A
Apx

Title: Getting Started
Description: How to start using Apx on your system.
PublicationDate: 2024-10-18
Listed: true
Authors:
- jardon
- NN708
Tags:

- getting-started

Apx is designed to be a versatile, distro-agnostic tool that can be installed on any Linux distribution. Follow the steps below to get Apx up and running on your system.

Install

The easiest way to install both Apx CLI and GUI is through Flatpak.

Get it on Flathub

After installation, you can launch Apx GUI with the following command:

flatpak run org.vanillaos.ApxGUI

To use Apx CLI from the Flatpak package, run:

flatpak run --command=apx org.vanillaos.ApxGUI

Build Manually

Apx CLI

Prerequisites

Before installing Apx, ensure you have the following software installed:

  1. Go: This is required to compile Apx. Install it from your distribution’s package manager.
  2. Git: Needed to clone the Apx repository.
  3. Podman or Docker: Either container runtime is suitable, but Podman is recommended.
  4. Make: This utility is used for building and installing Apx.

Clone the Apx Repository

Open your terminal and run the following commands to clone the repository and navigate into it:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/Vanilla-OS/apx.git
cd apx

Build Apx

Compile Apx by executing:

make build

Install Apx

To install Apx and the manual pages system-wide, run:

sudo make install
sudo make install-manpages

You can change the installation prefix or destination using PREFIX and DESTDIR. Here are examples for custom installations:

  • Install Apx to ~/.local:
  make install PREFIX=$HOME/.local
  make install-manpages PREFIX=$HOME/.local
  • Install Apx to a separate root:
  make install DESTDIR=$HOME/altroot
  make install-manpages DESTDIR=$HOME/altroot

Apx GUI

Dependencies

Before you start, ensure you have the following dependencies installed:

  1. build-essential: A package containing essential compilation tools.
  2. meson: A build system to configure the project.
  3. libadwaita-1-dev: A library for building modern GNOME applications.
  4. gettext: A utility for internationalization and localization.
  5. desktop-file-utils: Tools for handling desktop entry files.
  6. apx (2.0+): Ensure you have Apx version 2.0 or higher installed.

You can install these dependencies using your distribution’s package manager. For example, on Debian-based systems, you can run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential meson libadwaita-1-dev gettext desktop-file-utils apx

Clone the Apx GUI Repository

Open your terminal and run the following commands to clone the repository and navigate into it:

git clone https://github.com/Vanilla-OS/apx-gui.git
cd apx-gui

Build Apx GUI

Once you have cloned the repository, build Apx GUI by running:

meson setup build
ninja -C build

NOTE: you can set a custom installation destination by passing --prefix=/path/to/dir to meson

Install Apx GUI

After successfully building the application, install it with the following command:

sudo ninja -C build install

Run Apx GUI

You can launch Apx GUI using the following command:

apx-gui

Follow these steps to successfully install and run Apx GUI on your system. Enjoy managing your Apx installations with the graphical interface!