Flatpak & Sandboxed Apps

Flatpak runs applications in sandboxes with bundled runtimes — newer app versions than your distro might ship, isolated from system changes.

One-time setup

sudo pacman -S flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Log out/in once so Cinnamon picks up .desktop entries.

Everyday commands

flatpak search spotify
flatpak install flathub com.spotify.Client
flatpak update
flatpak list
flatpak uninstall com.spotify.Client
flatpak uninstall --unused          # reclaim orphaned runtimes

Cinnamon’s app menu shows installed Flatpaks like any other app.

Permissions

Sandboxes deny by default. Grant selectively per-app:

flatpak override --user --filesystem=~/Documents com.example.App

or review visually if you install Flatseal (flatpak install flathub com.github.tchx84.Flatseal).

When to choose Flatpak

  • App needs a newer runtime/library than repo-main provides.

  • You want isolation (untrusted-ish software, testing).

  • Same app across multiple machines/distros.

When NOT to: CLI daemons, deep system integration (themes sometimes need tweaks), or anything available natively — those belong in pacman/AUR land (see Installing Software).

Disk note: runtimes cost GBs; trim with --unused regularly per Freeing Disk Space.