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Flatpak

A sandboxed application distribution framework for Linux.

Flatpak is a Linux application packaging and distribution framework that ships applications with all their dependencies in sandboxed runtimes, isolated from the host system through namespaces, cgroups, seccomp, and bubblewrap. The same .flatpak/.flatpakref bundle runs on any distribution that has the flatpak userspace — Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, Arch, openSUSE, and others — without having to repackage for each one.

The Flathub repository is the de facto Flatpak app store and hosts thousands of applications, with many upstream developers publishing official Flatpak builds. Flatpak Portals provide a secure, dialog-mediated way for sandboxed apps to access files, the camera, the network, and other host resources.

Alexander Larsson started Flatpak (originally xdg-app) in 2014 under GNOME's umbrella. The format and Flathub have become the standard cross-distribution app-distribution mechanism on Linux, particularly for desktop applications, where competing with the APT/DNF/pacman fragmentation is otherwise difficult.

Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install flatpak
Fedora/RHEL:   already preinstalled on Workstation
Arch:          sudo pacman -S flatpak
Then add Flathub:
  flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo