What are Flatpaks? | How to install & permissions

Flatpaks have many great advantages. They can be sandboxed to protect your system. They usually carry newer versions of software than repos. And they are distro independent, which means they run as they should on any distro that supports Flatpaks.
In this video I'll go over how they work, how to install them, and how to change what permissions they have.
Flathub : www.flathub.org
Consider supporting my channel : / doriandotslash
00:00 Intro
00:26 How Flatpaks work
01:50 Installation
02:35 Using a package manager
03:03 Installing from Flathub
03:24 Updating
03:33 PRO: Newer versions
04:01 Install from the terminal
05:09 PRO: Getting software not available in your distro
05:48 Flatpak Permissions (GUI)
07:16 Flatpak Permissions (terminal)
09:14 Example of denying filesystem access
10:13 Conclusion
10:36 The most important part
#Linux #Flatpaks

[@elonlothbrok5991]

We came a long way from cumbersome compiling and installing source software to this. Linux is indeed the Master Race.

[@Doriandotslash]

Indeed!

[@JohnSmith-fq3rg]

I remember installing stuff on our windows xp family pc back in the day... you just double click the .exe, in fact you can have it autorun when you put the disc in. Millions of devs contributing and you people wish it was as useful and intuitive as windows 95, lmao

[@idtyu]

Fun fact, flatpak has the same commands as dnf or yum, so both update and upgrade works the same. It will always update remote repo meta first, then search or install the package you request. I suspect it uses dnf resolver as well, but I can't prove that.

[@meliodas.1108]

Flatpaks snaps and appimages have really really helped to bridge the gap between distros.

[@andrewpalm2103]

Thanks, as this was just the level of information on flatpak that I needed--and can remember.

[@drumpf4all]

"They" told me to install flatpaks. They didn't explain permissions. Thank you!!

[@Doriandotslash]

Glad to help!

[@nichtgestalt]

Hey there buddy! Thanks to your Gentoo tutorial I installed it on hardware with the kde-plasma desktop just today. I tried it many times but it all makes more and more sense with each and every day. HUGE shout out to you, sir! I couldn't do it without you. I guess the lockdown seems to be the perfect time for gentoo. Right now I'm learning about packet managing and keeping the system nice and clean. Hope I can maintain my system for a while. Again: thank you so much. I'm very happy with the outcome. Looking forward for more great content! ~Peace :)

[@Doriandotslash]

Awesome that's great to hear! I'm glad it helped you out, cheers!

[@rectify2003]

Great explanation Dorian I have always avoided what I don't understand I will attempt to install this at the weekend

[@novagiantmedia1154]

Thank you. Great explination. The info on the flatpak site was quite vauge, even though I do like dicovering things on my own. Your video really helped me.

[@sneff80]

Great video. Delivered nicely.

[@Doriandotslash]

Thank you kindly!

[@TheGannoK]

Awesome content as always.

[@Doriandotslash]

Thank you!

[@zeroxhunter826]

Damn, i learnt a lot from this 11 min video

[@alexandreaugustus8277]

Good Explanation

[@aaronryder4008]

Now I want to see some editor war!! Been watching some threads on reddit and it kind of hyped me up for it!

[@Doriandotslash]

Yeah VI(M), emacs, Ed, nano... It really just depends on what you want to edit. Nano works fine for me 99% of the time. If it’s not installed then I’ll use VI(M).

[@krislong9338]

@@Doriandotslash same. Nano is just like pico which was what I was using on SunOS 4.1 and functions a lot like DOS edit so it was a no-brainer. It also is dead simple to cut, paste or paste from the clipboard every time. I'm I'm doing substitutions vi(m) would be better, but I prefer sed -i. I know enough vm to get around and get sharper qhen I'm always using it, it also works on very primitive or broken terminal types. But I almost always have nano installrd or available (read: about to be installed).

[@Ranblv]

very useful thanks. replace 4 apps with its flat version and limited permissions.

[@Ms.Robot.]

That was nice. I enjoyed your voice. It put me to sleep. 💋❤️

[@notionpicture]

It would be awesome if you did a video on how to get flatpack programs to follow system theme, I've followed a ton of tutorials but haven't been able to make it work.

[@wernerclaassen4787]

using Endless Os. all on my system is flatpaks and the whole Os is built on Os tree..... it is cool, secure and just works!!!!

[@Doriandotslash]

👍

[@burhanfarooq7436]

nice this looks like kubernates implementation if I am getting it right ?

[@jordir.8750]

Can you virtualize operating systems within flatpak? for example, install VMware Workstation.

[@wolfenstein6676]

I'm a new Linux Mint user, so if a program isn't already contained in the 'Software Manager' I can't install it. For example, I want to install Gimp 2.8 (an older version) and I've downloaded the flatpak for it to my downloads folder, but I've got no idea how to install it. How do we install flatpaks that we've already downloaded?

[@canoshizrocks]

Just a random question. What's the hotkey combo to resize the terminal text? You do it at 4:00

[@Doriandotslash]

CTRL+SHIFT and the =/+ key next to backspace.

[@canoshizrocks]

@@Doriandotslash Thanks for the quick reply! :)

[@osamaanees8406]

Flatpack helped me in installing Discord's Emojis. The official version had black and white emojis. That means I had to search for different fonts. Some fonts were conflicting with each other. And some fonts were outdated. Most of them were in the AUR and I dont want to use some random AUR just for fonts. Flatpack Fixed it. Anyways is there a way to see what dependencies flatpack installed?? That way i can find out what fonts it used to show the emojis and can use the official version in the future?

