Flatpak - a new linux cross-distro package manager

Flatpak (formerly xdg-app) is a software utility for software deployment, package management, and application virtualization for Linux desktop computers. It provides a sandbox environment in which users can run applications in isolation from the rest of the system. [* wikipedia]

This new package manager aims to provide a cross distro experience, a single package format will be all that’s needed to install apps on any Linux distributions. Flatpaks are also built with security in mind and are isolated from each other and from the host system (sandboxed).

Follow these instructions through the terminal emulator to learn a bit about flatpak. But before we get started, first of all this example has been done on Debian GNU / Linux 9.3 (stretch) x86_64 with zsh 5.3.1 as shell.

	# install flatpak
	$ sudo apt install flatpak
	# Add the Flathub repository
	$ sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
	# install flatpak's app:
	# look the list on: https://flathub.org/apps/#cli
	# in this example we try to install Audacity
	$ flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.audacityteam.Audacity.flatpakref
	# run app
	$ flatpak run org.audacityteam.Audacity
	# or via start menu
	# another usefull command
	# list of installed app
	$ flatpak list
	# update app
	$ flatpak update
	# uninstall app
	$ flatpak uninstall org.audacityteam.Audacity

view raw tutorial-flatpak.txt hosted with ❤ by GitHub

This technology is still new, so the amount of application is still not many, but there are some noteworthy applications in the flathub's repo:

1. Android Studio

$ flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/com.google.AndroidStudio.flatpakref

2. Blender

$ flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.blender.Blender.flatpakref

3. Gimp

$ flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.gimp.GIMP.flatpakref

4. Godot

$ flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.godotengine.Godot.flatpakref

5. Inkscape

$ flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.inkscape.Inkscape.flatpakref

6. Krita

$ flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.kde.krita.flatpakref

7. LibreOffice

$ flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.libreoffice.LibreOffice.flatpakref

8. VSCode

$ flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/com.visualstudio.code.flatpakref

9. VLC

$ flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.videolan.VLC.flatpakref

References:
1. flathub.org
2. flatpak.org
3. wikipedia.org
4. wiki.archlinux.org
5. www.marksei.com

Thank you for reading, your feedback is awaited.