Monday, September 18, 2017

Flock 2017: How to make your application into a Flatpak?


"How to make your application into a Flatpak?" was on the first day and delivered by Owen Taylor.

Its around 1 and half year we are observing development of Flatpak's and i am sure this is going to be one of the breakthrough technology for distribution of packages in coming years.  I attended this topic to get more idea about what is happening? and What plan in coming future?

Session was very information and it was mostly from architectural overview of flatpak. 

I will update my blog with recording once it get available. Meanwhile in this blog i am going to cover only Q&A part from session.

Question: If i install normal rpm and flatpak for same application, how system will differentiate between it?
Answer: In command like, application id will be different for one from rpm and one from flatpak. Both will appear and one can choose.

Question: Flatpak is bundle of libraries. Now if Platform like Fedora provide one flatpak for application and same time upstream also provide flatpak. Will one get replaced with other?
Answer: We cant replace one with other.

Question: I created flatpak on F25 and failed in Wayland, some permission missing.
Answer: If it is build for X11, it should work on wayland as well.

Question: Can we test flatpak on F26?
Answer: flatpak.org are there, we can download and start testing. F26 is very much updated.

Question: Are we releasing any application as a flatpak only in Fedora in future?
Answer: Lets packager decide it, if its working well.  At least we are not doing this forfor F27, F28. Fedora 29 packages may able to do it.

Question: Whe we will have Firefox, Libreoffice as a flatpak?
Answer: Low hanging fruits first and gradually we can think or ask people for it. First lets get infra ready.

Question: Is any dependency on kernel?
Answer: Generally very minimal dependency on kernel, more for graphics driver. No, strong dependency between kernel and runtime.

Question: Can you consider flatpak with similar tech in android etc?
Answer: Idea of using specific file system is purely flatpak and docker/containers.   Flatpak has more secured communication model.


I hope, i able to catch all the Q&A correctly, if anyone has to update anything about this feel free to send me email or just update in comment section.

No comments: