[digiKam-users] 7.5.0 Appimage won't start

[Gilles Caulier]

Hi,

The AppImage was compiled for a very long time with Linux Mageia 6.1, which
also has not been maintained for a while.

Why to use an outdated Linux release : to be compatible with the most
version of Linux distro, and principally about the glibc dependency.

Glibc is responsible with all low level system calls, in direct links with
the kernel. Glibc cannot be included in the AppImage bundle, because it
depends too much of the kernel version.

Remember that the AppImage, outside Glibc, includes all other dependencies
used by digiKam binary. Several ones are very tedious about security, for
ex openssl for the encrypted communication with the web service for ex.

Also the main dependencies for digiKam as Qt5 and KF5 need to be updated to
fix bugs at run time. With these dependencies up-to-date, we need to update
the low level dependencies as... openssl, else code will refuse to compile.

The whole compilation of the AppImage bundle takes (around 5/6 hours), and
it's not the goal to recompile a complete Linux for that. So we already use
plenty of binary dependencies available from the Linux host at compilation
time. This reduces time to bundle and simplify the process.

After digiKam 7.3, we switch from Mageia 6.1 to Mageia 7.1, which becomes
also unmaintained. This allows to upgrade automatically all security
issues, all low level dependencies, and of course the glibc version.
Continuing to use Mageia 6.1 to compile the AppImage bundle became very
very complex and difficult, especially because the GCC compiler was too
old. Using Mageia 7.1 has also fixed this major problem (5.5 to 8.4).

Volià the explanation about the migration of Linux host version used to
build the AppImage bundle and the glibc dependency with 7.5.0 release

Best

Gilles Caulier




Le dim. 30 janv. 2022 à 00:02, <noname at fastmail.net> a écrit :

> Thank you, Andrew. I see that I do have version 2.27. I also see that
> glibc is fundamental to the operating system, so trying to replace 2.27
> with 2.29 could cause some real problems. I'll see if upgrading to Linux
> Mint 20  fixes the issue. I wonder why it was necessary to move to 2.29 in
> the first place. Maybe Gilles can comment.
>
> Jay
>
> On Sat, Jan 29, 2022, at 17:30, Andrew Goodbody wrote:
> > The internet suggests that Linux Mint 19 has glibc version 2.27. That
> > message suggests that the appimage was built using glibc version 2.29.
> > This will prevent the appimage from running on Linux Mint 19.
> >
> > I may have seen something about updating the platform used to build the
> > appimage but I don't remember the details. That update may have led to
> > this problem.
> >
> > Maybe Gilles can comment?
> >
> > Andrew
> >
> > On 29/01/2022 22:11, Jay wrote:
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> I'm running Linux Mint 19.3.
> >>
> >> I downloaded 7.5.0 Appimage and put it in the same directory as 7.3.0.
> >>
> >> Set permission to executable.
> >>
> >> When I click on 7.5.0, I see disk activity briefly, while 7.3.0 starts
> >> right up. Comparing the properties of the two versions appears to be
> >> identical. I have the same problem on both my Linux Mint 19.3 machines.
> >>
> >> I see a reference to "glibc >= 2.29" but don't understand the
> >> implications of that statement.
> >>
> >> I must be missing something and would appreciate a little help.
> >>
> >> Jay Rutherford
> >>
>
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