March 3, 2023

Ubuntu Flavors to Stop Supporting Flatpak: Here’s How to Enable It

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Canonical has announced that Ubuntu and its approved flavors will not ship with Flatpak support by default. You can still enable it manually, though.

Ubuntu’s parent company has issued a statement that Flatpak will not be present in future versions of Ubuntu flavors. But what is Flatpak, why would you want it, and how do you enable it on Ubuntu and its flavors?

Why Isn’t Flatpak Available on Ubuntu Flavors?

Different distros have different ways of deploying and managing packages. On Debian derivatives (including Ubuntu), the default is the Advanced Package Tool, while RHEL and similar distros use yum and rpm.

In addition to the standard package tools, some developers use sandboxed apps, which run in their own environments and come with all the dependencies and libraries needed to run the app on any Linux system.

Flatpak is one such utility that offers easy-to-use tools and extensive documentation, and it’s community-developed and supported.

Canonical’s utility, Snap, was developed in-house and offers similar functionality to Flatpak—although it only supports systems that use the systemd init system. Snap has attracted criticism due to its closed-source development model, slow app launch times, and automatic update system.

Distro developers have, until now, been able to include whichever package managers they choose, and while Ubuntu has eschewed Flatpak in favor of Snap, semi-official Ubuntu flavors, including Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and Budgie, have been moving towards embracing both Flatpak and Snap.

On February 21, 2023, Philipp Kewisch, Community Engineering Manager at Canonical announced on the Ubuntu Discourse Forum that the approved flavors would no longer come with Flatpak support by default.

Alluding to ‘fragmentation’, Kewisch continued:

Ubuntu and its flavors consider debs and snaps the default experience. Users have the freedom of choice to get their software from other sources, including Flatpak. A way to install these alternatives is, and will continue to be, available for installation from the Ubuntu archive with a simple command.

As part of our combined efforts, the Ubuntu flavors have made a joint decision to adjust some of the default packages on Ubuntu: Going forward, the Flatpak package as well as the packages to integrate Flatpak into the respective software center will no longer be installed by default in the next release due in April 2023, Lunar Lobster.

Although Kewisch’s statement refers to a ‘joint decision’, the change has taken many by surprise, with Xubuntu Technical Lead, Sean Davis showing off Flatpak on Xubuntu as recently as December 2023.

How to Enable Flatpak on Ubuntu and Its Approved Flavors

While Canonical is pulling support for Flatpak apps, this doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to install and enable Flatpak on Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and Budgie.

Open up a terminal by either choosing ‘Terminal’ from the system menu or pressing Ctrl + Alt + T.

Enter:

 sudo apt install flatpak gnome-software-plugin-flatpak gnome-software 

Now that Flatpak is installed, you can easily open the .flatpakref application and .flatpakrepo repository files. But to fully appreciate everything that Flatpak has to offer, you should also connect Flatpak to a Flatpak repository.

The biggest and most stable of these is Flathub, which boasts packages selected and added by the Flathub administrators and developers. Other Flatpak repositories are available.

To connect Flatpak to the Flathub repository so you can easily install Flatpak apps, enter:

 flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo 

Restart your machine for the changes to take effect. Now, you’ll be able to install software using Flatpak on Ubuntu and its flavors.

You Can Install Most Linux Apps With Flatpak

Whether you want to use Flatpaks for ideological or practical reasons, there are thousands of useful apps, games, and utilities available, and it’s entirely possible to install all the software you could ever need from Flatpak, without having to resort to the command line.

If you have a few hours to kill, why not get stuck into some great, free, Flatpak-packaged games?

Reference: https://www.makeuseof.com/ubuntu-flavours-stop-supporting-flatpak-how-to-enable/

Ref: makeuseof

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