Install Flatpak on Ubuntu Linux Systems. Flatpak (XDG-APP) is an universal Linux Packaging Format. Flatpak is the next-generation technology for building and installing desktop applications.
Flatpak allows the same app to be installed on different Linux distributions, including different versions. Flatpak has many features of the linux kernel (bind mounts, namespaces, seccomp, etc) to create the sandbox that Flatpak apps are running in. In technical terms, Flatpak is a application sandboxing and distribution framework for Linux Distros.
Access a wide variety of applications – The list of Flatpak applications is growing all the time and includes Spotify, Skype and Telegram.
Get new versions faster – New releases of applications appear sooner with Flatpak.
Safely update your apps without having to reboot – Unlike package managers, Flatpak can safely update applications on the fly.
Install different versions of the same application – Simultaneously install multiple versions of the same application.
Secure, sandboxed applications – Flatpak’s sandboxing technology prevents exploits and hinders malicious applications.
Install Flatpak On Ubuntu
Before you can install applications with Flatpak, you need to install Flatpak itself. Currently this has to be done using the command line. Flatpak is available for the most common Linux distributions. After installing it, it is necessary to log out and in again for Flatpak apps to appear in your desktop.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexlarsson/flatpak
sudo apt update
sudo apt install flatpak
After installing it, it is necessary to log out and in again for Flatpak apps to appear in your desktop.
Add repositories
Flatpak allows you to install software from remote repositories. For this example we’re going to use two repositories: one which contains GNOME apps, and one which contains the runtime that provides the dependencies they need.
wget https://sdk.gnome.org/keys/gnome-sdk.gpg
flatpak remote-add --gpg-import=gnome-sdk.gpg gnome https://sdk.gnome.org/repo/
flatpak remote-add --gpg-import=gnome-sdk.gpg gnome-apps https://sdk.gnome.org/repo-apps/
List Apps
Once repository is installed and added, run the following command to list the available apps:
flatpak remote-ls gnome-apps --app
You can also see the list of Flatpak applications at http://flatpak.org/apps.html