Flatpak

Not to be confused with Flatpack.
Flatpak
Original author(s)Alexander Larsson
Developer(s)Flatpak Team[1]
Initial releaseSeptember 2015; 9 years ago (2015-09)[2]
Stable release
1.16.0[3] Edit this on Wikidata / 9 January 2025; 10 days ago (9 January 2025)
Repository
Written inC
Operating systemLinux
LicenseLGPL-2.1-or-later[4]
Websiteflatpak.org
Preferred badge for promoting apps on Flathub since 2023, English version

Flatpak is a utility for software deployment and package management for Linux. It provides a sandbox environment in which users can run application software in (partial) isolation from the rest of the system.[5][6] Flatpak was known as xdg-app until 2016.[7]

Features

Applications using Flatpak need permissions to access resources such as Bluetooth, sound (with PulseAudio), network, and files. These permissions are configured by the maintainer of the Flatpak and can be added or removed by users on their system.[8][9]

Another key feature of Flatpak allows application developers to directly provide updates to users without going through linux distributions, and without having to package and test the application separately for each distribution.[10]

Because Flatpak runs in a sandbox (which provides a separate, ABI-stable version of common system libraries), it uses more space on the system than common native packages. However, OSTree, a technology underlying Flatpak, deduplicates matching files. This means that the first few Flatpak installations will occupy more space, but as more packages are added, the system will use space more efficiently.[11]

Flathub, a repository (or remote source in the Flatpak terminology) located at flathub.org, is the de facto standard for getting applications packaged with Flatpak.[12] Packages are contributed by both Flathub administrators and application developers, with a stated preference for submissions from the developers themselves.[13] Although Flathub is the de facto source for applications packaged with Flatpak, it is possible to host a Flatpak repository that is independent of Flathub.[14][15][16]

Support

Theoretically, Flatpak apps can be installed on any existing and future Linux distribution, including those installed with the Windows Subsystem for Linux compatibility layer, so long as bubblewrap and OSTree are available.

It can also be used on Linux kernel-based systems like ChromeOS.[17]

See also

References

  1. ^ "About". Archived from the original on 2023-07-14. Retrieved 2022-04-08.
  2. ^ "Flatpak's History". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2022-04-10. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  3. ^ "1.16.0". 9 January 2025. Retrieved 10 January 2025.
  4. ^ "COPYING". GitHub. 31 March 2015. Archived from the original on 2021-10-26. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
  5. ^ Larsson, Alexander (29 April 2016). "Using bubblewrap in xdg-app". Alexander Larsson: Cool links and commentary. GNOME. Archived from the original on 14 May 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  6. ^ Willis, Nathan (2015-01-21). "GNOME and application sandboxing revisited". LWN. Archived from the original on 2018-11-25. Retrieved 2016-01-03.
  7. ^ Larsson, Alexander (9 May 2016). "Renamed to flatpak in git". freedesktop.org. Archived from the original on 24 June 2016. Retrieved 1 June 2016.
  8. ^ "Sandbox Permissions". Flatpak documentation. Archived from the original on 2019-06-20. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
  9. ^ "flatpak-run". Flatpak documentation. Archived from the original on 2019-06-26. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
  10. ^ Larsson, Alex (21 August 2018). "Kick-starting the revolution 1.0". Archived from the original on 19 December 2021. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  11. ^ TheEvilSkeleton (2022-05-16). "Response to "Flatpak Is Not the Future"". TheEvilSkeleton. Archived from the original on 2023-02-11. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  12. ^ "7 Flatpak Apps You Can Install Right Now from Flathub". OMG! Ubuntu!. 2017-07-20. Archived from the original on 2019-05-29. Retrieved 2019-05-29.
  13. ^ Submission - Flathub Documentation., Flathub, 2024-02-05, retrieved 2024-02-05
  14. ^ "List remotes". Flatpak documentation. Archived from the original on 2019-07-06. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
  15. ^ "Hosting a Repository". Archived from the original on 18 February 2020. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  16. ^ "Reasons to use Flatpak". Flatpak documentation. Archived from the original on 2019-06-17. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
  17. ^ "Chrome OS Quick Setup". Archived from the original on 2020-08-02. Retrieved 2020-07-22.