Building a flatpak that plays well with Bluefin and family

Bluefin
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Is the a doc or thread on how to build a flatpak package that plays nice with Bluefin and the other atomic desktops? for apps that use Electron embedded browser?

Context: TriliumNext Notes beta flatpak only works if --no-sandbox parameter is added to the command line, and also doesn’t have a launcher icon or be shown in the list of installed apps known to Software Center or Flatseal. What metadata info etc. is needed in the package to integrate properly?

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Flatpaks aren’t bluefin specific, I’m not sure why you’re getting these errors. I don’t understand where this line of thought comes from though?

no sandbox is the way this is done on for atomic desktops

2 Likes
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I don’t really understand what are you trying to do?

  • Are you trying to build = create flatpak package? If yes, then you need to create flatpak and test it on your PC and then build and publish it on Flathub.org. How to do this Flathub forum is correct forum.
  • You have already build-created flatpak application (or someone else did it) and you would like to formally install it on Blufin. You most probably can, but proper way is to publish flatpak on Flathub.org. If you do, then Blufin should not be any different then other Linux distro. Why? Because flatpaks run inside flatpak software and not directly on Blufin.

There are three “actors”:

  • upstream project e.g TriliumNext
  • flatpak build project —> If you need to build flatpak and you have an issue, you should ask on Flathub.org forum → They have proper knowledge about how to build flatpak apps and publish it on Flathub.org
  • target installed Linux OS e.g. Blufin → flatpak philosophy is flatpaks should not be Linux distribution specific → If flatpak runs on one Linux distribution and does not run on another, then the most probable cause is different version of flatpak software.

Schema:

  1. Linux distribution (e.g. Blufin, Fedora, Arch, Ubuntu…)
  2. Flatpak software must be installed on Linux distribution. On Blufin it is installed by default , you can check this: flatpak --version.
  3. Flatpak runtime e.g. Gnome-runtime, KDE-runtime, freedesktop-runtime etc.
  4. Actual individual flatpak application.

Individual flatpak does not run directly on Blufin, but it runs on top of flatpak-runtime and flatpak-runtime runs on flatpak-sortware and flatpak-software runs on Blufin.

I have been using flatpaks for years on different Linux distributions and the only issue I have had on different Linux distributions was related to theming: one Linux distro used little bit bigger fonts that most of Linux distros and so text was cut of at the edge. Changing theme solved the problem. I have had no other issues when using flatpaks that were Linux distro specific. I use tons of flatpaks on Blufin and have zero Blufin specific problem.

And the ‘–no-sandbox’ is something that should only be used on personal PC and is not allowed to be pushed to Flathub.org, because this is not a secure option. If flatpak works fine with “–no-sandbox”, but does not work without it, then there is a chance there is something wrong with permissions set in flatpak manifest file. Difficult to say, because you have provided very little info. But… like I have said, the best think is to search for help on Flathub’s forum, because they are flatpaks experts.

1 Like
4

Thanks a lot for the info. I’ll go through them and see what I can learn.

The flatpak for TriliumNext I downloaded doesn’t install completely/correctly for me on Bluefin but it works ok on Kubuntu for the person who built it. So I’m trying to find out what’s different and pass that upstream so the packaging can be adjusted as needed.

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Thanks for the info links!

Reading “[flatpak] does not allow Chromium, Chrome, or Firefox to properly sandbox websites. As a result, Flatpak versions of these browsers disable the sandbox feature” in the threads below, then trying --no-sandbox as a launch parameter and seeing that made the program work.

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It is difficult to tell what is wrong when no errors are available too see. To my knowledge and experience flatpak should run well on all supported Linux distributions. But… there may be some difference in flatpak software. For example on Blufin stable channel flatpak 1.16 is installed (this can be checked with flatpak --version command) and on
Ubuntu/Kubuntu 24.04 from official repository only flatpak 1.14.6 is available (but PPA can be added to upgrade). If there is some issue on flatpak software level, it can be, but I have never have had any problems running flatpaks on different Linux distributions.

My advice is, flatpak maintainer should apply to build flatpak on Flathub.org. During this process Flathub’s personnel will make sure that all or the requirements are met. Then users should install flatpak from official Flathub.org repository and chances that everything works on all officially supported flatpak Linux distributions is very high.

In my humble opinion, I would be pretty surprise this flatpak you are trying to install has something special on Blufin.

Yeh,… and also if you install flatpak from some non-official repository maybe flatpak is not properly sandboxed and on one Linux distribution may work that something does not work on another.

Proper way for sure is to go through Flathub revision, publishing and building. This may take some time, but Flathub personnel will give you advice and will not pass you through if issues are not fixed.

About your second post… about sandbox, this is nothing special in Blufin. Just ordinary flatpak stuff.