How To: Flatpak on Arch Linux
Flatpak is a system for building, distributing and running sandboxed desktop applications on Linux.
”Flatpak is a system for building, distributing and running sandboxed desktop applications on Linux.”
Install
- Many Flatpak applications available on flathub are not effectively sandboxed by default . Do not rely on the provided process isolation without first reviewing the related flatpak permission manifest for common sandbox escape issues.
- Running untrusted code is never safe; sandboxing cannot change this.
Flatpak is available on the Arch as part of the Extra repository.
To install Flatpak on Arch Linux, we will open a terminal and run:
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sudo pacman -S flatpak
Reboot
Reboot your system.
Verify
You can check that everything is working, by running: Verify version:
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flatpak --version
The installation of flatpak will, by default, add the official Flathub repository as a system-wide installation.
Run the below command to list installed repositories: Verify remotes:
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flatpak remotes
Install a Application with Flatpak
Head over to Flathub and checkout the available applications you might want to install.
In this example we are going to install an open source IDE called vscodium.
Before we are able to search a newly added repository, we are going to add the update flag to the flatpak command to download the appstream data for repositories:
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flatpak update
You can search for vscodium using the search option:
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flatpak search vscodium
To Install, open up a terminal and run:
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flatpak install flathub com.vscodium.codium
To run vscodium:
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# Depending on your system, you will probably be able to run as codium
flatpak run com.vscodium.codium
List installed applications:
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flatpak list
Uninstall
To Remove:
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flatpak uninstall com.vscodium.codium
Be sure to have a look at the Manifest for VSCodium.
Any issues you may run into might already be addressed so have a look at the Troubleshooting section on the Arch Wiki entry for Flatpak. Any and all information you might need for configuration and commands can be found on the Arch Wiki.
Reference:
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Flatpak - The Arch Wiki entry for Flatpak
- https://flatpak.org/setup/Arch - Flatpak page for install on Arch Linux
- https://flathub.org/ - Homepage for Flathub the application repository.
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Flatpak#Troubleshooting - Troubleshooting Flatpak on Arch Linux