Flatpak Default Remote? Failover?

Ask Fedora
1

Is there a default “remote” (i.e., fedora, flathub, or some other library of flatpaks) that Fedora uses for installing flatpaks?

From what I’ve seen, Fedora comes with the fedora remote for flatpaks already set up. I’ve also set up the flathub remote with:

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

According to:

To use the fedora remote, I should install a flatpak with:

flatpak install fedora $APPLICATION

where $APPLICATION should looks like, for example:

com.valvesoftware.Steam

Or, most likely, just:

Steam

To install from the flathub remote, the command should be the same except fedora would be replaced with flathub:

https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/using-flatpak.html#install-applications

What happens if I don’t specify the remote? In which order does it search for the flatpak? If it doesn’t find the flatpak in the first remote, does it just move on to the next?

2

You can give this a try and see. There are quite a few applications present in both (e.g. org.inkscape.Inkscape). Flatpak will prompt which one to choose. Actually it also prompts when you forget to specify the remote, and it finds a matching app in one of the configured remotes.

It should be com.valvesoftware.Steam

3

Thank you. I’ll give Inkscape a try. So, it’s a flatpak to help choose flatpaks? A meta-flatpak?

4

Sorry, you misunderstood me.

I used inkscape as an example application that is present in both Fedora & Flathub flatpak repos. You can try installing it without the repo specified, and see the prompt for yourself rather than someone here trying to describe it to you.

# flatpak install org.inkscape.Inkscape

E.g., if you try this, you should get a prompt asking you to choose between the two repos.

PS: Inkscape is a really nice application for drawing vector graphics.

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5

It’ll show you the entries from both/all remotes and let you choose which one you wish to install.

6

Thanks, all. I tried the Inkscape flatpack that fatka suggested as a test of how it works and it did, indeed, prompt for me to choose:

flatpak install org.inkscape.Inkscape 
Looking for matches…
Remotes found with refs similar to ‘org.inkscape.Inkscape’:

1) ‘fedora’ (system)
2) ‘flathub’ (system)

Which do you want to use (0 to abort)? [0-2]:

Good stuff.

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