Custom installation path 2
It’s best (not mandatory) if the following conditions are adhered to …
- Its is best to have a separate partition on your internal hard disk (preferable) dedicated to installing flatpak applications.
- It is best to configure you linux OS to auto mount partition on boot …
- Its is best to let the partitions mount at their default locations … some OSes mount it in /media/user and some mount it in
/mnt - It is best to name/label the partition
The following commands are written assuming the default location being /media/user and partitions get auto mounted at this location. Make changes according to your own systems. I have a separate partition labelled it as flatpak (name of the partition not the folder).
sudo mkdir /media/Flatpak/flatpak
sudo mkdir /etc/flatpak
sudo mkdir /etc/flatpak/installations.d
sudo gedit /etc/flatpak/installations.d/extra.conf
Custom install location : myFlatpaks
Paste the following block in the extra.conf file and save it …
[Installation "myFlatpaks"]
Path=/media/Flatpak/flatpak/
DisplayName=myFlatpaks Installation
StorageType=harddisk
Add the flathub remote to this custom install location
flatpak --installation=myFlatpaks remote-add flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
Check the environment variable XDG_DATA_DIRS, if the custom path was added.
echo $XDG_DATA_DIRS
If not, add the path to XDG_DATA_DIRS. In your .profile file (${HOME}/.profile). This is the default situation on most Unix installations, and in particular on Debian.
If your login shell is bash and these following files exist, you can use .bash_profile (${HOME}/.bash_profile) or .bash_login instead.
# append XDG_DATA_DIRS so it includes custom path to flatpak if it exists
if [ -d "/media/Flatpak/flatpak/exports/share" ] ; then
XDG_DATA_DIRS="/media/Flatpak/flatpak/exports/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS"
fi
Advantages of using a Separate partition dedicated ONLY for flatpak applications
- In cases where the OS is reinstalled from scratch which involves formatting /root and /home partition. (Tested and Works)
- In cases where you are switching from one linux distro to another. (not yet tested as such a situation hasn’t been encountered by me).
Commands to manage applications at this custom install location
# Install
flatpak --installation=myFlatpaks install flathub org.application.name
# Uninstall
flatpak --installation=myFlatpaks uninstall org.application.name
# Update
flatpak --installation=myFlatpaks update org.application.name
# List
# to list all applications
flatpak list
# to list applications only from a specific installation location.
flatpak --installation=myFlatpaks list
# Run flatpak
run flathub org.application.name