As a Linux user, you might have come across AppImages. This is a portable packaging format that allows you to run an application on any Linux distribution.
With AppImage, you get a software stack where the application author had a chance to cherry-pick which versions of libraries work together, test and tune both functionality and performance. As of early 2020, there are now around 1,000 official AppImages made by the respective application authors that are passing his compatibility tests and can run on the oldest still-supported Ubuntu LTS release.
Using AppImage is really simple. You just need to give it execute permission and double click to run it, like the .exe files in Windows. This solves a major problem in Linux as different kind of distributions have different kind of packaging formats. You cannot install .deb files (of Debian/Ubuntu) on Fedora and vice versa.
AppImage wants to be what exe files or PortableApps are for Windows and what apps inside dmg files are on the Mac – but better.
See the interview with Simon Peter at Interacting with Simon Peter, the creator of AppImage
We talked to Simon, the developer of AppImage, about how and why he created this project. Read some of the interesting background story and insights Simon shares about AppImage.