flatpaks: How to use them in Xenial/BionicPups & Slacko 700

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mikeslr
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flatpaks: How to use them in Xenial/BionicPups & Slacko 700

#1 Post by mikeslr »

Hi flash or whoever,

Please don't hesitate to move this post to whichever Section you think more appropriate.

Edit: Maybe we shouldn't use them at all. See this post: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 43#1007043

With respect to individual applications packaged as flatpaks it is probably more useful to discuss them on Sections or on Threads dealing with the application: for example, the gimp-flatpak in the gimp thread or graphics section. But there should be someplace to discuss the device/mechanism of flatpak, itself; its potential, peculiarities and problems.

A flatpak is a self-contained application which can be used without installing it into the operating system. So, although how they do it may be different, they serve the same purpose as SFSes under Puppies and Squashfses under 'DebianDogs'. That is they consist of entire files systems of the components parts required by an application. Hence, my having posted here.

It took the rest of the Linux World a half-dozen years or so to catch on to the value of using the equivalent of Puppies' SFSes. As far as I can tell, OSes before Slackware 14.2 and Ubuntu Xenial Xerus did not support them. So, it would probably be a PITA to make them functional for Puppies prior to Xenialpup or Slacko 700. But, that's a guess.

The following thread reveals how rockedge obtained a functional gimp-flatpak on the Bionic Pup 18.05. http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 082#990082

mikesLr
Last edited by mikeslr on Thu 11 Oct 2018, 01:26, edited 1 time in total.

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Mike Walsh
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#2 Post by Mike Walsh »

mikeslr wrote:It took the rest of the Linux World a half-dozen years or so to catch on to the value of using the equivalent of Puppies' SFSes. As far as I can tell, OSes before Slackware 14.2 and Ubuntu Xenial Xerus did not support them. So, it would probably be a PITA to make them functional for Puppies prior to Xenialpup or Slacko 700. But, that's a guess.
Y'know, reading rockedge's post (and your reply) earlier on got me thinking... How about getting FlatPaks working in Slacko 570? (And then almost immediately dismissed that idea through realising that, as you say, it's only newer OSes that have really been put together in such a way as to be able to support them.)

It would be a logistical nightmare trying to get them working in 570. Just out of curiosity, I tracked down the necessary dependencies for Slackware 14.2 (the current version) - only to discover that even there, at least two of the dependencies themselves had dependencies that were not available in the Slackware repositories... So what hope for 14.0? Nah; forget it.

(I only briefly considered it because of the sheer number of new, interesting-looking apps that are increasingly being packaged solely in the FlatPak format.....and nothing else.)

Still; we have SFSes. We have AppImages. There's a fair number of Linux applications that come, ready to run, packaged as a single binary. (VideoView, passed to me by watchdog, springs to mind here. It'll literally run anywhere.)

Older Pups are not too badly served, TBH. And SFSes do at least have the merit of being downright easy to build.....once you've assembled the relevant bits & pieces.

----------------------------

Correct me if I'm wrong.....but aren't FlatPaks sandboxed (i.e., isolated) as well as self-contained?


Mike. :wink:

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rockedge
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#3 Post by rockedge »

I downloaded Flatplak 0.11.4 -> http://ppa.launchpad.net/alexlarsson/fl ... c_i386.deb

then started flatpak in a terminal like ->

Code: Select all

~# flatpak --version
flatpak: error while loading shared libraries: libappstream-glib.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
~# flatpak --version
flatpak: error while loading shared libraries: libostree-1.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
~# flatpak --version
Flatpak 0.11.4
I added libappstream-glib and libostree-1 with an updated PPM.

an example is the next step for GIMP

Code: Select all

~# flatpak install https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.gimp.GIMP.flatpakref
Installing: org.gimp.GIMP/i386/stable
Required runtime for org.gimp.GIMP/i386/stable (org.gnome.Platform/i386/3.28) is not installed, searching...
Found in remote flathub, do you want to install it? [y/n]: y
Installing: org.gnome.Platform/i386/3.28 from flathub

