AppImage testing

Software
1

Hi Folks!

A few weeks ago, we put out a call to find a developer who could help us build the AppImage CI/CD pipeline.

We’ve had a very skilled developer (Dmitrii S.) take this on. Their first build is available for testing at

If you run Linux, it would helpful to get your feedback at Initial bringup (!1) · Merge requests · KiCad / KiCad Packaging / Kicad Appimage · GitLab

Just download the appimage, make it executable and run. It should take parameters like ./KiCad-nightly-20250302-x86_64.AppImage kicad-cli to invoke subprograms

Let us know if you find any issues on your machine. This is particularly useful to know if you run an esoteric or older Linux distro so that we know the limits of our process.

1 Like
2

I just tried it, but it seems not to be able to find the libkigal file, as shown below. Please let me know if there is more info that I can provide on this.

beast$ chmod 755 ./KiCad-nightly-20250302-x86_64.AppImage 
beast$ ./KiCad-nightly-20250302-x86_64.AppImage 
Checking module /tmp/.mount_KiCad-HkvCK8/opt/glibc
Checking module /tmp/.mount_KiCad-HkvCK8/opt/glibstdcpp
/tmp/.mount_KiCad-HkvCK8/usr/bin/kicad: error while loading shared libraries: libkigal.so.9.99.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
3

Gentoo here:

dlopen(): error loading libfuse.so.2

It appears to be linked against an older version of fuse. Luckily fuse-2.9.9 can be slotted

Once installed kicad launches as expected

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4

Looks ok here, just a bit slower than usual when launching.

Application: KiCad x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 9.99.0-unknown, release build

Libraries:
	wxWidgets 3.2.2
	FreeType 2.12.1
	HarfBuzz 6.0.0
	FontConfig 2.14.1
	libcurl/7.88.1 GnuTLS/3.7.9 zlib/1.3 brotli/1.0.9 zstd/1.5.4 libidn2/2.3.3 libpsl/0.21.2 (+libidn2/2.3.3) libssh2/1.10.0 nghttp2/1.52.0 librtmp/2.3 OpenLDAP/2.5.13

Platform: Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, X11, mate, x11

Build Info:
	Date: Mar  2 2025 18:56:24
	wxWidgets: 3.2.2 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
	Boost: 1.74.0
	OCC: 7.6.3
	Curl: 7.88.1
	ngspice: 39
	Compiler: GCC 12.2.0 with C++ ABI 1017
	KICAD_IPC_API=ON

Locale: 
	Lang: en_US
	Enc: UTF-8
	Num: 1.234,5
	Encoded кΩ丈: D0BACEA9E4B888 (sys), D0BACEA9E4B888 (utf8)
5

Hi,

Slower with launching than “my” version of AppImage (see below). Added 3D model dir and nightly has the same problem with 3D models. It is not visible. See image:

2025-03-04_10-34
2025-03-04_10-341251×713 87 KB

PS. I’ve modified appimage scripts from CyberCircuits in order to build version 9.x. Maybe something from this could be looked at. GitHub - slawekmikula/kicad-appimage

Interestingly I’ve build version 8.0.9 from mentioned above scripts and with version 8.0.9 the 3D models are visible and working OK. Haven’t found core problem with rendering. I’ve created topic post here: AppImage for 9.0 without 3d model visualization - which libraries? but without any luck finding the real culprit.

6

Thanks, with this docker builder I’ve been able to build kicad version 5, 6 and 7, been able to run old releases side by side on modern linux distro!
:+1: