Portable Apps for Linux

I'm already working on Firefox and Thunderbird (and I have the licensing permission from Mozilla to use the logos and official builds).

To interupt your "private" thread.

But I'd just like to say, that I am.

P.U.M.P.E.D!

----------------------------------------
I felt so different without a signature.

stuff on my SuSE 10.2

"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." - Richard P. Feynman

...in portable Linux apps, but I'd also love to be able to find a portable version/port of Konqueror that I can run off my thumb under Windows.
I realize it's a long shot, but that'd be schweet!

I find the convenience of carrying my personal bookmarks in the Mobile Firefox on my USB stick to be a sufficient reason to wish that PortableApps is available in both Linux and Windows platforms... Ditto for all other stuff like OpenOffice, where I would love to have my own favourite set-ups available when I go out to work in a new Linux/Windows location...

This is an excellent idea.

You need to decide on the supported architecture. e.g i386

The Apps are already available on some of the small distros e.g
DSL, Puppy, ..etc. Some of these apps are totally self contained,
meaning there are negligible dependencies, and all of the files
sit in one base directory (instead of scattered all over the OS).

For other Apps, the biggest problem is agreeing on a minumum set of
libraries which the target linux system is going to support.

Is this project still moving forward? Is there some development site I could check to see what betas are available, etc.? I've got basically every portable Windows app I could want, but aside from DSL and a LiveUSB version of Knoppix, I've got nothing for Linux.

This sounds Awesome! I've been playing around with a portable Puppy version of Linux running with QEMU.

The virtual drive is not big enough to install the apps I want. Sure I could try UnionFS or some such thing, but just trying Linux, I wouldn't have a clue.

The good thing about Puppy is that it saves the virtual drive back to the USB on exit, so unlike most live-cds you can save stuff.

On the USB you could have your portable Puppy, and your PortableApps - only the ones you want - and run the whole thing in a Windows Environment with absolutely no risk of leaving any trace behind! Now that is AWESOME! I can't wait!

By the way, anyone wanting to try Linux for the first time, I've tried several and I'm split between two, Scientific Linux based on Red Hat Enterprise (handle's NTFS better than most) and PCLinuxOS based on Mandrake (handles my Hardware better than most but NTFS seems to be read only without some tweaking). Ubuntu is over rated in my opinion, was difficult to configure just to get working. All have live CDs available to try. Linux is FUN! And I don't need to buy a new computer with every new release!

I have to wonder how secure this really is on a public computer if it has a virus or key logger on it, since it is running as a windows process. I'd appreciate any feedback on that topic from anyone knowledgeable on the subject.

I would love to have portable apps for linux.

as for a portable firefox for linux, that should be fairly easy.....

create a launcher that does similar to the windows version and use the firefox from the getfirefox.com site for linux.

when i just checked, it downloads a tar.gz file that has a directory that contains firefox. the only issue is it likes to use the current users profile thats in /home/user

fix that and it may just work as is.

btw: dont go flaming me if im wrong or am oversimplifying things.

The programs id like to see portable for linux are:
firefox
pidgin
gimp

thats about it

Portable Firefox?
Just portable bookmarks to switch between Ubuntu and Windows would be just great.

This is great effort for developing opensource portable applications for windows.

Now, Say, you have thunderbird portable with your mobile profile containing your addressbok and mails. If you need to open them in a linux platform you may need to copy or change default location of profile in linux. Thats troublesome for novice.

So, now the concept is that our favourite applications should run on linux as well as windows.

I would like to suggest developing portable wine (windows emulator for linux), so that people can run all their windows applications in linux PCs even if they do not have admin password. It can be a workaround for Kiosk use.

I am not a programmer but it should not be difficult for experienced people here. Give your comments..

I would really like to see some portable apps that work with Linux. It would be great to be able to use some of these apps on my Nokia N800 internet tablet.

although it's under wine I bring you this post from Ubuntu 7.10 and portable apps

If it was a bit more polished then they'd look the same but at the moment the apps seem to work just fine as they are. Work for the cat?

I can't say with any certainty but if there are any Linux guru's here they might want to take a look at Crossover Linux.
I just got a new Mac for Christmas and have been toying with Crossover Mac. The Mac version appears to be a single "executable" which does run from a portable drive, although the settings are stored in the user directory.
I'm not familiar with the Mac at all so I haven't attempted to make a launcher to copy the settings as of yet.
Maybe the Linux version is similar.
Or possibly Wine itself could be made portable.
Just throwing the idea out there. Really have no idea if its possible or the difficulty level.

I popped my portapps drive in my Ubuntu box one day to pull some pics off of it, and the Portable Apps launcher started right up. I even opened some of the applications to see if they worked.

With all the respect to everyone who is working on the Portable Apps for Linux project, i totally disagree with that. It's against all standard mentality to make portable binaries for Linux.

I can understand the Portable Apps for Windows in order to promote more use of Open Source software on this horrible OS. Being a linux user for quite a long time now, I have another definition of portable.

You can just copy the contents of your home directory on a pen drive and then on another PC you plug in the pendrive, switch to the directory where your home settings are and use a simple script inside that directory as follows. In the examples i am referring to Firefox and Pidgin. First remember to pmount your pendrive with the -e switch, in order to be able to execute the scripts from the pen drive.

For Firefox:

#!/bin/bash

export HOME=$PWD
exec `which firefox`

For Pidgin:

#!/bin/bash

exec `which pidgin` -c $PWD/.purple

Obviously these are quite barebone scripts which can be refined easily.

However my idea of portable on linux is to carry just the configuration settings and not the complete binary. It's the owner of the PC that has to install or give you permission to install and use software on his PC. And as regards Window$, carrying binaries is one potential way to carry viruses as well.

Don't get me wrong, I like this portable apps thing for windows (even though the same way of thinking applies) but would never dream of seeing something similar done in Linux! At least on windows you are making people more aware of OSS. Sorry John but that's my opinion!

I think it's a great idea. One USB Key with my apps / settings / preferences would be most excellent!

For me I'd want to see:
Firefox
ThunderBird
Pidgin
VLC for Linux

I also really want to see portable apps for linux!

About security... Many guys want to drop this idea just because of "update reasons". On linux them use package manager who keep care about updates and people are scared that the portable apps won`t get updates.

Like we have on windows for any portable app a standard to add update informations in App\AppInfo\appinfo.ini be can also add this easy for linux. It should be trivial for any portable app updater to get this apps then also updated.

Just don`t be stupid and drop this hole idea because of "security reasons" like the guys done here http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/4737/

Doesn't Linux restrict the execution of binary files that are not installed by a super-user for security reason ?

Portable apps for linux would be kinda cool. You could create an uber usb harddrive. Best for each situation.

(1) boot up a linux distro directly from usb drive if you are allowed to do that on this computer and then start using your portable linux apps.

(2) Use any operating system such as windows as host, then start a emulator or virtualizer, start linux in virtual mode and then start using your portable linux apps. (1+2 together are already working with qemu puppy, you can either start it in real or in virtualized mode, kinda great imho)

(3) If the host operating system is linux you could directly start using your portable linux apps.

(4) Universal apps which can run natively either from windows or form linux at once.

(5) If you have admin rights on windows you could use a portable andlinux, as soon you started andlinux you have a linux layer running with native speed on windows and start then using your linux-only portable apps.

Ultra flexibility!

The only cool feature missing would be encryption, but I think it should be also possible to add.

I am able to use portable apps on a machine with Ubuntu Linux 8.04 (Hardy), but not one with SUSE Linux 10.1. Looking forward to the portable app specifically for Linux.

hello I wondered; Because there is no portable firefox for Linux that has all the benefits of which have decried it in windows if you have installed Firefox on Windows with procon that does not affect your portable namely its independence because he ioSwiftFox tried in Linux that would have assumed that independence when their extension but not so,

if laguien has plans for a zero portable firefox linux take into account that point
español

»
inglés

Traduzca

hola me he preguntado;Porque no hay un portable del firefox para linux que tenga todos los beneficios del que tiene en windows es decri si tu tienes instalado el firefox en windows con el procon eso no afecta a tu portable es decir su independencia ya que he probado el ioSwiftFox en linux que supone que tendria independencia en cuando a sus extenciones pero no fue asi,

si laguien tiene planes para cerar un portable del firefox para linux tengan en cuenta ese punto

I´m ready for it. I´ve been thinking the same thing. There´s got to be an easy way to translate all the ¨open source¨ Portable Apps to Linux. It´s like, an oxymoron. Or a, moronoxy.
With Vista biting the dust, and more importantly, Ubuntu throwing the dust on ¨Macrosoft¨, Linux has got to flex it´s long dormant muscles.
And ¨Bigger is Better¨, is just plain ridiculous in I.T.
Also, Portable applications should be universal and work irregardless of the OS, within reason of course.