flatpaks
Unofficial Flatpak builds that Flathub does not carry, published as one GPG-signed Flatpak remote:
https://francoism90.github.io/flatpaks/index.flatpakrepo
The two proprietary apps use an extra-data source: their .deb is downloaded from the vendor onto
your machine at install time, checksum-pinned in the manifest. No vendor binaries are hosted here.
This repo replaces the separate ai.claude.desktop, org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.podman and
com.visualstudio.code repos, which were built with Flatter.
Install
Runtimes come from Flathub, and flatpak only resolves them from remotes in the same installation
scope. Add both remotes with --user, or both system-wide (drop --user and use sudo), but do not
mix them, or you will get requires the runtime ... which was not found.
flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flatpaks https://francoism90.github.io/flatpaks/index.flatpakrepo
flatpak install flatpaks com.visualstudio.code
flatpak install flatpaks ai.claude.desktop
flatpak install flatpaks org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.podman
flatpak update keeps them current.
Coming from the old per-app repos
The old remotes were francoism90-vscode, francoism90-claude-desktop and francoism90-podman.
--force uninstalls what came from them but keeps your data in ~/.var/app:
for remote in francoism90-vscode francoism90-claude-desktop francoism90-podman; do
flatpak remote-delete --user --force "$remote"
done
Then install from flatpaks as above. Use the same scope you used originally (drop --user for a
system-wide install).
Build locally
bin/build com.visualstudio.code # build and install for the current user
bin/build org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.podman --no-install
bin/build builds into build/repo and then installs with the host's own flatpak, instead of
flatpak-builder --install. When flatpak-builder is the sandboxed org.flatpak.Builder, hardened
and atomic distros can fail its nested install with bwrap: No permissions to create a new namespace;
installing from a local repo with the host's flatpak avoids that.
Repository layout
src/<app-id>/<app-id>.yml|yaml manifest, plus everything it references
bin/build local build + install
bin/make-site.sh assembles the Pages site (used by CI)
bin/create-keys one-time GPG key generation
site/index.html landing page template
.github/workflows/flatpaks.yml build, sign, publish
.github/workflows/update-checker.yml opens PRs when a pinned source has a new release
How CI works
flatpaks.yml builds every app with the official
flatpak-builder action, all exporting into the
same OSTree repo. On main it then signs the repo summary, assembles the site with bin/make-site.sh
and deploys it to GitHub Pages. Pull requests build unsigned and deploy nothing.
update-checker.yml runs
flatpak-external-data-checker daily
against every manifest and opens a PR when a .deb or source tarball has a new release. Merging it
triggers a rebuild.
Setup (for a fork or a new copy)
- Generate a signing key with
bin/create-keys "Your Name" "[email protected]". Store the printed
values as the repo secrets GPG_PRIVATE_KEY and (only if the key has a passphrase)
GPG_PASSPHRASE, then delete private.key and flatpak-keyring/.
- Settings → Pages → Source: GitHub Actions.
- Settings → Actions → General → allow GitHub Actions to create and approve pull requests
(needed by the update checker).
Adding an app
- Add
src/<app-id>/<app-id>.yml (or .yaml) with everything the manifest references next to it.
- Add a build step for it in
flatpaks.yml, copying an existing one and keeping repo-dir: repo.
- Give its sources
x-checker-data so the update checker can track them.
- Optionally list it in
site/index.html.
License
MIT for the packaging metadata in this repository; see LICENSE. The apps themselves are
proprietary software of their vendors.
