feat: add appimage build

[mutlusun]

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Description

This PR adds an appimage build to the release tarballs. Appimage is a packaging format that runs on linux and is able to provide all necessary files within one file/package. Users only need to download the file, make it executable, and can run the software. This eliminates the manual moving of the tarball to /opt/ what requires root privileges and symlinking, etc. (see the tarball installation guide).

Related issues: #4505

Checklist

I have (if applicable):

• filed a contributor agreement.
• referenced the GitHub issue this PR closes
• updated the appropriate changelog in the PR
• ensured the present test suite passes
• added new tests
• created a separate documentation PR in Quarto's website repo and linked it to this PR

I'm happy to file the contributor agreement, update the changelog, and open a documentation PR if you agree with the changes.

[cscheid]

Thanks for the PR. I'm a bit wary of adding additional maintenance burden in our installers, which is already non-trivial for us.

I'm in principle supportive, but I would like to test drive this a bit. Is there a way you can run this off of your own repo so we can verify that there are no hiccups as we upgrade dependencies, etc, and then we merge it here?

[mutlusun]

Thanks for your feedback!

I can understand that you hesitate to add another installer. I created in my repo a new branch that always builds the installers. You can access the artifacts here: https://github.com/mutlusun/quarto-cli/actions/runs/12142841341

If you want to, I can update the branch to your latest main branch. This way, you can see if something breaks or not.

[cscheid]

Let me propose to you the following. You run and maintain the appimage repo in your own branch for a few months, in a way that automatically builds new appimage installers when we do new releases, and we can check back in a few months to see if that's going smoothly? Then, we can consider integrating it into quarto-cli, with the expectation that you (or someone else familiar with appimage) could informally commit to maintaining it for a longer period of time.

[mutlusun]

Thanks for your feedback! I'm sorry for my late reply.

I can provide appimage builds in a separate repository. However, then I will not try to stay on the main branch but create an empty repository that only has the relevant details for building quarto.

Would you be open to a contribution of this code to quarto-release-bundles? I think, appimage is also a release bundle / some kind of package management and it's probably easier for users to find it there instead of a private repository under my name.

Thanks for your consideration!

[cderv]

Would you be open to a contribution of this code to quarto-release-bundles? I think, appimage is also a release bundle / some kind of package management and it's probably easier for users to find it there instead of a private repository under my name.

@cscheid I like this idea of having this new bundling in the other repo.

[cscheid]

I like this idea as well.

[cderv]

@mutlusun please submit a PR in quarto-dev/quarto-release-bundles and I'll review it. THank you !