14 DAY TRIAL // Flatpak, the open-source Linux application sandboxing and distribution framework formerly XDG-App, received a new major update that brings lots of new options and commands, as well as various other improvements.
Flatpak 0.11.8 is now the most advanced version of the universal binary format used to make the distribution of Linux apps a breeze across multiple Linux-based operating systems. It adds a new "--allow=bluetooth" permission to allow the use of AF_BLUETOOTH sockets and tab-completion for the zsh (Z shell) UNIX shell.
It also introduces a new and handy "flatpak repair" command that allows users to check and repair Flatpak installations and introduces new "-all" and "--unused" arguments to the "flatpak uninstall" command, allowing users to remove everything along with the remaining runtimes.
Also new in Flatpak 0.11.8 release are the "--show-location," "--show-runtime," and "--show-sdk" options to the "flatpak info" command, as well as the "--show-runtime" and "--show-sdk" options to the "flatpak remote-info" command. Additionally, the framework now sends a new "Flatpak-Upgrade-From" HTTP header during upgrades.
P2P operations now work offline, faster installations and updates
Among other noteworthy changes implemented in Flatpak 0.11.8, we can mention that P2P operations now work offline, Flatpak now makes use of p11-kit-server, if it's installed on the host OS, to forward the host certificate trust store to the sandboxed application, and defaults new Flatpak installations to bare-user-only repos for compatibility with file systems that do not support xattrs.
To make it easier for application developers to implement installation and updates in frontends, Flatpak 0.11.8 introduces a new transaction API in the libflatpak library. This release also adds an extra layer of optimizations to Flatpak installations and updates, especially for pruning and triggering operations, making them a lot faster than in previous releases of the sandboxing framework.
Last but not least, the "flatpak uninstall" command has been updated to no longer allow users to remove a runtime if it's required by an installed application, adds a workaround for a hang that might occur on some hosts during app startup, and makes the "flatpak info," "flatpak list," "flatpak search," and "flatpak remotes" commands work correctly on hosts that don't include /var/lib/flatpak.
Flatpak 0.11.8 requires bubblewrap version 0.2.1 for system-bwrap, and respects multiple extension versions match during automatic downloading of extensions. Watch out the software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distribution for this release in the coming days and update as soon as it's available for installation. Alternatively, you can download the sources and compile it yourself.