Another package manager yawn...? No wait, this one's different, I swear.
[✓] does not invent a new package format
[✓] works with existing packages
[✓] you don't need anyone's permission to make your application available to users. Any web server will do. Independent of any stores.
[✓] distribution agnostic
[✓] pretty fast
[✓] single, static, dependency free binary
[✓] no extra daemons
[✓] get your software from the source. no bug-introducing middlemen
[✓] TOFU signature scheme (like e.g. Android)
ayy is a package manager for AppImage. You might have seen those and wondered why there is no icon? Why is it not in the menu of my GNOME/KDE? What about updates?
AppImages actually also have support for embedding this information, in a standardized way and ayy makes use of that.
ayy is a project to make use of those things. It takes AppImages, adds menu entries and icons to your desktop environment, allows you to set up aliases for use in $PATH, and lets you update all applications with a single command (provided they embed update information).
AppImages are already available in lots of places, because they solve a problem for developers with or without ayy. However, as a user, I've found them annoying to use. This project fixes that.
It should be simple to use, and fast:
$ time ayy install VSCodium-x86_64.AppImage
real 0m0.057s
user 0m0.046s
sys 0m0.017sThat's it.
ayy is currently in alpha and you will need to download the source code and build it. You will need Go 1.18 or newer. Building is as simple as
go build
in the ayy directory. This will produce the ayy binary, i suggest you drop it somewhere into your $PATH.
Usage:
$ ayy -h
usage ayy <command>
install Install an AppImage and integrate it into the desktop environment
remove Locate installed AppImage by name, uninstall and unintegrate it
upgrade Update all images in Applications folder
list Display installed AppImages
alias Manage aliases for AppImage in PATH
show Show details of an AppImage
fs Interact with an AppImage's internal filesystem
inspect Inspect an AppImage file. Development command. Dumps assorted information.
help Display this help
Call these commands without any arguments for per command help.
Pre-built binaries and a proper installation-guide will be provided once the project is ready for a wider user base.
ayy does currently not accept Pull Requests, since I'm not sure if I want to keep the current license. Please do open issues though.