Talk:Flatpak

To do

• How to add / delete a repo
• List of repos?
• Installing / updating / removing flatpak applications
• Building flatpak applications
• Briefly mention differences with pacman and pros/cons

As a beginner, my main question coming here was "how is this different from pacman", and I did not find an answer. Gloomy (talk) 17:10, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Why are we documenting basic usage such as listing repos when that is better handled by upstream documentation such as http://flatpak.org/index.html#users TingPing (talk) 17:34, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

+1 for @Gloomy "main question coming here—how is this different from pacman", the answer should be in the Intro indeed.

+1 for @TingPing comment, all "Managing repositories" commands are in Basic commands upstream.

Also, there is no need to "update" before "search" even for the first time: if local appstream data is older than 24h (86400 seconds), search will automatically update appstream. See e.g. output of flatpak search --verbose TEXT. So, the very first search (without update) waits for massive downloading, but it works (upstream mentions search before update in Basic commands, btw).

-- Andrei Korshikov (talk) 15:03, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Why is an arch-based runtime unsuitable?

This page says I shouldn't use an arch-based runtime to distribute apps with flatpak. I am interested in packaging some software which is best supported as AUR packages for use on other distos.

So why shouldn't I be using arch as a base? I am thinking to try it anyway and remove that warning if it works out. Akvadrako (talk)

Packages should use common runtime when possible. Then users will not need to download and install different runtimes again and again. So the warning should stay even when all is working well using arch runtime. --Fengchao (talk) 13:27, 7 January 2023 (UTC)