[Dev] GNOME Software, archlinux-appstream-data, and Flatpak

Christopher Davis brainblasted at disroot.org
Thu May 31 19:10:45 GMT 2018


https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/basic-concepts.html#sandboxes and 
https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/sandbox-permissions-reference.html 
are two references regarding Flatpak's sandboxing.

> So you're saying that if a flatpak pulls in ICU V+1 verses what is 
> currently in
> parabola That will not cause pacman installed applications that 
> require ICU
> v-parabola-current to cack and die because of a dependency mismatch. 
> If so
> Cool, How? Are flatpak applications launched in some way where their 
> $PATH is different  from the systems.

Yes. The flatpak ICU will not interfere with system apps that require 
ICU. So an ICU update within the flatpak env will not cause issues with 
non-flatpak applications. I am not sure about the technical details 
regarding how flatpak manages $PATH as a consumer of flatpak, so I will 
try to get some information out of their IRC channel.

> I.E. when a less experienced user shows up on IRC complaining that 
> Xyz doesn't work will it be easy to tell if it is flatpak Xyz or 
> pacman Xyz?

GNOME Software does tell users where software is installed from. If the 
application is installed using the Flatpak CLI, the user probably knows 
that they installed it from Flatpak.

> if someone installs pacman "thing" and then installs flatpak "thing" 
> how does the system know which to run or does one overwrite the 
> other. Etc.

The flatpak will not overwrite anything. I can install Nautilus and 
Nautilus (Dev), have .desktop files for both, and the .desktop files 
will correctly correspond to the right install. Flatpaks aren't run 
with commands like system apps. Instead of running `$ foo`, it would be 
`$ flatpak run tld.domain.foo`.

I will get more technical information to present regarding how 
sandboxing works.
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