"flatpak install" *does* install packages system wide, even if you do not run the command with sudo privileges nor have to authenticate. You can add the "--user" option to install only for the current user. The system wide install will proceed only if the user belongs to the "sudo" group, though.
Thank you so much for your channel. I have been using Linux exclusively since the end the Summer of 2020. Still learning a lot. Started with Pop!_OS and of course it was a shift. But I stuck to it. I just moved to Florida and now I want to help people and especially kids learn Linux and get more involved in STEM. As well, I want to help re-purpose old cpmputers and donate them. There is so much that can be done and I wanted to thank you for inspiring me.
I wish they would all think of some set of phrases for search, install, remove, update... I simply can't remember the phrases for apt, pacman, flatpak, snap
Thank you for a very clear dissertation regarding Flatpaks. I upgraded to Ubuntu 23.10 and learned GSConnect may no longer be suported. The developers are focusing their efforts on Valent which works with KDE Connect on Android. This seems like a viable solution to replace GSConnect. As humans often times we do not like change until we experience the improvements. Thank you for your time.
Hi Jay, you asked about topic suggestions - since I always see your 'Mycroft' in the background (and occasionally taking a role in the videos themselves!), I assume this is something you are a fan of - I'd love to see a video looking at where this project currently is, and even if possible walking through an install on a desktop!
Thanks for the suggestion! This is coming, but is on hold for 1-2 months. The project will pick back up when the new Mycroft Mark 2 arrives at my door. I can’t wait!
What would be the difference between flatpak and a software provider offering a PPA to add? I did this for libreoffice to have a later build but I am curious the difference
1. First of all, flatpak will work across most of the distro(if not all). PPA is Ubuntu only. 2. PPA is not sanboxed. You can control the access in flatpak version. 3 If you install the flatpak as user, you can potentially use the same flatpak package in a different distro without reinstalling the flatpak package.
If you want to consume you storage, use flatpak! PPA is geart, And if you want the latest version of any package use a Rolling distro (but not recommended for the stability reasons). You can't install a specific version of a package with flatpak! For me i use only the main package manager of my distro, and sometimes Appimage apps!
I love your video, I wish I could have watched it early on. I'm loving flatpak now to the point that I just recently uninstalled Firefox (snap) on my Ubuntu because it's sort of slow to open whenever I run it via command line (firefox -P). I usually use multiple profiles for Firefox to keep a lot of my workflow separate and Firefox on snap is quite a drag to open and close. I installed Firefox via flatpak and it's a lot responsive and better!
I couldn't get this working tonight, but I did install a snap package version which was much more up to date then the original LibreOffice that came installed with Ubuntu 20.04.
Jay, I'm guessing you're using a 4k monitor - the gimp window was pretty tiny. Is that an artifact of the flatpak, or something specific to the gimp software stack?
Please provide instructions on how to get consistent theming (e.g. font size, dark theme etc.) for all different types of flatpak GUI apps, when those are installed and run from within a KDE desktop.
I love flatpaks but I'm a bit confused when there's user and system installs. Sometimes I install both but normally try to install only user when possible. Also, the runtime programs like freedesktop not sure want needs to be installed.
I would love to use more flatpaks but I come across a problem for signing in to applications e.g. spotify that require a browser login won't launch the login page. Anyone know a solution?
Hi. Flatpaks does not come with Linux Mint Debian 5, 32 bit, I really like the gnome Text Editor with spell check and use it on Linux Mint 21. So How can I add flatpaks to Linux Mint 5, 32 Bit. It looks like the Ubuntu way will work but I got a bunch of work in this Netbook with a LMDE 5 dual boot Win XP, and need more conformation before I try. Thanks.
1 question I installed pop os and tried to install neovim via flatpak I couldn't run it from console normally I had to use 'flatpak run neovim' and it worked but it didn't read me configurations how to fix that
Oh, cool, thanks. That's a good one :) Question, concerning Balena Etcher: Is there a way to install Balena Etcher, so that it apears in the Pop!OS Application section? I can DL and run it, but I would like to have it show up in the Application section of Pop!OS. Any suggestions? tnx.
