Linux

format = "linux" builds a real Linux distribution and emits two artifacts in appdist/<target>/dist/:

<name>-<version>-<target>.tar{.gz,.bz2,.xz} — the image tree under a top-level directory (extension follows compression). Users who don’t want an installer just extract it and run <dir>/<launcher>.
<name>-<version>-<target>.run — a self-extracting installer (a POSIX shell script with the compressed tarball appended).

Only platform = "linux-x86_64" may use this format.

Configuration

categories: freedesktop .desktop Categories value (default "Utility;"). Used only for launchers that define an icon.
compression: Payload compression for the .tar and .run: "gzip", "bzip2" or "xz" (default "xz"). The matching decompressor must be present on the target machine at install time.

[[tool.pyappdist.targets]]
name = "linux"
platform = "linux-x86_64"
format = "linux"
# categories = "Utility;Development;"   # for launchers that set an icon
# compression = "xz"                    # "gzip" | "bzip2" | "xz" (default "xz")

Build requirements

None beyond pip and the chosen compressor — Linux launchers are relocatable shell wrappers, so there is no MSVC/WiX toolchain. Build on Linux; on a non-Linux host the step is skipped (the image is still built).

Install behavior

The .run installer verifies the payload’s SHA-256 before extracting, so a corrupted download is rejected rather than half-installed. It needs no root and no FUSE: it copies the tree into <prefix>/lib/<name> ($HOME/.local by default; override with --prefix), symlinks each launcher into <prefix>/bin, and — only for launchers that set an icon — writes a .desktop entry. It also drops an uninstall.sh next to the install, and ./<app>.run --uninstall removes it.

$ ./myapp-1.0-linux-x86_64.run            # install into ~/.local
$ ./myapp-1.0-linux-x86_64.run --prefix ~/opt
$ ./myapp-1.0-linux-x86_64.run --uninstall

Each launcher becomes a small relocatable shell wrapper that runs the entry point with the bundled interpreter (gui has no effect on Linux). Application updates are the app’s own responsibility — pyappdist provides no auto-update mechanism.