PicoForge Linux AppImage Builds (Podman)

Containerized, Podman-native AppImage build infrastructure for PicoForge.

This repository provides container environment definitions (Containerfiles) and build scripts for producing 4 AppImage release variants:

Variant	C Library Target	Baseline / Target OS	Architecture	GHCR Builder Image Tag	Output Filename Pattern
glibc-x86_64	glibc	Rocky Linux 8 (glibc 2.28+)	x86_64	glibc-2.28-x86_64	picoforge_<version>_glibc-2.28_x86-64.AppImage
glibc-aarch64	glibc	Rocky Linux 8 (glibc 2.28+)	aarch64	glibc-2.28-aarch64	picoforge_<version>_glibc-2.28_aarch64.AppImage
musl-x86_64	musl	Alpine Linux (musl libc)	x86_64	musl-x86_64	picoforge_<version>_musl_x86-64.AppImage
musl-aarch64	musl	Alpine Linux (musl libc)	aarch64	musl-aarch64	picoforge_<version>_musl_aarch64.AppImage

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Architecture & Container Caching

• Podman-Native: All build environments are defined via dedicated Containerfiles (Containerfile.glibc-x86_64, Containerfile.glibc-aarch64, Containerfile.musl-x86_64, Containerfile.musl-aarch64).
• Prebuilt Image Caching via GHCR: Container images are built and pushed to GitHub Container Registry (ghcr.io/${{ github.repository_owner }}/picoforge-appimage-builder:<tag>). During AppImage builds, Podman pulls the prebuilt image in ~5 seconds instead of building from scratch.
• glibc Compatibility Floor: Built on Rocky Linux 8 (glibc 2.28) with gcc-toolset-13, ensuring wide backward compatibility across standard desktop distributions (Ubuntu 20.04+, Debian 10+, RHEL 8+, Fedora, Arch).
• musl Compatibility: Built on Alpine Linux with dynamically linked musl libraries for musl-based distributions (Alpine, Void Linux, Chimera Linux, etc.).
• Host Dependencies: All required shared libraries are bundled inside the AppImage by linuxdeploy, with the exception of libpcsclite.so.1 (the smartcard daemon library, which talks to pcscd on the host system).

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Local Building with Podman

To build any variant locally, clone picoforge inside this directory (or mount your local copy of picoforge):

# 1. Build the Podman container image
podman build -t picoforge-appimage-builder:glibc-2.28-x86_64 -f Containerfile.glibc-x86_64 .

# 2. Run the build script inside the container
podman run --rm -v $(pwd)/..:/workspace:z picoforge-appimage-builder:glibc-2.28-x86_64 /workspace/picoforge-linux-builds/build.sh glibc-x86_64

The resulting AppImage will be placed in dist/.

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GitHub Actions CI/CD Workflows

1. publish-containers.yml: Automatically builds and pushes all 4 builder images to GHCR whenever any Containerfile.* changes.
2. build-appimages.yml: Pulls prebuilt builder images from GHCR (with local build fallback), executes podman run to compile PicoForge, and uploads/releases the resulting AppImages.