dist
export ICON=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/vlc.png
export DESKTOP=/usr/share/applications/vlc.desktop

# Deploy VLC with all plugins, libraries, Qt5, Java, and Blu-ray libraries
quick-sharun \
    /usr/bin/vlc \
    /usr/bin/cvlc \
    /usr/bin/nvlc \
    /usr/bin/rvlc \
    /usr/bin/svlc \
    /usr/lib/vlc \
    /usr/share/vlc \
    /usr/lib/libQt5Core.so.5 \
    /usr/lib/libQt5Gui.so.5 \
    /usr/lib/libQt5Widgets.so.5 \
    /usr/lib/libQt5X11Extras.so.5 \
    /usr/lib/libQt5Svg.so.5 \
    /usr/lib/qt5/plugins/platforms \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk \
    /usr/bin/java \
    /usr/lib/libaacs.so.0 \
    /usr/lib/libbluray.so.2

# Download and extract AACS KEYDB.cfg to standard location
echo "Downloading AACS KEYDB.cfg..."
mkdir -p ./AppDir/etc/xdg/aacs /tmp/keydb_extract
wget -O /tmp/keydb.zip "http://fvonline-db.bplaced.net/fv_download.php?lang=eng"
unzip -q /tmp/keydb.zip -d /tmp/keydb_extract/
find /tmp/keydb_extract -name "keydb.cfg" -exec cp {} ./AppDir/etc/xdg/aacs/KEYDB.cfg \;
rm -rf /tmp/keydb.zip /tmp/keydb_extract

if [ ! -f ./AppDir/etc/xdg/aacs/KEYDB.cfg ]; then
    echo "ERROR: KEYDB.cfg not found after extraction!"
    exit 1
fi
echo "KEYDB.cfg successfully added to AppDir/etc/xdg/aacs/"

# Download BD+ tables to standard location
echo "Downloading BD+ tables..."
mkdir -p /tmp/bdplus ./AppDir/shared/lib/libbluray/bdplus/conv_tab
APPDIR_ABS="$(pwd)/AppDir/shared/lib/libbluray/bdplus"
cd /tmp/bdplus

megadl 'https://mega.nz/file/Jd1xEQbJ#DRhG9eWLNnrmA5dcwHugnKxmVUpIsT9X-HKuuGjU7n8' || echo "Warning: Failed to download BD+ table 0"
megadl 'https://mega.nz/file/ZZdA3QCJ#FaL2ohltwFCtX91UMngB_dUtqht8JZ3-nRgnTAJD8jk' || echo "Warning: Failed to download BD+ table 1"
megadl 'https://mega.nz/file/pc0VTaYY#Tl1XMSex_Y9iCKmvYEKddr7GQQVQbMDEHJbw0uXumj0' || echo "Warning: Failed to download BD+ table 2"
megadl 'https://mega.nz/file/gVsRQQ7Y#JOJwO5woXdz2X73rrvHHBTYCdLposz7aiSVkEX4vChM' || echo "Warning: Failed to download BD+ table 3"
megadl 'https://mega.nz/file/AR8DDaib#GgSUMnNGBlVXdJT0BEkNkGm5f4NfodBaQ8SSgFFM4ZA' || echo "Warning: Failed to download BD+ table 4"

# Download BD+ VM files
echo "Downloading BD+ VM files..."
megadl 'https://mega.nz/#!MFlTDYiT!I-laau3lrg9OgcAL-1DPk-c9ytxbOCKUj73NBhI8Cr0' || echo "Warning: Failed to download BD+ VM files"

# Extract all archives
for archive in *.7z *.zip; do
    [ -f "$archive" ] || continue
    echo "Extracting $(basename "$archive")..."
    case "$archive" in
        *.7z) 7z x "$archive" -o"$APPDIR_ABS/" -y || echo "Warning: Failed to extract $archive" ;;
        *.zip) unzip -q "$archive" -d "$APPDIR_ABS/" || echo "Warning: Failed to extract $archive" ;;
    esac
done

cd -
rm -rf /tmp/bdplus

if [ -z "$(ls -A ./AppDir/shared/lib/libbluray/bdplus)" ]; then
    echo "WARNING: BD+ directory is empty!"
else
    echo "BD+ files successfully added to AppDir/shared/lib/libbluray/bdplus/"
fi

# Use PATH_MAPPING_HARDCODED to tell quick-sharun to patch these paths
export PATH_MAPPING_HARDCODED="libaacs.so.0 libbluray.so.2"

# Turn AppDir into AppImage
quick-sharun --make-appimage

Could you please help me out?

[kenderipa]

Edit: also, to be clear, I do have a repo for it.

@Samueru-sama , should I give you access to it?

[Samueru-sama]

why are you keeping this in a private repo?

also what is up with the mega links? isn't what you are trying to get already available in the AUR or archlinux repositories?

[kenderipa]

@Samueru-sama, the idea is to make it public once I'm done. I'll make you a contributor. MEGA links are for BD+, another DRM used in some Blu-rays. And no, I don't think what I'm doing (one stop Blu-ray playback, without the need to have AACS and BD+ data natively/locally) is available anywhere.

[kenderipa]

@Samueru-sama, any hope for help? I'm really out of ideas.

[Samueru-sama]

@Samueru-sama, any hope for help? I'm really out of ideas.

No idea either.