PortableLinuxApps: please test

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Z-Man
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PortableLinuxApps: please test

Post by Z-Man »

As a replacement for autopackage (which I surprisingly got back to work for trunk builds, but since it's a dead project, we need to find an alternative anyway), I'm testing PortableLinuxApps. The concept: Portable Apps are, at the same time, executables and ISO images. If you execute them, they mount themselves somewhere in /tmp and execute the AppRun script/application in their root directory, which does the rest of the work. They're essentially OSX's Application Bundles. The AppRun script can take care of bending executable and library paths so libraries bundled in the image can be used. The application either needs to be hacked for relative paths or be relocatable, and since Armagetronad already is relocatable, no source changes are required. A big plus.

Here are two downloads:
Alpha Build from 0.2.8
Experimental Build from Trunk
To test them, make them executable (the file managers have a flag for that in their property dialogs or you can use 'chmod 755 <package name>' on the console), then execute them.

Prerequisites:
To mount the image as a regular user, libfuse2 is required. So install that. It's already installed by default on Fedora and Ubuntu, not on SuSE.
Also, you need either a 32 bit system or 32 bit support libraries, just the basic stuff: libc(++) and libfuse2. Here are docs on how to get all you need on 64 bit Ubuntu: http://portablelinuxapps.org/forum/view ... p?f=2&t=10

Confirmed working:
Ubuntu 10.4
Fedora 15 and 13

Not working out of the box:
any openSuSE; to fix, execute "zypper in fuse libfuse2" as root. Tested with 11.3 from last year.
Fedora 64 bit: execute "yum install compat-libstdc++*i686 glib2.*i686 libXi.*i686 libXmu.*i686 mesa-libGLU.*i686 fuse-libs.*i686" as root to fix. Tested on Fedora 13. Add "SDL.*i686 SDL_image.*i686" for SDL, it's not required for this and shouldn't be required elsewhere.
Ubuntu 64 bit, see above for fix
any other 64 bit

So, please test and report. If it's not working out of the box and you found out how to fix it, please post the steps you performed.
I'll later convert the information into a wiki page, like way back.
RazZziel
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Re: PortableLinuxApps: please test

Post by RazZziel »

Confirmed working out of the box on ArchLinux 32bit
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Light
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Re: PortableLinuxApps: please test

Post by Light »

You could do portable Windows too easily with SFX or another method. SFX with updating files would make it play from the tmp folder, but it would provide you with saved settings until it gets removed so every time you close/open the game you don't go back to the defaults.

Example of Version 0.2.8.3.1: http://www.mediafire.com/?89o746wd24agako

Yes it's clean yadda yadda ... I just used the installer to get the files and ripped the icon from the source. It should work.
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Z-Man
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Re: PortableLinuxApps: please test

Post by Z-Man »

Is there a demand for such a thing? I have the impression most users are fine with the standard installation method. Motivation for testing PortableLinuxApps wasn't the fact that they're self contained, but that they were designed to be distribution neutral.
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Re: PortableLinuxApps: please test

Post by Light »

Z-Man wrote:Is there a demand for such a thing? I have the impression most users are fine with the standard installation method. Motivation for testing PortableLinuxApps wasn't the fact that they're self contained, but that they were designed to be distribution neutral.
Well it allows them to easily be run off of a USB drive with one simple file and only use the tmp folder of the comp they use. I don't know how interested people are in AA being portable but I know there's a ton of sites for portable apps and I've used them a lot when I was in school because of switching computers all the time and .. not being allowed to play games. :P

Anyways, I was just puttin' it out there since it's quick to do and it's actually slightly smaller than the installer, though I compressed it with "best" RAR compression, which don't 'cause much of a loading time so it don't hurt anything.
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Re: PortableLinuxApps: please test

Post by 2020 »

So, let me get this right. I download that app onto a usb stick, and plug it into a school computer, and run it directly?

What about internet connectivity? Can I access a fortress server?
hold the line
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Re: PortableLinuxApps: please test

Post by Light »

2020 wrote:So, let me get this right. I download that app onto a usb stick, and plug it into a school computer, and run it directly?

What about internet connectivity? Can I access a fortress server?
That depends on what is allowed or blocked on your network. As far as running it goes, it would work fine. It's just packing all the files together and compressing them to keep it smaller. When you open it, it extracts to a tmp directory and runs like normal.

Google something like "portable app sfx tutorial", and I'm sure you'll find some help on it. It's nothing difficult.
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Re: PortableLinuxApps: please test

Post by sinewav »

I have a USB stick with the PortableApps.com launcher. It is a windows executable, but has tons of GNU software in the repository including Armagetron. I use this stick to do personal projects during downtime at work. Arma runs perfectly from it.
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Re: PortableLinuxApps: please test

Post by LOVER$BOY »

sinewav wrote:I have a USB stick with the PortableApps.com launcher. It is a windows executable, but has tons of GNU software in the repository including Armagetron. I use this stick to do personal projects during downtime at work. Arma runs perfectly from it.
Brings back memories of 2006-2009 when I was still in high school and played tron in our school LAN servers with my friends. Ah I loved it!!! :D
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Re: PortableLinuxApps: please test

Post by Light »

LOVER$BOY wrote:Brings back memories of 2006-2009 when I was still in high school and played tron in our school LAN servers with my friends. Ah I loved it!!! :D
When I was in school, I played Afro's HR. :P Yeah .. the HR days.
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Re: PortableLinuxApps: please test

Post by LOVER$BOY »

Light wrote:
LOVER$BOY wrote:Brings back memories of 2006-2009 when I was still in high school and played tron in our school LAN servers with my friends. Ah I loved it!!! :D
When I was in school, I played Afro's HR. :P Yeah .. the HR days.
The first ever server I played in was Wild West Wild Fortress which I think was the first time I entered online around 2007.
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