Client: build AppImages for older glibc

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>

Client/Packaging/BuildAppImage.sh

@@ -1,20 +1,30 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 # Builds dist/SaraView-x86_64.AppImage: a PyInstaller one-file build (with
 # the font and icon bundled) wrapped by appimagetool, the same way SaraSort's,
-# SaraSuite's and SaraFem's AppImages are made. Needs appimagetool on PATH.
+# SaraSuite's and SaraFem's AppImages are made. Needs podman and
+# appimagetool on PATH.
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$0")")/.."
 
-[ -d .venv ] || python3 -m venv .venv
-.venv/bin/pip install --quiet --disable-pip-version-check -r requirements.txt pyinstaller
-
+# PyInstaller runs in a manylinux_2_28 container (glibc 2.28) with uv's
+# portable Python, not with Fedora's: PyInstaller bundles libpython, and
+# Fedora's needs a newer glibc than many distros have ("GLIBC_ABI_GNU2_TLS
+# not found"). The whole repository goes in, for ../Backend/VarEngine.py.
+# The Python, venv and downloads are cached in build/Container.
 # --collect-data flet: without it ft.Icons crashes when frozen.
-.venv/bin/pyinstaller --noconfirm --clean --log-level WARN \
-    --onefile --windowed --name SaraView --collect-data flet \
-    --add-data "$PWD/assets:assets" \
-    --paths "$PWD/../Backend" --hidden-import VarEngine \
-    --distpath build/PyInstaller/dist --workpath build/PyInstaller/work --specpath build/PyInstaller \
-    "$PWD/Main.py"
+mkdir -p build/Container
+podman run --rm --security-opt label=disable -v "$PWD/..:/src" -w /src/Client \
+    -e UV_CACHE_DIR=/src/Client/build/Container/cache -e UV_PYTHON_INSTALL_DIR=/src/Client/build/Container/python \
+    quay.io/pypa/manylinux_2_28_x86_64 bash -euo pipefail -c '
+    uv venv --quiet --allow-existing --managed-python --python 3.14 build/Container/venv
+    uv pip install --quiet --python build/Container/venv -r requirements.txt pyinstaller
+    build/Container/venv/bin/pyinstaller --noconfirm --clean --log-level WARN \
+        --onefile --windowed --name SaraView --collect-data flet \
+        --runtime-hook "$PWD/Packaging/RestoreLibraryPath.py" \
+        --add-data "$PWD/assets:assets" \
+        --paths "$PWD/../Backend" --hidden-import VarEngine \
+        --distpath build/PyInstaller/dist --workpath build/PyInstaller/work --specpath build/PyInstaller \
+        "$PWD/Main.py"'
 
 AppDir=build/AppDir
 rm -rf "$AppDir"

Client/Packaging/RestoreLibraryPath.py

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+# PyInstaller runtime hook. The frozen app runs with LD_LIBRARY_PATH pointing
+# at its bundled libraries, and programs it starts inherit that: Flet's
+# desktop client then loads the bundled (older) libstdc++ instead of the
+# system's and won't start ("GLIBCXX_3.4.29 not found"). Give them the
+# original value back; the app itself has already loaded what it needs.
+import os
+
+if "LD_LIBRARY_PATH_ORIG" in os.environ:
+    os.environ["LD_LIBRARY_PATH"] = os.environ["LD_LIBRARY_PATH_ORIG"]
+else:
+    os.environ.pop("LD_LIBRARY_PATH", None)