Good question - I stopped using Etcher after it got acquired but you should be able to use an existing application.lnk file as a template, copy it, and change the name and paths accordingly.
I know this video is 3 years old, but in the command line section of the video you mention if you install a flatpak via $user it's only for that user and #root is system wide. However on the flathub website it states that flatpak installs are system-wide by default. So I wonder did this functionality change possibly? if you know please reply thanks man. later.
Is there a tutorial on giving permissions to software that are installed through flatpak? I installed Zotero through snap and it didn't have access to some drives on the system. I'm wondering if it'll be same for applications that are installed through flatpak. If so, how do I do this?
Thanks, Jay, for a great video! It explains a lot of things. I have one problem with Flatpaks that require access to tools "external" for a flatpak container for their functioning. One example is VS Code. I use it together with VSC-Prolog that needs a Prolog installation like SWI-Prolog. When I try to load a Prolog file, it complains "The terminal process failed to launch: Path to shell executable "/usr/bin/swipl" does not exist.", although I have installed Prolog. The same problem occurs with Texmaker. When I installed it via Flatpak, it also installed TeX Live SDK extension, so I can compile most Latex files. But when I try to use the minted package for code highlighting that relies on the Pygments Python package, it complains that it cannot find pygmentize, although it is installed. It would be great if you could make a video tutorial on solving such problems. I am sure that I am not the only one having such issues.
Understatement of the year! Install (synaptic) ~10MB; FP install: OVER 300!!! [& STILL won't start correctly!] Make worse if you're using certain Nvidia drivers [Flatpak picks it's OWN drivers!]
I personally find that Fatpaks start faster than snaps, but some of that depends on how they’re implemented. They shouldn’t be faster one one distro than another, but there will almost certainly be speed differences due to the number of different moving parts from one distro to another.
Try the Settings app and go to the "about" menu, there they should show you have Gnome version 3.38.5. Are you sure you have Ubuntu and not Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Mate or another Ubuntu family member?
@The Handsome Life i don't have windows, but musescore is an appimage and has worked for years on various distros for me for years. U need merely mark the file x.
Sometimes appimage don't work with newer distro right out of the box. Try Viva Designer appimage in Arch or Fedora. There is a high chance it may not work first time. On the otherhand, flatpak comes with it's own runtime to make sure any app utilizing one particular runtime will always work as long as you have that runtime. Quite handy for running old apps or games that haven't been uploaded for a long time.
Cool. But there is one good reason @20:35 to refuse flatpak and wait for something better. Why tf did they use 'uninstall' instead of 'remove'? That's a huge red flag counting against the code hygiene of flatpak. Choice of verbs matters, even if only indicating a good sense of style.
I really like flatpaks and I really don't get the fuss about it. Yea, you can experience problems with its sandbox (maybe worth mentioning in your videos), but there is help...
Flatpak install package will work if you have sudo permission. It will be installed in /var. If you don't have sudo permission, use --user flag. Then it will install inside the home folder.
I use Ubuntu and use a mix of installation process, primary I use apt then Flatpak and occasionally Snap, I don't have any disappointment with Snap :-) and if no way with some package manager I install from source: configure/make/make install
There are 3 different types of universal packages. Those that work consistently , those that don't work consistently, and those that that do neither. Flatpak works consistently and is good for the soul.
@@mrsomebody8869 That is definietly very curious. It sounds like some issue with systemd on your system. Send a bug report to the flatpak engineers and they will look into it. You may also want to uninstall flatpak, reinstall it and make sure oy do a reboot. Once one flatpak installs, they all shoud.
Flatpak is the only Package format worth using. Snaps are hated and appimage is potentially insecure and not always up to date. The UBUNTU SOFTWARE app is hard coded not to show flatpak. The GNOME SOFTWARE app is hard coded to show snaps, flatpak, and any other format with a GNOME SOFTWARE plugin installed. Canonical is afraid.
