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AppImages are—in my opinion—the better alternatives to FlatPak or Snap. Thanks to the Obsidian team for providing one! Since AppImages run on such a variety of Linux systems, they don’t easily “self-integrate” into the miscellaneous desktop environments out there.

The easiest way is to use AppImageLauncher, especially if you use more than just one or two AppImages.

But it can be done manually, too. The basic steps here are:

  • Get the AppImage and make it executable.
  • Put it in a sensible location (I use ~/AppImages but some prefer /opt).
  • Get an application icon and store it where your DE can use it.
  • Make a “starter” (.desktop) file and put it in a location appropriate for your DE. A normal text editor can be used for this.

Here is an example for how I did it on my Linux Mint 20.1:

  1. Download the Obsidian AppImage.

  2. I moved it to ~/AppImages/Obsidian-0.10.11.AppImage.

  3. Make it executable: chmod +x ~/AppImages/Obsidian-0.10.11.AppImage.

  4. Get an icon. I used:

    curl -L -o obsidian.png https://cdn.discordapp.com/icons/686053708261228577/1361e62fed2fee55c7885103c864e2a8.png

  5. Move the icon to a place where Cinnamon (my DE) can find and use it:

    sudo mv obsidian.png /usr/share/pixmaps

  6. Create an Obsidian.desktop file and store it in ~/.local/share/applications (you might need to create this folder first):

    [Desktop Entry]
Name=Obsidian
Comment=Markdown Notetaking App
Terminal=false
GenericName=Text Editor
Type=Application
Exec=/home/matthias/AppImages/Obsidian-0.10.11.AppImage %u
Icon=obsidian
StartupWMClass=obsidian
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/obsidian;

    Note: Case matters!

    In the Exec= line, replace /home/matthias with your home folder. Also, use the correct Obsidian installer version name for the file you downloaded.

After all this, a restart may be needed and you’ll have Obsidian working from the Menu, and with its beautiful icon in the menu, the app switcher, etc.

Note: This is a single-user setup. If you want other users on this system to have access to Obsidian, consider using

  • /usr/share or /opt instead of ~/AppImages for storing the Obsidian AppImage, and
  • /usr/share/applications instead of ~/.local/share/applications for storing the .desktop file.
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