Install and Use Flatpak on AlmaLinux 8

This tutorial intends to teach you to Install and Use Flatpak Package Manager on AlmaLinux 8.

Flatpak is a software deployment and package management utility that offers a sandbox environment that allows users to run applications in isolation from the rest of the system.

Advantages of Flatpak:

Flatpak offers many advantages as a package manager:

Flatpak apps can be installed on any Linux distribution that supports Flatpak
We can add repositories to find and download apps; therefore, it supports the decentralized distribution of apps
Flatpak keeps apps isolated from the rest of the system; therefore, it is more secure
Flatpak apps are forward compatible; that is to say, the same Flatpak app can run on the subsequent releases of a Linux distro without any updates required
We don’t need to worry about dependencies/libraries that the program requires to run when working with Flatpak

what you read in this post?

Steps To Install and Use Flatpak on AlmaLinux 8

Steps To Install and Use Flatpak on AlmaLinux 8

To complete this guide, log in to your server as a non-root user with sudo privileges. To do this, you can follow our guide on Initial Server Setup with AlmaLinux 8.

Installation Steps of Flatpak on AlmaLinux 8

First, you need to update your local package index with the command below:

sudo dnf update -y

The Flatpak package is available on the default AlmaLinux repository. To install it, simply run the following command:

sudo dnf install flatpak -y

Verify your Flatpak installation by checking its version:

flatpak --version

Output
Flatpak 1.10.7

How To Use Flatpak Package Manager

At this point, we want to show you how to use your Flatpak package manager.

Enable Flathub on AlmaLinux 8

Now you need to enable the Flathub before using the Flatpak. FlatHub is an efficient and popular platform used for searching applications.

To do this you can use the following command:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Search Apps with Flatpak

To search for a specific app, you can use the following syntax:

flatpak search <Application_name>

For example, search for OpenJDK:

flatpak search openjdk

Output
Name      Description               Application ID        Version Branch Remotes
OpenJdk … OpenJdk 8 Sdk extension   …k.Extension.openjdk8         22.08  flathub
OpenJdk … OpenJdk 8 Sdk extension   …k.Extension.openjdk8         21.08  flathub
OpenJdk … OpenJdk 8 Sdk extension   …k.Extension.openjdk8         20.08  flathub
OpenJDK … The LTS (long term suppo… ….Extension.openjdk17         22.08  flathub
OpenJDK … The LTS (long term suppo… ….Extension.openjdk17         21.08  flathub
OpenJDK … The LTS (long term suppo… ….Extension.openjdk17         20.08  flathub
OpenJDK … The LTS (long term suppo… ….Extension.openjdk11         22.08  flathub
OpenJDK … The LTS (long term suppo… ….Extension.openjdk11         21.08  flathub
OpenJDK … The LTS (long term suppo… ….Extension.openjdk11         20.08  flathub
OpenJDK … The LTS (long term suppo… ….Extension.openjdk11         19.08  flathub
OpenJDK … The LTS (long term suppo… ….Extension.openjdk11         18.08  flathub
OpenJDK … The latest version of th… …dk.Extension.openjdk         21.08  flathub
OpenJDK … The latest version of th… …dk.Extension.openjdk         20.08  flathub
OpenJDK … The latest version of th… …dk.Extension.openjdk         19.08  flathub
OpenJDK … The latest version of th… …dk.Extension.openjdk         18.08  flathub

Install an App with Flatpak

When the desired application is searched, you can install it on AlmaLinux 8, using Flatpak.

flatpak install <Application_name>

For example:

flatpak install openjdk

This will ask you which version you want to install.

Looking for matches…
Found similar ref(s) for ‘openjdk’ in remote ‘flathub’ (system).
Use this remote? [Y/n]: y
Similar refs found for ‘openjdk’ in remote ‘flathub’ (system):

   1) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk8/x86_64/21.08
   2) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk10/x86_64/18.08
   3) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk/x86_64/18.08
   4) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk17/x86_64/20.08
   5) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk8/x86_64/22.08
   6) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk11/x86_64/18.08
   7) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk/x86_64/19.08
   8) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk17/x86_64/21.08
   9) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk11/x86_64/19.08
  10) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk/x86_64/20.08
  11) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk17/x86_64/22.08
  12) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk11/x86_64/20.08
  13) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk/x86_64/21.08
  14) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk8/x86_64/18.08
  15) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk11/x86_64/21.08
  16) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk9/x86_64/18.08
  17) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk8/x86_64/19.08
  18) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk11/x86_64/22.08
  19) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk10/x86_64/1.6
  20) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk8/x86_64/1.6
  21) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk9/x86_64/1.6
  22) runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk8/x86_64/20.08

Which do you want to use (0 to abort)? [0-22]: 1

When your installation is completed, you will get the following output:

Output
        ID                                      Branch Op Remote  Download
 1. [✓] org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk17 22.08  i  flathub 522.4 MB / 495.0 MB

Installing… ████████████████████ 100%  27.5 MB/s  00:00

Uninstall Apps with Flatpak

To uninstall an App with Flatpak, you can use the following syntax:

flatpak uninstall APP-ID

For example:

flatpak uninstall runtime/org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk17

Output
        ID                                              Branch        Op
 1.     org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk17         22.08         r

Proceed with these changes to the system installation? [Y/n]: y

For more information, you can visit the Flatpak Docs page.