linuxdeployqt

This Linux Deployment Tool for Qt, linuxdeployqt, takes an application as input and makes it self-contained by copying in the Qt libraries and plugins that the application uses into a bundle. This can optionally be put into an AppImage.

Differences to macdeployqt

This tool is conceptually based on the Mac Deployment Tool, macdeployqt in the tools applications of the Qt Toolkit, but has been changed to a slightly different logic and other tools needed for Linux.

• Instead of an .app bundle for macOS, this produces an AppDir for Linux
• Instead of a .dmg disk image for macOS, this produces an AppImage for Linux which is quite similar to a dmg but executes the contained application rather than just opening a window on the desktop from where the application can be launched

Known issues

• This may not be fully working yet. Use with care, run with maximum verbosity, submit issues and pull requests. Help is appreciated
• Some functions may still refer to macOS specifics. These need to be converted over to their Linux counterparts or deleted
• Scan for QML imports has not been tested yet

Installation

• Open in Qt Creator and build your application. Run it from the command line and inspect it with ldd to make sure the correct libraries from the correct locations are getting loaded, as linuxdeployqt will use ldd internally to determine from where to copy libraries into the bundle
• Build and install patchelf (a small utility to modify the dynamic linker and RPATH of ELF executables; similar to install_name_tool on macOS). To learn more about this, see http://blog.qt.io/blog/2011/10/28/rpath-and-runpath/

wget https://nixos.org/releases/patchelf/patchelf-0.9/patchelf-0.9.tar.bz2
tar xf patchelf-0.9.tar.bz2
( cd patchelf-0.9/ && ./configure  && make && sudo make install )

• Download AppImageAssistant and put it into your $PATH, e.g., into /usr/local/bin. Make sure it is renamed to AppImageAssistant and is chmod a+x

wget https://github.com/probonopd/AppImageKit/releases/download/6/AppImageExtract_6-x86_64.AppImage -O AppImageExtract
mv AppImageExtract /usr/local/bin/

Usage

Usage: linuxdeployqt app-binary [options]

Options:
   -verbose=<0-3>     : 0 = no output, 1 = error/warning (default), 2 = normal, 3 = debug
   -no-plugins        : Skip plugin deployment
   -appimage          : Create an AppImage
   -no-strip          : Don't run 'strip' on the binaries
   -executable=<path> : Let the given executable use the deployed libraries too
   -qmldir=<path>     : Scan for QML imports in the given path
   -always-overwrite  : Copy files even if the target file exists
   -libpath=<path>    : Add the given path to the library search path

linuxdeployqt takes an application as input and makes it
self-contained by copying in the Qt libraries and plugins that
the application uses.

Contributing

These are my first steps with Qt and with C++ for that matter, and it is stil very young, so I'd appreciate your testing, comments, and (ideally) code review. Please discuss in the forum or using GitHub issues and pull requests.