Thanks Jay! I do use one flatpak but I did the manual way. I use a lot of appimage and I just create a desktop file for the menu. I use rofi and Dmenu so I useally don't bother with the menu... :-) Would me nice if Appimage would do the same thing... LOL Thanks for the video Jay! LLAP
Flatpak + Debian 11 Bullseye = Latest rock solid software distro.
A really unique operating system.
Fellow Bullseye user here, with Xfce on my desktop box and Openbox on my laptop to try to preserve as much battery life between charges as possible.
"flatpak install" *does* install packages system wide, even if you do not run the command with sudo privileges nor have to authenticate. You can add the "--user" option to install only for the current user. The system wide install will proceed only if the user belongs to the "sudo" group, though.
Finally. A simple explanation for beginners
I just installed DEBIAN 12 and all my software in FLATPAK... LOVE IT.
Thank you so much for your channel. I have been using Linux exclusively since the end the Summer of 2020. Still learning a lot. Started with Pop!_OS and of course it was a shift. But I stuck to it. I just moved to Florida and now I want to help people and especially kids learn Linux and get more involved in STEM. As well, I want to help re-purpose old cpmputers and donate them. There is so much that can be done and I wanted to thank you for inspiring me.
This was a great help for me. Thank you so much for taking the time to share. I did not use flatpak because I did not know how on Debian, now I do.
Now I think I should use flatpack
Completely agree with your points on package managers.
Hey Jay, you just deserve a big party.
You just helped me learn so much, which I didn't know this far.
Thank you.
I wish they would all think of some set of phrases for search, install, remove, update... I simply can't remember the phrases for apt, pacman, flatpak, snap
That's a hell of a nice camera you're using bud. 1080p on an oled realme phone looks like I'm in the room with you. Incredible!
debian + flatpack = winner formula 💯
MX Linux entered the chat.
Thank you for a very clear dissertation regarding Flatpaks. I upgraded to Ubuntu 23.10 and learned GSConnect may no longer be suported. The developers are focusing their efforts on Valent which works with KDE Connect on Android. This seems like a viable solution to replace GSConnect. As humans often times we do not like change until we experience the improvements. Thank you for your time.
Excellent tutorial, thanks!
You're very welcome!
Hi Jay, you asked about topic suggestions - since I always see your 'Mycroft' in the background (and occasionally taking a role in the videos themselves!), I assume this is something you are a fan of - I'd love to see a video looking at where this project currently is, and even if possible walking through an install on a desktop!
Thanks for the suggestion! This is coming, but is on hold for 1-2 months. The project will pick back up when the new Mycroft Mark 2 arrives at my door. I can’t wait!
What would be the difference between flatpak and a software provider offering a PPA to add? I did this for libreoffice to have a later build but I am curious the difference
1. First of all, flatpak will work across most of the distro(if not all). PPA is Ubuntu only.
2. PPA is not sanboxed. You can control the access in flatpak version.
3 If you install the flatpak as user, you can potentially use the same flatpak package in a different distro without reinstalling the flatpak package.
@@JahidulIslam Thanks
If you want to consume you storage, use flatpak!
PPA is geart, And if you want the latest version of any package use a Rolling distro (but not recommended for the stability reasons).
You can't install a specific version of a package with flatpak!
For me i use only the main package manager of my distro, and sometimes Appimage apps!
I love your video, I wish I could have watched it early on. I'm loving flatpak now to the point that I just recently uninstalled Firefox (snap) on my Ubuntu because it's sort of slow to open whenever I run it via command line (firefox -P). I usually use multiple profiles for Firefox to keep a lot of my workflow separate and Firefox on snap is quite a drag to open and close. I installed Firefox via flatpak and it's a lot responsive and better!
Thanks as always Jay!
I couldn't get this working tonight, but I did install a snap package version which was much more up to date then the original LibreOffice that came installed with Ubuntu 20.04.
Jay, I'm guessing you're using a 4k monitor - the gimp window was pretty tiny. Is that an artifact of the flatpak, or something specific to the gimp software stack?
Gimp is still using gtk2 in stable branch. That's why.
