After two and a half years of development published a new stable branch of tools Flatpak 1.16, providing a system for assembling self-sufficient bags that are not tied to specific distributions of Linux and performed in a special container that isolates the application from the rest of the system. Support for Flatpak packages is provided for Fedora, Centos, Debian, Arch Linux, Gentoo, Linux Mint, Alt Linux, and Ubuntu. Flatpak packages are included in the Fedora repository and are supported in standard apps management programs GNOME and KDE.
Key innovations in the Flatpak 1.16 branch:
- The transition to the use of the Meson assembly system has been made. Autotools tool support is stopped. Flatpak assembly is now required in Python 3.5+.
- Created joint access to the GSSPROXY socket, allowing authentication via Kerberos in applications launched in Sandbox isolation mode.
- When creating a socket for Wayland, the extension secret-Context is used, allowing the composite server to identify and limit applications launched in Sandbox isolation mode. Added the option “–socket=Inherit-Wayland-Socket”.
- After installing or updating the applications, an automatic reboot of the D-Bus session tire configuration was provided to pick up new D-Bus services exported by applications.
- Distributions can determine repositories with Flatpak packages using the catalog “/usr/share/flatpak/remotes.d”, in addition to “/etc/flatpak/remotes.d”.
- Work was done to divide large files with the source code into small modules.
- Added option “-device=Input” to access devices for input through /DEV/Input.
- A new BubbleWrap tool branch 0.11 is involved for isolating the applications. Distributions using the BWRAP system to collect Flatpak require at least BubbleWrap 0.11. Protection against the creation of user identifiers (user Namespace)
/Reports, release notes, official announcements.