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tallboy
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#4 Post by tallboy »

Hmm, RSH was very future-oriented with his LazyPups in different versions, using SFSs. There was also a Linux distro named Gobolinux, that basically used flat-paks, you could have several versions of programs installed with all the necessary dependencies for each version. They used a massive amount of internal links as a way of making things work. Or not work very well, as it turned out... :lol:
They are still active: https://www.gobolinux.org/
GoboLinux is an alternative Linux distribution which
redefines the entire filesystem hierarchy.
In GoboLinux you don't need a package database because
the filesystem is the database: each program resides in its own directory,
such as /Programs/Xorg-Lib/7.7 and /Programs/GCC/6.2.0. Like it? Learn more...
True freedom is a live Puppy on a multisession CD/DVD.

Sit Ubu Sit
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#5 Post by Sit Ubu Sit »

Hi, I am using this Puppy version:
DISTRO_NAME='xenialpup64'
#version number of this distribution:
DISTRO_VERSION=7.5

I went here:
http://ppa.launchpad.net/alexlarsson/fl ... f/flatpak/

I downloaded this:
libflatpak0_0.11.6-flatpak1~xenial_amd64.deb 2018-05-02 14:28 194K

I ran it and it said it installed successfully.
I go into terminal and type "flatpak" but it says "bash: flatpak: command not found"

I updated the repositories in the Puppy Package Manager.
I installed libappstream-glib8_0.5.13
I could not find libostree-1

I go into terminal and type "flatpak" but it still says "bash: flatpak: command not found"

Any suggestions?
Please be nice, I am new to Puppy and Linux :)

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tallboy
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#6 Post by tallboy »

Sit Ubu Sit, welcome to the forum and Puppyland. :D
The command 'which flatpack' in a terminal window should normally tell you where it is.
May I suggest that you run Pfind, and see if you find 'flatpack' somewhere. Could it be in a directory which is not in the executable path? You'll see the PATH with the command 'echo $PATH' in a terminal window. (or the command 'set' if you want to see all settings...)
You may have to make a link from the 'flatpack' executable, to a directory in the path, for example to /root/my-applications/bin/, and check if it set to be executable there. Right-click the app in question, and choose 'Properties'.

BTW, you could also right-click the Deb package, and choose 'Open archive' in the meny. Among the files you'll get, there may be some Readme-file describing in detail how to make the flatpack executable.
True freedom is a live Puppy on a multisession CD/DVD.

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mikeslr
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#7 Post by mikeslr »

If flatpacks work like AppImages, you just browse to them and Left-Click them. They are not part of your system. In that case, the debs you install are for the purpose of having your operating system know what to do when you Click a flatpak.

I think similar to Windows portables where you just click the executable. If that's the case, to add them to your Menu (or create a launcher or otherwise provide a permanent link to your system) as Tallboy said, you have to have an executable somewhere "on the path". You can look at this post as an explanation of how to do that, albeit it was for a portable windows program: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 296#814296

The difference would be that the bash-script somewhere on the path [any "bin" or "sbin" folder] would read something like this:

exec /FULL-PATH-TO-FLATPAK/NAME-OF-FLATPAK "$@"

mikeslr

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mikeslr
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Maybe we shouldn't use them at all

#8 Post by mikeslr »

Hi All,

I've edited the first post to provide a warning that maybe we shouldn't use flatpaks at all. Follow the link from labbe5's post: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 43#1007043

s243a
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Re: Maybe we shouldn't use them at all

#9 Post by s243a »

mikeslr wrote:Hi All,

I've edited the first post to provide a warning that maybe we shouldn't use flatpaks at all. Follow the link from labbe5's post: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 43#1007043
What if we run them in one of BarryK's easy containers. As long as they aren't network applications we shouldn't have to worry as much about the libraries being up to date and using one of BarryK's easy containers will help mitigate any damage if things go bad. Given that they are bundled with all the dependencies they should be easy to run in a chroot environment and easier to isolate from the rest of the system.

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