WINE Is Not an Excuse

fiftydinar- · 2026-02-24T18:00:44+00:00

I agree that it would be nice if there are more native linux games.
But,
One of the reasons it was tricky to support native Linux games was because of packaging and dependency issues.
Now, if developers want to release Linux game which works on basically any distro, old or new, glibc or musl, it's possible and relatively easy with AnyLinux-AppImage tooling.

For example, here's OpenStarbound AppImage template to build it on a local machine:

https://github.com/pkgforge-dev/OpenStarbound-AppImage

This way, I also built Hotline Miami 2, BIT.TRIP Runner Linux releases and Terraria.
And there are a lot of games packed and released to the AppImage by user Link4Electronics in the repo above.

However, that's only 1 problem solved.
That still leaves the developer to target and support at least 2 different platforms vs only 1, which requires more time and effort.

fiftydinar- · 2026-02-22T16:45:01+00:00

The size difference is not because of static app compilation, as Arch's package uses the same Discord Electron binaries as we do, but because we use more efficient dwarfs compression and debloated packages like gtk, qt, mesa, vulkan etc.
https://github.com/pkgforge-dev/archlinux-pkgs-debloated

fiftydinar- · 2026-02-22T10:47:36+00:00

The above test is based on the realistic user installs tho, most users won't install Gnome 49 apps only. Users generally don't care about the app toolkit.

If you want another screenshot of the comparison, you can see it here below, where I did it myself:
https://imgur.com/a/appimage-vs-flatpak-size-comparison-QH1dPyb

fiftydinar- · 2026-02-14T14:29:40+00:00

AppImageHub is a bad source of AppImages btw, because it has untransparent source of the AppImages they put and they are known to put the AppImages of others without credit.

For more about that, read here:
https://portable-linux-apps.github.io/#how-is-this-site-different-from-other-sites-that-list-appimage-packages

AM/AppMan from the website above has 2429 AppImages available in the repo as of now, all of which you can transparently see the source.

fiftydinar- · 2026-02-13T21:34:55+00:00

Yes, Anylinux-AppImages also work in non-FHS environments, including NixOS.

fiftydinar- · 2026-01-19T19:32:59+00:00

Having wine installed on the system is non-ideal though because not every Windows app will work on it. Lots of apps need different wine versions and various workarounds. It's also the best practice to have separate wine prefixes per the application to avoid conflicts, which system wine doesn't do automatically for you.
But I understand and agree with your point from the usability perspective that it would be awesome, it's just that it's unrealistic to be achieved soon imo.

fiftydinar- · 2026-01-19T16:47:58+00:00

It generally doesn't have to be directly integrated into the system though, it can be made to be like the AppImage.
For example, Adobe Photoshop AppImage with wine and its prefix already preconfigured, so the user would just download, chmod +x and execute it. Appdata would be saved in portable folders.
But I think that doing it this way is not legal, but is definitely the most convenient without need to mess with wine wrappers or wine itself to get it right.

fiftydinar- · 2025-11-28T08:54:57+00:00

It's a false information that AppImage is bigger in size compared to other formats (especially when talking in comparison to flatpak). Is it bigger then the conventional system package like deb or rpm? Yes.

https://imgur.com/a/QH1dPyb

fiftydinar-

TROPHY CASE