Flatpak, the widely-used Linux application sandboxing and distribution framework, has released its latest version, 1.16. This major update, which comes two and a half years after version 1.14, introduces several new features and improvements aimed at enhancing the user experience for developers and end-users alike.
One of the most significant changes is the ability to compile Flatpak using Meson instead of the older Autotools system. In addition to this change, version 1.16 adds USB device listing, support for KDE search completion, and an enhancement that allows the creation of a private Wayland socket via the “security context” extension. This enables compositors to identify connections from sandboxed applications as belonging to the sandboxes.
Flatpak 1.16 also permits the modify_ldt system call with the --allow=multiarch option, which is necessary for running certain versions of Wine that utilize 16-bit executables. Moreover, it introduces an HTTP backend variable in flatpak.pc to assist projects like GNOME Software in determining their compatibility with the libflatpak library.
The update comes with several other improvements, including a new mechanism to clean up old temporary deploy directories and an option to access evdev devices. It also allows terminal emulators to display the progress of Flatpak operations on their interfaces, further improving user interaction.
Another notable addition is the flatpak_transaction_add_rebase_and_uninstall() API, which simplifies the process of replacing end-of-life Flatpak applications with their intended replacements. The way sandboxed applications inherit environment variables has also changed, now taking them from the initial flatpak run command instead of flatpak-portal, fixing previous issues with environment variable behavior.
Moreover, Flatpak will now automatically remove obsolete driver versions and refresh the D-Bus session bus configuration post-installation or upgrade. Compatibility with Kerberos authentication has also been enhanced, eliminating the need for a sandbox hole.
Version 1.16 introduces new environment variables, such as FLATPAK_DATA_DIR for overriding the location of the configuration files and FLATPAK_DOWNLOAD_TMPDIR for specifying alternate download directories.
For application accessibility, Flatpak 1.16 enables applications like WebKit to connect to the AT-SPI accessibility tree in sub-sandboxes. Additionally, the command flatpak run -vv $app_id can now be used to display detailed sandboxing parameters and their sources for debugging.
Overall, Flatpak 1.16 is now available for download from the project’s GitHub page. Users are encouraged to update from their respective software repositories to benefit from this enhanced version.
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