[@Doriandotslash]

If you open up a terminal and type "flatpak list" it will show you all the flatpaks and dependencies installed.

[@PhilipDudley3]

Can you do a review of Flatpak Extension SDKs?

[@Doriandotslash]

I'm not really much of a developer anymore outside of basic Python or Bash scripts on occasion.

[@andytheodorko9874]

I was confused that PyCharm has a separate python 3.9 installed (because it runs in a Flatpack) and my system python is 3.10

[@kaysersozze]

How do you make flatpak apps to use the system gtk3 theme ? or set some other than the default adwaita white which seems to be the default for all flatpak apps

[@JahidulIslam]

You can install flatpak versions of some theme. There are few themes in flathub repo. You may also create flatpak version of your own theme and use it that way

[@kaysersozze]

@@JahidulIslam yeah I tried that and it doesn't work

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

There is still some tweaking involved with themes, What I've seen works is to install the themes flatpak, but there are some flatpaks that use specific themes and not the "org.freedesktop.", this is going to be a problem for a while I think.

[@HamguyBacon]

1:02 so like registry

[@ArtOfHealth]

Is this similar to what you can do with QubesOS? Thanks

[@Doriandotslash]

Not really, but the separation of the application from your system is a little similar. Qubes uses full virtual machines to run an application in which cannot communicate with the host at all. Flatpaks run in a container which can if you allow it.

[@ArtOfHealth]

@@Doriandotslash Thanks very much!

[@mrblank-zh1xy]

So Flatpak is Docker?

[@lazi21]

Flatpaks seem great, though I have some issues with them on my machine. Flatpak Firefox doesn't play Odysee videos very well. They stutter. And in Flatpak Steam I couldn't get some games to run but other games ran more stable than before. Using Manjaro btw

[@Doriandotslash]

Might be a video driver issue

[@lazi21]

@@Doriandotslash Don't know. I'm using Nvidia and the "normal" packages don't have the stated problems

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

@@lazi21 do you have the flatpak nvidia driver installed ?

[@lazi21]

@@hammerheadcorvette4 No, I haven't thought of that. Where can I find it?

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

@@lazi21 org.freedesktop.Platform.nvidia-455-45-01 that's the latests flatpak ref for your nvidia card. sorry for the late reply, I though i mentioned this. You can get this from the flathub repo. flatpak -y install org.freedesktop.Platform.nvidia-455-45-01

[@learningbird9940]

Why do Flatpak apps create huge files in /var ?

[@Doriandotslash]

System Flatpaks or dependencies are installed in /var/lib/flatpak/

[@learningbird9940]

@@Doriandotslash And one gets a /var partition growing to 4, 5 and more GB in size because of that.

[@learningbird9940]

@@Doriandotslash And I've never had snaps behaving so badly in terms of file size as flatpaks. Neither appimages. But appimages also cannot be updated from the package manager and don't install a .desktop file to integrate them on the menu.

[@Doriandotslash]

​@@learningbird9940 Once all the major dependencies have been installed, it will only install the applications themselves since they share dependencies. Also, hard disk space is very cheap.

[@Appalling68]

The only downside of flatpacks (IMHO of course), is the huge file size. I’ve seen some that exceed 1GB in size.

[@Doriandotslash]

Yes but that includes its dependencies. Dependencies are also shared which means you only have to download them once and multiple Flatpaks can use it.

[@Appalling68]

@@Doriandotslash Yeah, I gettcha. I use flatpacks both in my Linux Mint and Arch installs. Just making an observation. Very well done video, btw.

[@bertblankenstein3738]

Agreed, I don't use flatpacks, because typically the flatpack is 250 times the size of the system package. It isn't that it is one package, but a dozen packages, meaning 12 gigs if wasted space.

[@PelenTan]

So... it's "docker-stupid" for those who want to Power-to-the-People(tm) and Fight-the-Man(tm) by refusing to use Docker. Because Docker Sold-Out(tm) by keeping all the Docker development owned by the community as a whole and tricked Big-Tech(tm) into strongly supporting the community-controlled and completely free Docker engine for a lot of their systems. Good call, there skipper.

[@Doriandotslash]

Yep pretty much. Like a much easier to use version that integrates into your existing package manager and requires no managing. Much better option for the average user.

[@andythurman2390]

What you're talking about sounds more like podman. Flatpaks are meant to serve a much more specific purpose than docker. However, they operate on similar cgroup etc. technology.

[@patriotic1526]

that intro music thing was rather jarring. awful

[@QuarKSonTV]

Almost all popular apps on Flathub still come with filesystem=host or filesystem=home permissions, in other words, write access to the user home directory (and more) so all it takes to escape the sandbox is trivial echo download_and_execute_evil >> ~/.bashrc

[@Doriandotslash]

That’s no different than installing something from a regular repo that would also have access to the host. By the way, Flatpaks only have read-only access to the host outside of the home folder, just like a regular user. And anything executed does not have sudo permissions so it can’t really do much anyways.

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

Fortunately you can change the permissions now. It used to be a PAIN, in the early days with having to rewrite permissions and flatpak-build all your apps. Thank God for Flatseal !!!