Flatpak

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Flatpak

Flatpak logo
Basic data

Publishing year August 2007
Current  version 1.8.1
( July 3, 2020 )
operating system Linux
programming language C.
category Virtualization
License LGPL
flatpak.org

Flatpak (previously also xdg-app) is a tool for software development , package management and for the virtualization of desktop applications on Linux systems. It provides a sandbox environment in which the user or developer can run applications isolated from the rest of the system.

history

The idea for using application containers in Gnome was first proposed in 2013 by Lennart Poettering , who published an article on it in 2014. Flatpak was developed as part of the freedesktop.org project (previously known as the X Desktop Group or XDG), and was called xdg-app. Flatpak is an alternative to the Snappy package manager developed by Canonical .

concept

Flatpaks Runtime provides the basis of an environment and its dependencies or libraries ( Glibc ) that are used by the desktop applications. If a desktop application needs dependencies that are not part of the runtime, then these can be included and used in the Flatpak package. You can e.g. B. Add libraries that are not part of the Linux distribution or runtime, add a different version than the one included in the Linux distribution or runtime, or add a patched version of the library.

Applications available

Since February 2017, some well-known programs have been available as Flatpak, such as B. Blender , GIMP , LibreOffice , Pitivi, KDE Plasma 5 , Linphone and Gnome . There are also some unofficial flatpaks such as B. Development versions of Firefox , Skype , Spotify and VS Code .

safety

Applications running on Flatpak require user permission to access files or access hardware.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ flatpak.org . (accessed on May 15, 2019).
  2. ↑ Release 1.8.1 . July 3, 2020 (accessed July 4, 2020).
  3. ↑ The FlatPak Open Source Project on Open Hub: Languages Page . In: Open Hub . (accessed on July 19, 2018).
  4. ↑ LGPL . freedesktop.org. Retrieved November 21, 2016.
  5. ↑ corbet: Poettering: Revisiting how we put together Linux systems . September 1, 2014.
  6. ^ Lennart Poettering: Revisiting How We Put Together Linux Systems . September 1, 2014.
  7. ↑ Flatpak - the future of application distribution . Retrieved December 16, 2016.
  8. ↑ Alexander Larsson: Renamed to flatpak in git . May 9, 2016. Retrieved June 1, 2016.
  9. ^ Nathan Willis: Working with xdg-app application bundles . In: LWN , August 12, 2015.