How to Install Flatpak Apps on Linux based Operating Systems

How to install Flatpak apps on your Linux based Operating system

What is Flatpak?

Flatpak is a software utility for software deployment and package management for Linux. It is advertised as offering a sandbox environment in which users can run application software in isolation from the rest of the system. Applications using Flatpak need permissions to have access to Bluetooth, sound (with PulseAudio), network, files, etc., permissions that are defined by the maintainer of the Flatpak and can be controlled (added or removed) by users on their system.

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

To Install Flatpak apps you need to install the Flatpak support first, while the most recent versions of the Linux distros come with pre-installed Flatpak support. Well, but to enable Flatpak on other Linux distributions, we just have to run a single command that will install Flatpak and autoconfigure with your Linux system.

The command for installing Flatpak on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

sudo yum install flatpak

The command for installing Flatpak on the older version of Ubuntu before 18.10

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexlarsson/flatpak

sudo apt update

sudo apt install flatpak

The command for installing Flatpak on Debian, Pop!_OS, Ubuntu and its derivatives

sudo apt install flatpak

The command for installing Flatpak on Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S flatpak

The command for installing Flatpak on OpenSUSE

sudo zypper install flatpak

The command for installing Flatpak on Solus

sudo eopkg install flatpak xdg-desktop-portal-gtk

Once you finish installing Flatpak, restart your system and we’re ready to hop on the next step of installing Flatpak applications.

• Install Flatpak Plugin: The graphical method is the easiest way to install Flaptak apps for all those who are afraid of the terminal. To use the default software center, you first need to enable Flatpak support.

• Install the Flatpak plugin by running the following command(GNOME desktop environment):

sudo apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak

• Install the Flatpak plugin by running the following command(For KDE desktop):

sudo apt install plasma-discover-backend-flatpak

• Now just search for the app in your default software center, and you’ll notice a label with a source pointing to Flathub repository.
• Click on “Install” and you can now have a Flatpak app installed on your system.

There is another way to install Flatpak apps which are done by using .flatpakref file.

• Go to the online Flathub app store and search the app you require.
• Click on “Install” and it’ll download torrent like Flatpak file .flatpakref which we’ll use in the next step to install the app.
• Now, run the following command to install the app using the .flatpakref file.

flatpak install –from /path/to/<app-id>.flatpakref

• After installing the app use the following command to open the app on your Linux distro

flatpak run <app-id>

If you find any difficulty installing Flatpak apps on your Linux System kindly mention it in the comment section below. For more news and tutorials subscribe to our newsletter from here