Please provide instructions on how to get consistent theming (e.g. font size, dark theme etc.) for all different types of flatpak GUI apps, when those are installed and run from within a KDE desktop.
I love flatpaks but I'm a bit confused when there's user and system installs. Sometimes I install both but normally try to install only user when possible. Also, the runtime programs like freedesktop not sure want needs to be installed.
--user flag installs inside the current user's home directory.
I would love to use more flatpaks but I come across a problem for signing in to applications e.g. spotify that require a browser login won't launch the login page. Anyone know a solution?
Hi. Flatpaks does not come with Linux Mint Debian 5, 32 bit, I really like the gnome Text Editor with spell check and use it on Linux Mint 21. So How can I add flatpaks to Linux Mint 5, 32 Bit. It looks like the Ubuntu way will work but I got a bunch of work in this Netbook with a LMDE 5 dual boot Win XP, and need more conformation before I try. Thanks.
1 question I installed pop os
and tried to install neovim via flatpak
I couldn't run it from console normally I had to use
'flatpak run neovim'
and it worked but it didn't read me configurations
how to fix that
What if you want to install the latest version of Node.js for example? It doesnt seem to be available in flathub.
Thankyou i see the point of flatpak now and you solve my problem with old version of freecad which i cannot get latest version
Oh, cool, thanks. That's a good one :)
Question, concerning Balena Etcher:
Is there a way to install Balena Etcher, so that it apears in the Pop!OS Application section? I can DL and run it, but I would like to have it show up in the Application section of Pop!OS.
Any suggestions?
tnx.
I added a system menu entry manually using MenuLibre, it worked just fine with the PopOS launcher.
Good question - I stopped using Etcher after it got acquired but you should be able to use an existing application.lnk file as a template, copy it, and change the name and paths accordingly.
@@lordkappa OK, thanks, I'l try that too.
Thanks Jay for the great video.
I know this video is 3 years old, but in the command line section of the video you mention if you install a flatpak via $user it's only for that user and #root is system wide. However on the flathub website it states that flatpak installs are system-wide by default. So I wonder did this functionality change possibly? if you know please reply thanks man. later.
Is there a tutorial on giving permissions to software that are installed through flatpak? I installed Zotero through snap and it didn't have access to some drives on the system. I'm wondering if it'll be same for applications that are installed through flatpak. If so, how do I do this?
When I try to install an app it just says remote ’flathub’ found in multiple installations and does not work
what applications menu do you use??
Thanks, Jay, for a great video! It explains a lot of things. I have one problem with Flatpaks that require access to tools "external" for a flatpak container for their functioning. One example is VS Code. I use it together with VSC-Prolog that needs a Prolog installation like SWI-Prolog. When I try to load a Prolog file, it complains "The terminal process failed to launch: Path to shell executable "/usr/bin/swipl" does not exist.", although I have installed Prolog. The same problem occurs with Texmaker. When I installed it via Flatpak, it also installed TeX Live SDK extension, so I can compile most Latex files. But when I try to use the minted package for code highlighting that relies on the Pygments Python package, it complains that it cannot find pygmentize, although it is installed. It would be great if you could make a video tutorial on solving such problems. I am sure that I am not the only one having such issues.
I would like to see how to make your own themes for linux. By the way great job .
Thank you.
Flatpak installation are too big in size, why?
Understatement of the year! Install (synaptic) ~10MB; FP install: OVER 300!!! [& STILL won't start correctly!] Make worse if you're using certain Nvidia drivers [Flatpak picks it's OWN drivers!]
What is faster? snaps or flatpaks? And Are there differences between the distros? p.a. is a flatpak faster on mint than on manjaro?
I personally find that Fatpaks start faster than snaps, but some of that depends on how they’re implemented. They shouldn’t be faster one one distro than another, but there will almost certainly be speed differences due to the number of different moving parts from one distro to another.
Great job! Did OBS while you were demoing the process.
I don't have Gnome software in my Ubuntu 21.04, only ubuntu software, why?
Try the Settings app and go to the "about" menu, there they should show you have Gnome version 3.38.5.
