digiKam AppImage Linux 64 bits bundle

[Gilles Caulier]

Hi all,

For the next 5.3.0, a new digiKam bundle will be proposed : the Linux
64bits ApppImage.

What's AppImage exactly ? Well it's simple : it's a stand alone Linux
executable which embed all requirement to run an application.

The executable is in fact an archive which is automatically decompressed
somewhere in /tmp using Fuse file system. The contents is a copy of
libraries, settings, data files of application, including plugins and
mandatory dependencies. The AppImage is not installed on the system and do
not require root right.

Typically, it's an alternative of official package provided by Linux distro
team.

The goal is to provide a recent release of application without to wait that
your distro team build relevant packages with all required dependencies

For technical reasons, the AppImage is compiled on an older CentOS 6.8 to
be sure that i can be executed on all major Linux distro, as Suse, RedHat,
Debian, Ubuntu, etc... The time to build The bundle is around 3 hours from
scratch, less if Qt5+KF5 dependencies are already pre-compiled. This will
be perfect to test dysfunctions fix in real time without to wait a next
official release.

AppImage SDK provide also a desktop integration of the bundled application,
as Icons and USB events when a camera is connected to computer. At first
run of AppImage, a dialog must appear to ask about desktop integration...

Some problems still present in this bundle. The main one identified is the
non video files support (thumbnails + preview), as under Linux, Gstreamer
puzzle is used and it's really impossible to package with AppImage, due to
huge list of runtime dependencies. For the future, we plan to drop
Qt5::Multimedia to another frameworks to handle video files (something less
complicated...)

The AppImage can be downloaded here :

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzeiVr-byqt5SUZRMGtWa3VCUDg

For all unknown possible problems, i recommend to test it with a new
account on your computer and with a test collection. Do not use it yet in
real production.

Thank in advance for your feedback.

Gilles Caulier
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