AppImages are just .exe files for Linux, and nobody explains it that simply
AppImages are just .exe files for Linux, and nobody explains it that simply
Publish Date: 2026-02-08 10:31:00
Source Domain: www.xda-developers.com
I still remember the first time I downloaded an AppImage on my PC. It was back when I was giving Linux Mint a try after decades of being a Windows fanboy, and I had downloaded the AppImage of an app I wanted to use. It was a weird little file; I was used to app executables to come with an icon, but this one was bare.
Of course, coming from Windows and only understanding what installers were, I tried double-clicking it, to which Linux told me that the file wasn’t allowed to run. And thus began my adventures into using AppImages, which started as a “Why on Earth would I ever use these?” experiment and ended up with a realisation that, actually, AppImages are pretty awesome.
At first, AppImages were an utter enigma to me
I had no idea why they even existed
You have to understand that, coming from Windows, I’m used to things working when you double-click them. Want an app? Download its installer and then double-click it. Click through the windows, set the install directory, accidentally click “Next” on the page asking if you’d like to install other, unwanted apps with your install, and then wait for it to work. So, you can see why, in my Windows-coded brain, I was met with confusion when double-clicking the AppImage did nothing.
Well, okay, it didn’t do ‘nothing.’ It did show an error message telling me that the AppImage wasn’t an executable, so it wasn’t allowed to run. A quick…