Are you sure you have Ubuntu and not Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Mate or another Ubuntu family member?
@@bertnijhof5413 yes 100%, also i have a clean installation of Ubuntu on my other PC and gnome software Is not there too
@@bertnijhof5413 but anyway I Just installed It via apt and It works
Actually Ubuntu software is a fork (which includes snap compatibility) of Gnome Software. Have both installed can cause conflicts.
I don’t think the two of them causing a conflict is true, Ubuntu Software is a plug-in to GNOME software, not a full-on replacement.
I think appimage is a lot simpler, but it didn't catch on like flatpak (& snap).
@The Handsome Life i don't have windows, but musescore is an appimage and has worked for years on various distros for me for years. U need merely mark the file x.
Sometimes appimage don't work with newer distro right out of the box. Try Viva Designer appimage in Arch or Fedora. There is a high chance it may not work first time. On the otherhand, flatpak comes with it's own runtime to make sure any app utilizing one particular runtime will always work as long as you have that runtime. Quite handy for running old apps or games that haven't been uploaded for a long time.
very sluggish when installing some apps. So far all of them are working.
Will try flatpak on older ver of ubuntu.
weird, I can't install off flathub at all, links do not install
can i do this on kali linux ?
As long as you have flatpak installed.
Cool. But there is one good reason @20:35 to refuse flatpak and wait for something better. Why tf did they use 'uninstall' instead of 'remove'? That's a huge red flag counting against the code hygiene of flatpak. Choice of verbs matters, even if only indicating a good sense of style.
who needs a tutorial for this ?
I really like flatpaks and I really don't get the fuss about it. Yea, you can experience problems with its sandbox (maybe worth mentioning in your videos), but there is help...
Taking Gimp as an example he had to download over a gigabyte. That is a lot to download for someone with a data cap or limited connectivity.
@@Your_Degenerate how common is this in the "western or eastern" world? There are many libs/deps doubled, a problem, but not a major one.
Installing flatpaks doesn't need root privilege...?
If you don’t use root or sudo, they’re installed in user mode.
Flatpak install package will work if you have sudo permission. It will be installed in /var. If you don't have sudo permission, use --user flag. Then it will install inside the home folder.
Thanks a lot.
I use Ubuntu and use a mix of installation process, primary I use apt then Flatpak and occasionally Snap, I don't have any disappointment with Snap :-) and if no way with some package manager I install from source: configure/make/make install
There are 3 different types of universal packages. Those that work consistently , those that don't work consistently, and those that that do neither. Flatpak works consistently and is good for the soul.
Speak for yourself. FP installed "fine" but anything I try to install WITH it, doesn't work!
@@mrsomebody8869 That is definietly very curious. It sounds like some issue with systemd on your system. Send a bug report to the flatpak engineers and they will look into it. You may also want to uninstall flatpak, reinstall it and make sure oy do a reboot. Once one flatpak installs, they all shoud.
TLDR?
Flatpak is the only Package format worth using. Snaps are hated and appimage is potentially insecure and not always up to date. The UBUNTU SOFTWARE app is hard coded not to show flatpak. The GNOME SOFTWARE app is hard coded to show snaps, flatpak, and any other format with a GNOME SOFTWARE plugin installed. Canonical is afraid.
Not sure you wanted to uninstall the gnome.Platform flatpaks.
Thanks Jay! I do use one flatpak but I did the manual way. I use a lot of appimage and I just create a desktop file for the menu. I use rofi and Dmenu so I useally don't bother with the menu... :-)
Would me nice if Appimage would do the same thing... LOL
Thanks for the video Jay!
LLAP
I only use flatpaks on my Linux systems.
Nice 👍
gnome + snap...
A bad combination...
xfce + flatpak...
A good combination...
flatpak install flatpak
>open video
>"flatpak"
>dislike
>leave
“Flatpak” is in the title, so you didn’t even have to click on it if you don’t like that technology.
This comment is neither clever or helpful. Better to give specific reasons why you dislike flatpak, or maybe not comment at all.