Basic concepts#

Flatpak can be understood through a small number of key concepts. It is useful to be familiar with these before learning about how to use Flatpak from the command line, or using it to build applications.

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Runtimes#

Runtimes provide the basic dependencies that are used by applications. Each application must be built against a runtime, and this runtime must be installed on a host system in order for the application to run (Flatpak can automatically install the runtime required by an application). Multiple different runtimes can be installed at the same time, including different versions of the same runtime.

Runtimes are distribution agnostic and do not depend on particular distribution versions. This means that they provide a stable, cross-distribution base for applications, and allow applications to continue to work irrespective of operating system updates.

Bundled libraries#

If an application requires any dependencies that aren’t in its runtime, they can be bundled as part of the application. This gives application developers flexibility regarding the dependencies that they use, including using:

  • libraries that aren’t available in a runtime

  • different versions of libraries from the ones that are in a runtime

  • patched versions of libraries

Sandboxes#

With Flatpak, each application is built and run in an isolated environment, which is called the ‘sandbox’. Each sandbox contains an application and its runtime. By default, the application can only access the contents of its sandbox. Access to user files, network, graphics sockets, subsystems on the bus and devices have to be explicitly granted. Access to other things, such as other processes, is deliberately not possible.

By necessity, some resources that are inside the sandbox need to be exposed outside, to be used by the host system. These are known as ‘exports’, since they are files that are exported out of the sandbox, and include things like the application’s .desktop file and icon.

Portals#

Portals are a mechanism through which applications can interact with the host environment from within a sandbox. They give the ability to interact with data, files and services without the need to add sandbox permissions.

Examples of capabilities that can be accessed through portals include opening files through a file chooser dialog, or printing. Interface toolkits can implement transparent support for portals, so access to resources outside of the sandbox will work securely and out of the box.

More information about portals can be found in Sandbox Permissions.

Repositories#

Flatpak applications and runtimes are typically stored and published using repositories, which behave very similarly to Git repositories. A Flatpak repository can contain a single object or multiple objects, and each object is versioned, which allows upgrading and even downgrading.

Each system which is using Flatpak can be configured to access any number of remote repositories. Once a system has been configured to access a ‘remote’, the remote repository’s content can be inspected and searched, and it can be used as the source of applications and runtimes.

When an update is performed, new versions of installed applications and runtimes are downloaded from the relevant remotes. Like with Git, only the difference between versions is downloaded, which makes the process very efficient.